Could plunging economy affect D* 's talks with HD providers?

[bookwalk]

Just a theory--but maybe some D* insider knows whether the new owners, Liberty Media bring a different load of financial baggage to D* 's bargaining table? I saw this same issue last year (as E* customer) when their ownership changed hands.

Is funneling new bandwidth to PPV a type of bail-out?

Instead of funneling added gains from new PPV and new subs to added HD programming--is it going into the corporate execs emergency fund for the coming hard times?

Where do we find D*'s financial statemrnent?

How tangled are they in Wall Street's falling web?

Are we hoping for HD we'll not see for a VERY long time, if ever?

[jpn]

Fair questions, but my thoughts are that the providers will be more likely to sign carriage deals during weak economy. I heard an interview this morning on XM Sports Nation.... the biggies are hurting for advertisement revenue. It's hitting the MLB playoffs now, as well as the Sunday NFL broadcasts. Interviewee also said that GM has not purchased a single slot for the Super Bowl, every other year they've spent millions.

If the big spenders aren't buying ads, it's also got to be hurting at the local level. The providers need revenue. If ad sales are suffering terribly, then they really need to increase their subscriber base.

As for D* and E* big expenditures.... the birds are already in the sky and the financing for them was arranged long ago. They should be safe as long as they don't suffer catastrophic loss of subscribers.

I don't see PPV-HD bandwidth as a bail-out. If you're an HD subscriber, you don't want to watch PPV in SD. The HD subscriber has the option of watching an upscaled-DVD. Plus, as the number of PPV-HD channels has increased , so have the number of HD local markets. One is not excluding the other (so far).