December 18th Dish Retailer Chat Recap

[tigerfan33]

Every time Dish raises prices, I cut services to keep my pricing the same. Before long, I will still pay them $70 per month and just get my locals, which I can already get for free with my OTA. Guess what I will do then?

Only have 6 OTA hd channels??

[Frank Jr.]

Every time Dish raises prices, I cut services to keep my pricing the same. Before long, I will still pay them $70 per month and just get my locals, which I can already get for free with my OTA. Guess what I will do then?

Ditto Just like my last post!

[kb7oeb]

I hope you are right, but this is DISH, without warning they might just say,

"Hey your package is gone, now pay us $30 more dollars a month, we're switching you to TurboHD,.....but see, you also get your RSN!"

After the price hike I could see them automatically transferring all the absolute customers to bronze since they will be the same price.

[MikeD-C05]

The fcc chairman ,soon to be replaced next year, pushed for Ala-carte which led to the family packs we saw both providers start carrying a couple of years ago. I don't know what will happen to that one in the new administration.

I have decided to trade in all of my dvrs to dishdepot and get me ONE 722k and an extra set of remote controls. I also bought an Echostar dtvplus dvr -for ota only . I will use that one in the master bedroom for ota only. On the tv 2 extra tuner input on the 722k, I will use a feed from the living room tv and can watch what I want from my bedroom. I can split that feed two more times and my kid can watch in his room and I can watch in the computer room. This will allow me to cut off two dvr additional receiver fees and two extra dvr fees. I can save about $24.00 a month.

Too bad that DISH is forcing me to cut off the additional receivers but I just can't take the extra fees on top of the $8.00 increase for regular programming. I have already cut out excess programming . I used to have AEP and have had it since it started about 9 years ago ,when it was only 69.99. But I cut that down a couple of years ago to top 250 + starz/hbo +HD. When the hd went up so high dropped down to just the 10.00 hd addon. IT is sad that every year I have to bargain with myself what am I going to do away with, in order to KEEP DISH in my home. After this year there will be nothing left to cut down except my regular programming to just top 200 or less. I just think it is ridiculous to pay over a 100.00 a month for sat tv . Since hd was added in my house , the price just keeps going up. Where will it end?

[dmendenjr]

($29.99 - 35 intro price for 6-12 months, factor that in)
...
You only pay one of these. One is the HD rcvr, the other is the HD DVR.

The HD and DVR fees, the rate card I was reading for my area is very vague about DVR and HD, but for the benefit of the doubt, we will remove the 6.50 and it will still come to 82.45/month.
(edit just reread the comcast page

If you receive an HD/DVR converter from Comcast the monthly charge will be $20.45.

so it's $86.95 a month at the regular rate)

Locally the promo rates are for 6 months. But factoring that in is still a bit misleading; sure they look good on paper... but when they end - the rate bump clocks you harder than a mac truck to the blind spot of a pinto. However, if you really want to get into the down and dirty, this IS based on Dec 08 pricing for the big Con. Once March rolls around, we will see an increase - then another next November. With them it is like clockwork. -- but for the sake of argument, factor in the promo rate, only charge the DVR fee, not the extra 6.50 for the HD fee and assume that Homer's spider pig sprouts wings and flies through the frozen depths of hell (that is to say, comcast goes a year without raising prices)...

(edit - changed these to reflect the accurate HD-DVR rate)
Comcast 1st 6 months: 29.99+20.45= 50.44 X 6 months= 302.64
Comcast 2nd 6 months: 66.50+20.45= 86.95 X 6 months = 521.70

Comcast For the Year: 302.64 + 521.70 = 824.34
Dish: 44.99+10 = 54.95 X 12 months = 659.40

Dish comes out at $165 better for the year; roughly $13.75 a month.

[Jim S.]

Right now all I see is a big shell game to try to hide the price increases by renaming all the programming packs and receivers.

Dilbert comic strip for 10/30/1995 from the official Dilbert comic strips archive.

[grb]

Does Dish management not have a clue on how to save their company?

Subscribers have been leaving Dish in droves, the country is going into a severe recession, their satellite competition (Direct) is running a price freeze through 2009 promotion and Dish's response is substantial price increases!

Maybe they can get a government bailout. Management stupidity seems to be the main criteria for bailouts and Dish certainly qualifies...

[tigerfan33]

Does Dish management not have a clue on how to save their company?

Subscribers have been leaving Dish in droves, the country is going into a severe recession, their satellite competition (Direct) is running a price freeze through 2009 promotion and Dish's response is substantial price increases!

Maybe they can get a government bailout. Management stupidity seems to be the main criteria for bailouts and Dish certainly qualifies...

Don't give good ole Chuck any ideas. He will be standing in line for a hand out as many companys will be in the future.

Hell. Who can blame him. Until the government says no, the question is who will not be standing in line.

[Scott Greczkowski]

Subscribers have been leaving Dish in droves, the country is going into a severe recession, their satellite competition (Direct) is running a price freeze through 2009 promotion and Dish's response is substantial price increases!

Just to clarify the DirecTV price free to 2010 is only for new customers only. I am told that DirecTV will be announcing their new pricing shortly.

[kstuart]

Does Dish management not have a clue on how to save their company?

Subscribers have been leaving Dish in droves, the country is going into a severe recession, their satellite competition (Direct) is running a price freeze through 2009 promotion and Dish's response is substantial price increases!

Maybe they can get a government bailout. Management stupidity seems to be the main criteria for bailouts and Dish certainly qualifies...

Congratulations, you receive the SG "every sentence is false" award !