I agree with you motjes2 Cablevision is one of the worst companies in America. They are arrogant, rude, dishonest, and overpriced. The amount of money I have saved by going to DBS has afforded me to get new toys and get more programming. In fact Cablevision has the highest priced rates in the country and the lowest customer satisfaction according to JD Powers & Assoc. It mystifies me how Cablevision will succeed in their Voom venture because they have the mentality of a cable company going into it.
DBS will be the winner in the long run because it is just more efficient way to distribute video rather than stringing hybrid fiber coax lines on telephone poles and maintaining them. DBS will always be able to have lower costs than Cable and the vast majority of Americans are looking for value. The fact that you can get X amount of channels on cable ignores the cost element. Us early adopters are less prone to complain about price but as HDTV moves into the mainstream people will weigh cost vs. volume of available HD channels. They will decide if paying $20-$30 more than DBS is worth getting networks in HDTV. But with the slide in Network ratings to the Cable networks I don't see the network locals as being the compelling reason to stay with cable. I agree DBS has to figure out something to do about the HD locals. Perhaps putting HDlocals on the wing slots could alleviate some of the problems. At least they could put the major cities up like NY, LA etc to prevent an exodus to cable in the major markets. This would let people have a second dish only if they wanted to see that channel in HD.
DBS will be the winner in the long run because it is just more efficient way to distribute video rather than stringing hybrid fiber coax lines on telephone poles and maintaining them. DBS will always be able to have lower costs than Cable and the vast majority of Americans are looking for value. The fact that you can get X amount of channels on cable ignores the cost element. Us early adopters are less prone to complain about price but as HDTV moves into the mainstream people will weigh cost vs. volume of available HD channels. They will decide if paying $20-$30 more than DBS is worth getting networks in HDTV. But with the slide in Network ratings to the Cable networks I don't see the network locals as being the compelling reason to stay with cable. I agree DBS has to figure out something to do about the HD locals. Perhaps putting HDlocals on the wing slots could alleviate some of the problems. At least they could put the major cities up like NY, LA etc to prevent an exodus to cable in the major markets. This would let people have a second dish only if they wanted to see that channel in HD.