The problem you are missing with this argument , it isn't about why they are charging the fees that they are charging. The article that I read in this thread, was saying that content providers like TWC , and yes DISH too, are dropping channels that don't get good ratings in order to drop their costs. One company has decided to drop the Viacom channels because they are nothing but reruns and infomercials with some stupid reality tv thrown in here and there. They no longer serve the purpose they did when they were launched. So all cable providers and DISH have lost subs- DISH lost 79,000 subs last year alone. IF DISH is to survive in the long term , they need to drop the loser channels like The Weather channel, Ovation, and a whole lot more if you ask me, and they need to look at lowering their programming pack prices. With less channels that are no longer of value are dropped , then DISH should be able to lower the programming price. This to me is a small way around the force bundling we have today. Make sure you channel is useful and watched by subs , or we will drop you , lowering our cost and our subs costs to watch DISH.
The other thing I suggested was to look at re-aligning their various DISH fees and consolidating and reducing them to make their company attractive to potential subs and to keep existing subs as well. Charging $17.00 for a second 722k is stupid. So is charging $12.00 for a second hopper and even for a dvr fee. It is pushing people away. Go back to a clean, easy to understand fee for additional receivers -no matter what class there is. One DVR fee per account and lower it back down to $5.00 -no matter what kind of receiver. Stop hiding the cost of the dvr fee PER dvr receiver, by combining it in the additional receiver costs , like they have done since 2010 and charge just $5.00 per additional receiver. Easy fees that are uniform across the entire company regardless of receiver ,would mean more subs would upgrade to the cutting edge tech receivers and dropping older receivers, that should of been gone years ago. This would mean DISH could stop supporting all those older receivers and could work on making the few that they keep the best they could ,lowering cost for DISH. Remember Charlie the K.I. S.S. method: Keep it simple stupid.
Obviously DISH has a problem attracting new subs and retaining existing ones. Charlie better look at changing the status quo and come up with a way to beat the competition. The days of the existing satellite/cable structure or numbered. I said in less than 5 years it will not exist like it is today. You can get ahead of this change now Charlie ,or you can be left behind and watch your numbers continue to dwindle, like Cable has been seeing since Satellite first came out. The very definition of insanity- is to do the same thing, the same way and expecting a different outcome. This is the time to make a serious change in the way they run DISH -especially with Joe Clayton leaving and Charlie taking back the CEO title.