VOOM Goes BOOM - update Dish Drops all 15 VOOM Channels

[8bitbytes]

Aren't some of the FX series in HD?

Blind Justice
Breaking Bad
Brotherhood
Burn Notice
Dexter
E-Ring
JAG
Life
Nash Bridges
NCIS
Nip/Tuck
Sleeper Cell
Third Watch



Not Rescue Me, and not the next season either from what I read.

Oh, and not The Shield either.

[mike123abc]

I am still willing to believe there could be a new VOOM emerging from this. The court filings posted earlier pretty much said Dish could get out of the contract without an injunction since VOOM was unlikely to prevail at trial. If they come back though I suspect it will be just a few channels. They will probably be combinations of the other channels, to provide more content and less repeats. Dish would get a price reduction and not have the capacity issues.

As far as new channels springing up right away, I would not get my hopes up. Until Dish gets E6 over to 72.7 I doubt there will be more than 7 or so HD channels added, I suspect they will want to use the freed up VOOM capacity in spot beams. They are only using 1/2 the spot capacity right now.

[albie1200]

Boy how people flip flop. A year or two ago this site was all threads about how E* was kicking D* with the amount HD and that made E* the greatest thing ever. Now Charlie takes away some channels that probably had relatively few viewers for channels most people have heard of and you all are crying that the world is ending. Do you really think if most E* customers watched Voom he would have removed them? There is no way he did not think long and hard about this decision before acting. Personally I am fine with it, and there is no way I am going back to D*. Their box sucks, the customer service worse.

Oh yea, Charlie is a horrible businessman, but it's just fine to make someone purchase a box then make them pay a lease fee on it, on top of that it has to be reset every week or so. Oh I almost forgot about, no additional space from the EDD, and no way to record OTA in the box either.

Content: Those of you saying the new channels don't show true HD. What do you think when you move over to D* those same channels will suddenly have HD content? Many of these channels just turned on their HD feeds, what do you expect? And what about the the people using the NFL package as additional reasons to move? If you wanted to pay an extra ~$130 for 4 months of coverage when you can only watch 1 game at a time, why the freak are you still here anyway?

I'm kinda sorry if I offended anyone, but it drives me crazy when people go on and on about how great something is and then they turn tail at the slightest bad news especially when no one other than Charlie and a few others know the real story.

Think how foolish you would feel of you move over to D* and this turns out to be a negotiating ploy that Charlie has used in the past to save you money.

Above all remember the old saying: The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. There is a good chance that sometime after you move E* will do something that will make you rethink your decision.

[mlb]

You can probably say the same for more than 200+ channels listed in the guide that people pay for and probably hardly ever watch. It's called variety and choice. We all pay for channels we want and don't want. Not to change the subject but, if people had the option to choose what they wanted to watch instead of having to pay for and subsidize a huge amount of channels they probably never watch, this debate wouldn't exist. But that will probably never happen because the powerful program networks and lobbyists will not allow the "option" to let the consumer pick and pay for those channels they want to view. It's all or nothing.

And I would fully agree... about 3/4 of the channels would go out of business if we had a-la-carte.

[Roozilla]

Fine. You like redneck content, I like trashy, cheesy horror content. Agree to disagree, that's why they're called opinions.

WooHoo! Isn't that what it's all about, trashy, cheesy horror content! I would much rather watch that than "go straight, turn left, repeat".

[Don Landis]

I'll miss the extreme sports shows like PIG etc. There really is nothing on to replace that genre.
To a lessor extent I also enjoyed the art channel (can't recall the exact name) and the fashion channel, but only from a professional interest as it kept me up to date on shooting style and production scope of that part of my industry.

If you all recall, it was around the beginning of May 2 years ago when Dish picked up the VOOM channels when VOOM went dark as a 3rd service. I don't think iot is coincidental that a contract term expiration made this the time to drop them.

Voom will be missed but I understand the need for Dish Network to make changes to remain profitable. My partners and I made a similar decision to drop our programming we did on Tech TV a few years ago when our advertisers were not getting results. Some of those clients are still with us but on different venues.

I do wish to thank Dish Network for its continued efforts to expand the quality of their programming efforts through HDTV and offer a good balance of show variety. It is tough to please everyone and especially the ever selfish consumer market. I say kudos to both Dish Network and DirecTV for remaining fierce competitors and advancing the quality and variety of the programming you both bring us.

[nsps]

You can probably say the same for more than 200+ channels listed in the guide that people pay for and probably hardly ever watch. It's called variety and choice. We all pay for channels we want and don't want. Not to change the subject but, if people had the option to choose what they wanted to watch instead of having to pay for and subsidize a huge amount of channels they probably never watch, this debate wouldn't exist. But that will probably never happen because the powerful program networks and lobbyists will not allow the "option" to let the consumer pick and pay for those channels they want to view. It's all or nothing.

Exactly, I'd never even think to stop on Speed, but I would check the Voom channels every time I sat down. If I wasn't watching a movie, I'd often throw on something on Rave or Gallery or Equator just to see if it looked interesting. I don't expect everyone to be interested in the same channels—that's why there are so many of them—but I don't understand why anyone would argue that a channel they don't watch should be removed (especially when bandwidth clearly isn't the issue yet).

[Sean Mota]

People need to take it easy on both sides. Variety is a good thing and choices are better. Right now there are 15 choices that are not on Dish Network. Everybody has its own taste for programming. Some like sports (like the speed hd fans). I couldn't careless for any sports (except baseball). Not my cup of tea. I have never watched any series on USA, or SPIKE. I started watching MONK and Psych and both had very stupid plots that I could not sit through them. The only thing I watched on Scif-Fi is BSG and the SG series. The other stuff I do not come near it. I never watch ABC FAMily, TDisney, Disney, Cartoon Network, CNN, Fox, Foxnews, CNBC, or the like. To me they are just a waste of time. My main concentration is movies. I feel that I lost 3 good movie channels. Right now my main viewing is concetrated to the premium channels which only show new movies on Saturday or Sunday night and the rest of the weeks are repeats of movies. HDnet Movies is nice and show about 10-15 movies which are new but the rest are repeat. I do not mind the repeat because sometimes I can catch some that I missed. But the rest many times is dull. Now we have a new channel which I will watch MGM. It has potential but in terms of movies it will not replace the three that I lost filmfest, vmovies, and monsters. Each had its uniqueness.

I do not blame you if you want speed hd. I never approached a speed hd thread and said that it was a waste because I did not watch it. I see some people doing that. Whenever anynone opens a thread about YES HD always someone or many jump into the discussion of economics about it but this is to supposed about choice and variety. If that is not the case, then we should all go for a-la carte but that is just a dream. In the meantime, discussions about this is better because I watch it and this is not because I don't are just fruitless. Each person has its owns viewing habits.

[SmokeFan14]

WooHoo! Isn't that what it's all about, trashy, cheesy horror content! I would much rather watch that than "go straight, turn left, repeat".

That only happens at 4 or 5 tracks.. The rest are either circles or ovals. There are no straight lines in a circle or oval.

[nsps]

Also, it sounds like Spike does things right, picture-wise. I can't watch edited movies with commercials, though, but I'm glad to hear some channels actually show their reruns in HD, unlike most stuff on the turner channels and sci-fi.