Can Dish Network survive as a company?

[sprintcarcrazy]

I have been with Dish for about 13 years, well something like that, except for a month stint with cable. There DVR rocks, and don't forget, we had alot more HD for like a year than what the Direct folks had.

For now, there is no reason to think they won't be around for a long while.

 

[pfan1981]

DISH is a great value for what you receive as a product. They will be around for a long time. I just had my CS nightmare resolved by a really nice CSR and couldn't be happier at the moment with my satellite provider.

pfan

 

[JonUrban]

Dish is here to stay and on the whole is great. For a year I tried DTV alongside Dish to see what everyone was howling about, and I cancelled the DTV because I hated the Tivo DVR compared to Dish, and the only thing D* had that E* did not (that I sort of cared about) was YES, and that was only to be able to watch Mike & the Mad Dog. I could live without that!

 

[Claude Greiner]

Regarding the churn of customers I wonder if anyone has determined whether or not it is due to Dish's placement as the "value" provider. I would believe that Dish would attract more of the lower-income individuals who are more impacted by changes in the economy than those who would sign up for D*. If that is indeed the case, I would not have too much worry about the subscriber numbers.

The Churn is going to be around no matter what you do. The only thing you can do to prevent it is to sign up quality customers by having tougher credit scoring requirements.

Directv has the same issue, however they have been hiding it behind their new subscriber numbers by offering promotions such as $23 off per month for a year so they sign up a ton of customers to hide the churn issues. Its a good promotion, but there churn is just as worse if not more than it is with DISH.

 

[Super Dave]

You sure will. E makes the best Dvr's anywhere! :up

Have to agree 700%! I switched from DTV over 3 years ago and the 622/722 blow away the DTiVo that I replaced. Also they only need 1 cable to run 2 tuners, another great advantage.

 

[okiekevn]

wait until next year when all those D* subscribers who signed up for that 23.00 off for the first month start seeing their bill after the discount ends. i wonder how many people might just pay off the contract difference and switch, or just stop paying the bill all together and get discoed. seriously, with E* you can have two dual tuners fully running two rooms and only pay 5.00 a month in equip fees. thats where the savings really kicks in.

 

[joeyjojojnr]

After installing Boxee, I don't think *any* major TV service providers will survive in the form/size they currently do in 5 years.

Provided the networks get on board (as they seem to be doing) we'll be getting *all* of our tv programming via the internet.

 

[DWS44]

After installing Boxee, I don't think *any* major TV service providers will survive in the form/size they currently do in 5 years.

Provided the networks get on board (as they seem to be doing) we'll be getting *all* of our tv programming via the internet.

With the somewhat limited speed/bandwidth available in a whole lot of podunk towns (and larger towns with only podunk service providers), 5 years may be a lofty goal for full-scale Internet delivered TV! Not all of us live in the land of blissfully fast FIOS.

 

[rad]

After installing Boxee, I don't think *any* major TV service providers will survive in the form/size they currently do in 5 years.

Provided the networks get on board (as they seem to be doing) we'll be getting *all* of our tv programming via the internet.

With the somewhat limited speed/bandwidth available in a whole lot of podunk towns (and larger towns with only podunk service providers), 5 years may be a lofty goal for full-scale Internet delivered TV! Not all of us live in the land of blissfully fast FIOS.

I agree with DWS44. Besides the issue of having univeral high speed (like >10Mbps) the current system will need to stay in place. Plus in case joeyjojojnr missed it a number of cable and DSL providers have announced that they are going to implement bandwidth caps, you go over it and you pay more.

 

[DishSubLA]

Direct TV has announced a round of job cuts and some kind of halt on certain capital investments. The question should be is any company going to survive. Dish (and Direct TV) will survive just fine. Dish is getting rid of some low-end subs who never should have been qualified for the freebies. Now, Charlie seems to be taking the same route as Direct TV and focusing on the "quality" of the subscriber.

Any concerns about Dish or Echostar going out of business indicate the ignorance of the masses when it comes to how or why a company will survive. Dish is one of the few companies that has a fair amount of cash (quite liquid) available and has conservative financial practices. So, in other words, every time Charlie drops a channel rather than pay what ever they want, or refuses to go grow debt to pay for NFL Sunday Ticket or MLB Extra Innings, he is protecting his company from going out of business when tough times come. Some of the behaviors that some on this board deplore--dropping channels, not offering the "too expensive" services like YES or many other exclusives--is exactly what is keeping Dish in business and in business for a long time. Not the piddly loss of some subs (cable has been losing subs for years and they are nowhere near going out of business) nor the little problems Dish now has that were some of the same problems Direct TV had for years while Dish outpaced them in several areas for years, and Direct TV did well enough.

Now, it is Dish's turn to have some choppy waters that Charlie said they will just have to tread, and he is right. But they will get to dry ground yet. The real reason Dish has had problems for the last several quarters is that Ergan was not involved in the day-to-day operations at Dish as he was busy creating the new Dish company from Echostar. Now, he is back and absolutely running the day-to-day matters. He hasn't been back long enough for the changes to measured just yet, but I do see 2009 Q2 report being an extremely good one.

 

[Quantum]

LOL, obviously you haven't looked at Dish's balance sheet, DishSubLA.

They are quite insolvent. All it'll take is one significant creditor tightening their line, and...

 

[KAB]

LOL, obviously you haven't looked at Dish's balance sheet, DishSubLA.

They are quite insolvent. All it'll take is one significant creditor tightening their line, and...

Oh, well why don't you share that balance sheet with us?

 

[Quantum]

Oh, well I shouldn't have thought you'd take my word for it, but here you go:
DISH: Balance Sheet for DISH Network Corporation - Yahoo! Finance

"Net Tangible Assets ($681,367,000)"

True, their position has improved in the past two years owing to more subs, but now that has reversed.

And remember, I said it would be a Bad Thing if Dish went away.

 

[mike123abc]

Oh, well I shouldn't have thought you'd take my word for it, but here you go:
DISH: Balance Sheet for DISH Network Corporation - Yahoo! Finance

"Net Tangible Assets ($681,367,000)"

True, their position has improved in the past two years owing to more subs, but now that has reversed.

And remember, I said it would be a Bad Thing if Dish went away.

That is just saying they owe money which is true. But, they are making money, have good cash flow and and paying off the debts. You just picked one number that looks bad off a chart of good numbers. The chart you showed has more assets than liabilities...

 

[rad]

That is just saying they owe money which is true. But, they are making money, have good cash flow and and paying off the debts. You just picked one number that looks bad off a chart of good numbers. The chart you showed has more assets than liabilities...

When I look at the last four quarters on that page I don't see where they have more assets then liabilities. ALso, the last four quarters see a large jump to the negative in the Net Tangible Assets with only one quarter seeing an improvement then the next quarter seeing a larger loss again:

Net Tangible Assets ($2,814,494) ($2,777,048) ($3,117,334) ($681,367)

 

[DodgerKing]

The reasons you give that E* will be another Primestar, is not taking into
account that E* has over 14 Million Subscripers and D* has 16 Million so just
about as many people have E* as have D*, it is only about a two million Subscriper
difference. E* is here to stay in my view.

Actually it is 13 million for Dish and over 20 million for Direct. That is a big difference

 

[DodgerKing]

wait until next year when all those D* subscribers who signed up for that 23.00 off for the first month start seeing their bill after the discount ends. i wonder how many people might just pay off the contract difference and switch, or just stop paying the bill all together and get discoed. seriously, with E* you can have two dual tuners fully running two rooms and only pay 5.00 a month in equip fees. thats where the savings really kicks in.

And with Direct you can have two separate receivers running two different rooms and only pay $5 in equipment fees as the first reciever does not have a receiver fee.

And if both receivers are HD DVRs you still only pay $5 in EQUIPMENT fees as they charge for DVR service, not per DVR like Dish.

 

[DodgerKing]

To answer the question. Dish will survive just fine.

I am however predicting, like I have been doing for a while now, that Dish and Direct will merge. Not because either HAVE to in order to survive, but because they CAN. With the merger of XM/Sirius and the increase in the number of entertainment and broadcasting sources available to more and more of the country, the monopoly argument is getting weaker. Both companies will be having a harder time competing with FiOS, UVerse, improved cable, internet, ex. Together, they can be a broadcasting giant.

 

[Quantum]

That is just saying they owe money which is true.

No, that is just saying that the business is worth less than nothing when all is tolled up... like $.6b less than nothing. That's called 'insolvency', on this planet. No business has any business being in business if it's worth less than nothing for any appreciable amount of time.

DodgerKing they'd tried to merge a couple years ago, but the FCC nixed it.

 

[Slamminc11]

Actually it is 13 million for Dish and over 20 million for Direct. That is a big difference

Actually Direct has about 17.3 million subs while Dish has about 13.8 million subs.
Direct TV or Dish? | Satellite TV
Just because wikipedia says some number, doesn't make it true, right, or correct.