Less affluent subscribers cause of DISH woes? Say it ain't so Chuckles!!!

[nycyanks07]

The less affluent customer comment is BS. IF Dish were the leader in HD they wouldn't be saying this crap. HD is the reason D* is kicking E* butt right now.

There are more poor people that have basic cable ( no digital box) than Satellite TV. How many of the 13.8 million Dish subcribers do you guys think are actually on welfare?? This article is a joke.

Sports packages(football), HD channels and good advertisement is the reason D* is killing E* right now. Let's see how things are in a couple yrs when HD programming is even between the 2 companies.

 

[lhfh]

I had cable,77 analog channels no DVR ,at $58.00 a mo. I now have Dish top 100 with locals and a 625 duel tuner DVR. I now pay $39.99 a month with the DVR Advantage package. I dont have HD and dont want it.

 

[Greg Bimson]

Look, no matter how you slice the data given, DirecTV has about 3 million more subscribers, and earn an average of $15-20 a month more per customer than Dish Network.

Dish Network is losing a churn battle with their own subscribers right now. This happened at DirecTV a couple of years ago. The reason Dish Network has had two of the lowest net subscriber quarter additions in the history of DBS is because more people are leaving than they are signing up. The question is how much of the churn is voluntary (those people choosing to leave) and involuntary (those people not paying their bills).

I hate to point this out, but...

I had cable,77 analog channels no DVR ,at $58.00 a mo. I now have Dish top 100 with locals and a 625 duel tuner DVR. I now pay $39.99 a month with the DVR Advantage package. I dont have HD and dont want it.

That is under the average revenue per subscriber that Dish Network has quarterly. I'm sure they'll be happy to take the money, but if the 4 million or so subscribers currently taking AT100 jumps to 5 million rather quickly, while DirecTV is averaging between $70 and $90 a month per subscriber, that is why Dish Network's subscribers are being called "less affluent".

Don't take it as a slight. Maybe Dish Network subscribers are "more thrifty".

 

[wh5916]

I had cable,77 analog channels no DVR ,at $58.00 a mo. I now have Dish top 100 with locals and a 625 duel tuner DVR. I now pay $39.99 a month with the DVR Advantage package. I dont have HD and dont want it.

Same here...it's just TV, it's background entertainment for me most of the time any longer.

 

[8bitbytes]

According to this Analyst Scorecard (Analyst Scorecard: Mitchell, Todd of Kaufman Bros. - Yahoo! Finance), Todd Mitchell from Kaufman Bros. who made the affluence comment, seems to have a thing for DirecTV.

 

[boston area dtv]

So its all you po' people that have dish?

That was said in jest.

If the article was true that E* markets itself for the less affluent then I would think that E* is about to get tons of new subscribers.

We are in a recession which noone will really admit too and it doesnt look like its going to get better any sooner.

Sooooo...if we extrapolate this to mean that D* is for the rich folks and E* is for the po'. And E*'s current customers, dont pay then they will be filled in with D*'s subs who are looking to save a buck in these trying financial times.

Where do D*'s new subs come from then?

We are all doomed!

Break out the OTA!

The guy who wrote this is musta bumped his head before writing this.

 

[Rey]

wha! who u talkin abut!

 

[IlliniChuck]

"Shares in the No. 2 satellite company, formerly known as EchoStar, have plummeted 36% since early November, closing Wednesday at $28.05."

Sure, and the split had nothing to do with it? Didn't 20% of stock go to SATS? So not really that drastic of a drop, especially with the way today's markets are going and AMC14 failing, I would say the stock is performing the same as the market, if not better.

I wouldn't reference any USA Today article anyway, they have no real business sense. They are only good for sports and travel. The rest is dumbed down filler.:tux:

 

[Hemi 6.1]

Dishnetwork has the most Programming ,for under $50 per month. Which draws in the cheaper crowd, not the poor crowd. But that fact that E* does' have Much better cheaper Top 100 with DVR and Locals is $39.99. Not a bad price! D* can't compete that low. Over $50 per month is another story!.Which is why I think D* has a higher percent of richer customers. Don't forget E* has a prepaid service ,For bad credit customers. D* doesn't. Face it you want decent programming with D* ,your going to spend atleast $60 per month with dvr. Thats not cheap!

 

[dlsnyder]

I live in a fairly low income area and I can tell you, in my neighborhood there are far more DirecTV dishes than Dish Network ones. And most homes have a dish... like 75 to 80% of them.

From my experience, low income families tend to be self installers. A great many of the dishes in my neighborhood are just screwed in to the roof near a window, with the coax going in to the window.

 

[Chris Walker]

What an absurd article. The services are priced almost identical. This might have been the case when Dish was first launched, but I don't see the differences anymore. Hardware wise especially, Dish has the nicer equipment these days.

 

[reallyniceguy]

Nah i think that if the stocks go lower, it will just let att buy it out at a cheaper price.

Everyone knows that the satt tv industry can bring a good stock price. its a buyers market.

 

[iwc5893]

Dishnetwork has the most Programming ,for under $50 per month. Which draws in the cheaper crowd, not the poor crowd. But that fact that E* does' have Much better cheaper Top 100 with DVR and Locals is $39.99. Not a bad price! D* can't compete that low. Over $50 per month is another story!.Which is why I think D* has a higher percent of richer customers. Don't forget E* has a prepaid service ,For bad credit customers. D* doesn't. Face it you want decent programming with D* ,your going to spend atleast $60 per month with dvr. Thats not cheap!

Good point, Hemi.

 

[Jerryinvirginia]

As memory serves me, isn't the actual price of the package offered by D* called Sunday Ticket being subsidized by all of D* customers? I recall a reason why E* didn't cowtail to the football elite and offer that package was because of that hidden charge. Why should a customer pay for someone elses programming? 'Course, I'm just a poor E* customer. What do I know?

 

[jrbdmb]

HD is the reason D* is kicking E* butt right now.

Except for those who spend there lives on here checking the uplink reports every 10 minutes to see if any new HD has been uplinked, how exactly is D* "kicking E*'s butt?" Subscriber growth is pretty similar for both, isn't it?

 

[jrbdmb]

When you consider all the hidden fees DISH has , they are NOT less expensive than DIRECTV. They keep adding more & more of these extra fees and they keep raising the cost of said fees every year. It is actually more economic to use Directv dvr plus pack ...

Please don't generalize. For my purposes (two older DVRs, AT250 or whatever they call it now, OOM RSN package) Dish saves me about $10 a month.

 

[8bitbytes]

The problem is the definition of "affluent".

The comparison being made is the folks who pay less than $50 versus those who pay more than $50. I don't think the level of affluence can be determined from that price break. I see lot's of Escalades and BMWs parked in less "affluent" neighborhoods. It depends on what you want to spend your money on.

I can tell you for a fact everyone in my office who makes seven figures a year has cable or FiOS because they DO NOT WANT a dish on their house. Now that's what i would call affluent.

 

[Hemi 6.1]

The problem is the definition of "affluent".

The comparison being made is the folks who pay less than $50 versus those who pay more than $50. I don't think the level of affluence can be determined from that price break. I see lot's of Escalades and BMWs parked in less "affluent" neighborhoods. It depends on what you want to spend your money on.

I can tell you for a fact everyone in my office who makes seven figures a year has cable or FiOS because they DO NOT WANT a dish on their house. Now that's what i would call affluent.

Your right but affordablity is the key. If my TV limit was $50 per month. I wouldn't have D*. If my TV limit is limit was $75 per month I would have D*.

 

[aramus8]

Except for those who spend there lives on here checking the uplink reports every 10 minutes to see if any new HD has been uplinked, how exactly is D* "kicking E*'s butt?" Subscriber growth is pretty similar for both, isn't it?

For the last quarter reported E* was off 76 percent from the previous year with only 85,000 new subs while D* added over a quarter of a million with about half subscribing to advanced services. The number of new D* subs getting the higher end gear was more than the total number of new E* subs and that comes despite D*'s higher start-up costs. That's pretty much getting their butt kicked and the bruises won't heal easily. Here is the link on E* results:
Advertisement

Not sure why the link shows advertisement as a title, but it is the correct story from Broadcasting and Cable.

Here is the link on D* results:
SignOnSanDiego.com > Entertainment > Television and Radio Guide -- DirecTV 4th-quarter earnings drop 2 percent on higher interest

The information has been there for some time, but unfortunately there are some E* subs in denial who don't want to believe the facts even when they come from responsible, reliable sources. I swear that if Charlie told some of his subs "let's go to Guyana and drink this", they would be right there with him.

 

[Jerryinvirginia]

I'm positive that"Rupert" has as much concern about saving his customers money as does "Charlie". Right?