The OFFICIAL DISH / HBO Thread

I will not sub to HBO via any other means. AT&T doesn't deserve to get my money what with their outrageous demands vis-a-vie Dish. I had HBO/Cinemax for roughly 20 years before it went dark on Dish. I will live without until it returns, unless they charge $20/month for it (that's absurd). Life goes on. I still have plenty of commercial free movie channels available to me, and I do buy movies on BD when they're ones I really want to see/add to my library... The loss of HBO/Cinemax is inconvenient, but I'll definitely survive it...
 
I have a theory with zero proof. :biggrin
DISH has decided there is virtually no chance HBO will be back. Starz became a little more valuable to have and in this case whatever Starz wanted DISH decided to agree to, or something closer to what Starz wanted. Thus they are back.

As I posted the premium movie selection looks good even without HBO with Starz rounding it out. It could be a bigger deal if not that HBO is so readily available even with having no provider or whoever your provider is. If At&t wants to kill off HBO, Directv or whatever they will do it without money infusion from DISH apparently.
 
unless they charge $20/month for it (that's absurd)

That would be absurd. But if AT&T got what they wanted, we would have a 15/mo charge back on our bill and to make up the difference, monthly base rates for everyone would go up.

I'm glad someone is stopping that which is truly absurd.

Sent from my SM-G965U1 using Tapatalk
 
  • Like
Reactions: long_time_DNC
I have a theory with zero proof. :biggrin
DISH has decided there is virtually no chance HBO will be back. Starz became a little more valuable to have and in this case whatever Starz wanted DISH decided to agree to, or something closer to what Starz wanted. Thus they are back.

As I posted the premium movie selection looks good even without HBO with Starz rounding it out. It could be a bigger deal if not that HBO is so readily available even with having no provider or whoever your provider is. If At&t wants to kill off HBO, Directv or whatever they will do it without money infusion from DISH apparently.

I would never say never...No one knows what may be in the future. It may look bleak now, but 5 years from now? There are many that still want HBO to come back to Dish. Some have even jumped ship. All of the Premiums have something to offer. Is HBO worth $15 a month, probably over priced. But they have things not available elsewhere like Bill Maher. From Amazon a person can pay for a program/movie. But getting all of the different channels and on Demand softens the $15 charge. I remember back in the 80s when HBO or Cinemax were $12.95 a month or $19.95 for both. That was expensive, but that was long before they had so many other channels, not just HBO East & West. The same is true with all of the premiums. AT&T/HBO must not have been getting that much revenue from Dish, not to make a new deal. Starz is a great deal, as if you get the Starz Family in the movie pack, you get the service on demand. Epix has a lot of great material too. But it is never good to lose any premiums.
 
I read recently from one of the companies that specializes in media industry research that HBO gets, on average, about $7.75 per month for each customer who subscribes through a traditional distribution partner (cable, satellite or telco MVPD). (I don't recall the exact figure but it was somewhere in the $7.60 - 7.90 range.) That's the wholesale rate that HBO charges Comcast, Charter, etc. and then the cable company sets the price they actually charge their customers. While a lot of operators used to charge a little more, maybe $16 to $18/mo, it seems like about everyone has pulled that down now to $15/mo to match HBO's direct-to-consumer pricing for HBO Now. That's also what Amazon, Roku and Apple charge to subscribe to HBO as a streaming channel through their own apps.

If you sign up for HBO Now directly through the HBO Now website and they handle the billing, then they're getting the full $15/mo. If you sign up for HBO Now inside the app you downloaded from an app store operated by Apple, Google, Roku or Amazon, then that company handles the billing and they take, I think, about a 20% cut of the $15, leaving $12 for HBO. Either way, with HBO Now, HBO is bearing all the operational costs of encoding the streams, running the servers and paying for the bandwidth to deliver the streams.

If you sign up for HBO as an add-on inside another streaming app (e.g. Prime Video, Hulu, The Roku Channel, the new Apple TV app), then they handle the encoding and streaming operations as well as the billing, so they take a bigger cut. Not sure of the amount but I think I read it was ~30%. That would leave $10.50 for HBO.

Assuming all that is close to accurate, you can see why HBO would prefer folks to subscribe to them via streaming. It's more profitable. On top of that, HBO also gets lots of valuable user data when you stream rather than watch on a cable/satellite box. Streaming gives them much more accurate info about what their customers search for, what they watch, at what point they stop watching shows, etc. Netflix says that kind of user data is invaluable to them. (That said, many who get HBO through a traditional MVPD do stream HBO too, using the HBO Go app, which gives HBO user data but at the cost of providing the streams.)

And, of course, AT&T plans to transition HBO to even more of a direct competitor to Netflix this fall when they launch an expanded streaming service that will be centered on HBO content, but with lots of additional complementary content. They've said that the current standalone HBO service will continue to exist, and obviously HBO doesn't want to dump the vast majority of their customers who subscribe through traditional MVPD partners, but it seems clear that AT&T sees HBO's future as *mainly* a streaming service.

When you take all of that into consideration, is it really any surprise that AT&T is playing hardball with Dish over HBO carriage? I imagine their thinking is "If Dish customers want HBO, let them subscribe via one of the more profitable streaming options that we actually prefer. And if they live out somewhere internet service isn't available, that means their only pay TV options are Dish and DirecTV satellite. Some of those folks will ditch Dish and come to our DirecTV service so they can get HBO, which would be great because DirecTV is absolutely hemorrhaging subscribers."

A very good point. I figured that streaming costs a lot less. I see many services in the future going the streaming direction. It is cheaper, and the service keeps more of the money. Why give a certain percentage to cable/satellite? Add to that, there are services like Pluto, STIRR, XUMO, that offer a ton of streaming channels for free. The cost of operating a streaming service is so much less that they can make it on ads.
 
I would never say never...No one knows what may be in the future. It may look bleak now, but 5 years from now? There are many that still want HBO to come back to Dish. Some have even jumped ship. All of the Premiums have something to offer. Is HBO worth $15 a month, probably over priced. But they have things not available elsewhere like Bill Maher. From Amazon a person can pay for a program/movie. But getting all of the different channels and on Demand softens the $15 charge. I remember back in the 80s when HBO or Cinemax were $12.95 a month or $19.95 for both. That was expensive, but that was long before they had so many other channels, not just HBO East & West. The same is true with all of the premiums. AT&T/HBO must not have been getting that much revenue from Dish, not to make a new deal. Starz is a great deal, as if you get the Starz Family in the movie pack, you get the service on demand. Epix has a lot of great material too. But it is never good to lose any premiums.

Reminds of, So, you're saying there's a chance..... :)
 
OK if you want him to make a deal, how about giving in to AT&T and charging Dish customers 20 or more dollars a month for HBO. No one would buy it at that price, well maybe you... So AT&T makes no money from Dish.

But that's not what they expect him to do. They want him to raise bottom line rates on everybody to do it. Somebody has to look out for the customer.

Sent from my SM-G965U1 using Tapatalk

That is one thing I have wondered. AT&T must not have lost that much revenue dropping Dish.
 
Reminds of, So, you're saying there's a chance..... :)

Who knows? AT&T may change their direction. With big business it all comes down to money. I feel, losing Dish did not affect their bottom line all that much. Some say, streaming is the future. If that is the case, then they are moving forward in that direction. One thing I do notice, everyone seems to be starting their own streaming service, NBC Universal, Disney+, etc. That way they can keep all of the money.
 
I paid for HBO for many years. Primarily for boxing and then for series like GOT and Westworld. I wouldn't watch Bill Maher if they paid me. I plan to wait for GOT to end, sign up through Amazon, watch all of the final season in a month, and then cancel. And that's only because I watched all of it up to this season and kind of want to see how it ends. Since boxing is gone, they will have to offer something very special before I will spend anything beyond the one month streaming cost.
 
  • Like
Reactions: joewhite57
So you’re saying you’re a wrestling fan?
:devilish


Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys
 
We have no idea. Dish has no idea. AT&T/HBO had crazy demands that Dish could not agree with. If they would have, all of our rates would have gone up.
You mean, more than they already did?

OK if you want him to make a deal, how about giving in to AT&T and charging Dish customers 20 or more dollars a month for HBO. No one would buy it at that price, well maybe you... So AT&T makes no money from Dish.

But that's not what they expect him to do. They want him to raise bottom line rates on everybody to do it. Somebody has to look out for the customer.
How do we know he hasn't already done that? Didn't just about every package get a price increase this year, all the way down to Welcome Pack? (Welcome Pack usually doesn't increase in price very frequently, but there had already been a $3 per month increase not long before this year, and then this year brought another $3 per month increase for grandfathered subscribers. This year's increase was even more unprecedented, since new Welcome Pack subscribers are now paying $4 more per month than the grandfathered subscribers, for a total of $7 more per month than last year's rate, or $10 more per month than a couple of years ago.)

So, my theory is that this year's rate increase already includes the additional money needed to pay HBO, and Dish is just pocketing the money while HBO and Cinemax are off of their service, until Dish has enough money in the bank that they feel they can now afford to negotiate a deal closer to what HBO wants.
 
My plan exactly. Not so much about the boxing, but 100% on Bill Maher. The timing would also perfect to watch the new Deadwood movie, another HBO series I enjoyed!
 
You mean, more than they already did?
...
So, my theory is that this year's rate increase already includes the additional money needed to pay HBO, and Dish is just pocketing the money while HBO and Cinemax are off of their service, until Dish has enough money in the bank that they feel they can now afford to negotiate a deal closer to what HBO wants.

The annual price increase only applied to the base package rates. With premium HBO gone, Dish is not collecting those subscription fees anymore, so no extra money is being made from the loss.
 
II remember back in the 80s when HBO or Cinemax were $12.95 a month or $19.95 for both. That was expensive, but that was long before they had so many other channels, not just HBO East & West.

Did you know that, due to inflation, $12.95 in 1985 dollars is worth $30.76 today?

US Inflation Calculator

Makes today's $15 price for HBO Now look pretty reasonable! (Of course, back in 1985, we didn't have anything like Hulu for $6 -- which would have been only $2.53 in 1985 dollars -- or Netflix for $13 -- which would have been $5.47 in 1985 dollars.)
 
  • Like
Reactions: joewhite57
Did you know that, due to inflation, $12.95 in 1985 dollars is worth $30.76 today?

US Inflation Calculator

Makes today's $15 price for HBO Now look pretty reasonable! (Of course, back in 1985, we didn't have anything like Hulu for $6 -- which would have been only $2.53 in 1985 dollars -- or Netflix for $13 -- which would have been $5.47 in 1985 dollars.)

But HBO had the nifty monthly programming guide! LOL !!!
 
The annual price increase only applied to the base package rates. With premium HBO gone, Dish is not collecting those subscription fees anymore, so no extra money is being made from the loss.
I was responding to the speculation that if Dish agreed to HBO's terms, then some of the cost would have to be included in the base package prices, as the $15 per month subscription fee for HBO would not be enough to cover the cost, and Dish cannot go above $15 as a line item due to that being the prevailing rate from the competition. Also, as has already been discussed at length, Dish would likely have to pay HBO for subscribers who do not actually exist, and that money would have to come from somewhere. The much larger than normal price increase (at least for the very cheapest package) would lead me to believe that Dish has already taken care of the necessary base package price increase for this purpose, and is banking that money in advance before HBO returns. Otherwise, I cannot think of anything that has been added to Welcome Pack that would justify that much of an increase. On the contrary, most of the new channels that get added to Welcome Pack tend to be the type of channel that pays Dish for carriage, which should help keep the price of that package down, by offsetting the annual increases for the channels we actually have to pay for. Since there are (presumably) so many fewer subscribers to Welcome Pack, a larger increase per subscriber may be necessary to reach Dish's goal of paying the additional cost for HBO, while a smaller increase per subscriber would suffice for more popular packages with lots of subscribers.
 

My Wally. How could this happen?

Hard drive replacement on a Dish 722 k

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Total: 0, Members: 0, Guests: 0)

Who Read This Thread (Total Members: 2)