What happened to being the HD leader?
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Which only provides more evidence that these are TEMPORARY placeholders and part time fillers for sports packages. If bandwidth is not being used, why not put temporary PPVs up at no extra costs.
To me having a bunch of temporary HD PPVs puts D* in the worse possible light and reflects very poorly on their priorities. Having spare bandwidth available and not using it for actual channels that do exist is the worse possible thing D* could be doing.
I could take channels not being added if D* was out of bandwidth. I could take having spare bandwidth and D* not adding channels if there were no more channels to be added. But we know D* has spare bandwidth for at least a dozen channels and by my count there are over 40 channels that could be added.
So by D* not adding real channels when they have the ability to do so makes one believe that D* is more interested in making money than making their customers happy. And from past history that clearly seems to be Malone's pattern.
I don't believe all of the excuses as to why we don't have more channels. The "it takes two to tango" excuse for why it is taking forever to negotiate is lame. D* had no trouble getting contracts done before Malone took over. Either Malone has forced D* to hold out for completely unreasonable terms or Malone isn't really interested in giving us more channels. And D* has had almost a year since D11 was launched to get terms worked out for the channels that we don't have yet.
We've also heard the lame excuse as to why we don't have more HBO/Max channels. The supposed excuse of "D* is being forced to get MPEG4 feeds of HBO instead of MPEG2 and they are working out the tech issues" doesn't make sense either. This issue (if it is a real issue) hasn't stopped U-Verse, FiOS or E* from getting extra HBO/Max channels. So either this is a lie from D* or D*'s tech people are morons.
And the worse example of a channel that D* should have no technical or contractual issue in adding Encore HD. D*'s competitors have this channel but they can't get whatever the problem is worked out with their own corporate cousin. Both D* and Encore are Liberty properties but they can't make it happen? Mind boggling.
All this just means that there is something really rotten at the top of D* and it is spelled M-A-L-O-N-E. And until if/when he sells D* to somebody...anybody, it won't get any better.
I agree to an extent, but that could also be said of several other channels. Perhaps D* is going after a different market when and if it adds actual channels to those slots? From the looks of what they offer, and what you and others have said when compnaring premium offerings between companies, premiums are not that high on their priority list for whatever reason.
D*will have Soccer channel HD, T-Ball HD,Shotput HD before they add another premium HD channel.
Sorry but at this point D* is the Loser at HD and SD movie channels.
And with that in mind they should have Every premium they have "Which isn't Much" In HD right now. Atleast that would cater to more then just Sports Fans.
Maybe then they can brag and say "Unlike Dishnetwork and cable , Directv has all of our Premium movie channels in HD " Instead of Bragging about 30 HD PPV and Massive amounts of HD RSN's" I don't know many people who pay $12 for the sports pack to watch more repeats then any other channels on D*. You need a Sports Subscription to watch 90% of out of market games anyway. Maybe D* thinks customers enjoy 30 channel all showing the World Poker Tour. Or the same Womans Volly ball Game. Or the 15 hours a day of informercials. Sorry But $14 for 7 HBO's IMO has more D* customers subscribing to it then that BS Multisports pack. You paying for $12 for ESPNU, CBS-C, Outdoor, Fox soccor the rest is Garbage since everyone gets RSN's to begin with in their base package.
Sorry but at this point D* is the Loser at HD and SD movie channels.
And with that in mind they should have Every premium they have "Which isn't Much" In HD right now. Atleast that would cater to more then just Sports Fans.
Maybe then they can brag and say "Unlike Dishnetwork and cable , Directv has all of our Premium movie channels in HD " Instead of Bragging about 30 HD PPV and Massive amounts of HD RSN's" I don't know many people who pay $12 for the sports pack to watch more repeats then any other channels on D*. You need a Sports Subscription to watch 90% of out of market games anyway. Maybe D* thinks customers enjoy 30 channel all showing the World Poker Tour. Or the same Womans Volly ball Game. Or the 15 hours a day of informercials. Sorry But $14 for 7 HBO's IMO has more D* customers subscribing to it then that BS Multisports pack. You paying for $12 for ESPNU, CBS-C, Outdoor, Fox soccor the rest is Garbage since everyone gets RSN's to begin with in their base package.
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No doubt about that, however it does not seem to be hurting their sub numbers:up
How do you Know that?. Because they have 18 million subscribers.? D* in its 14 year history has damn near the same Premium line up since day 1. So I guess unless D* adds some ,We 'll never know.
That is why I think that. They seem to be adding subs every quarter (although I have not seen the most recent), whereas E*, with its big premium advantage is not. Dont get me wrong, I do not think premiums have everything to do with the situations at both companies, I simply think the lack of said channels is not hurting D* that much. I could be wrong of course, just going by the sub numbers.How do you Know that?. Because they have 18 million subscribers.? D* in its 14 year history has damn near the same Premium line up since day 1. So I guess unless D* adds some ,We 'll never know.
Of course if D* had them, who knows how many more they would add.
Maybe you guys haven't thought of the obvious. If D12 blows up or somehow becomes unusable then they don't have a whole lot of bandwidth left to work with now do they. So why go crazy now and fill up what they have and then 6 months from now end up in a pickle and can't add any more channels at all? One would think that if D12 is a goner that they would much rather spend their bandwidth on channels other then 8 different HBO repeat channels. So why not pick and choose carefully which channels to add for the next 6-9 months, ones you *have* to add due to contract, get D12 up and running and then in the fall they can come in with a bang and add a whole bunch.
Whole lot easier to never put up a channel in case of sat failure vs. removing channels you already added, wouldn't you say?
Nahhhh, that couldn't be it. DirecTV is just out to screw us all by not adding "HBO 12: Repeat of the repeats" or the Travel Channel instead of making a better long term business decisions and just wait a whole 6 months to make sure before they don't toss all their eggs in one basket. They must hate us all...
Whole lot easier to never put up a channel in case of sat failure vs. removing channels you already added, wouldn't you say?
Nahhhh, that couldn't be it. DirecTV is just out to screw us all by not adding "HBO 12: Repeat of the repeats" or the Travel Channel instead of making a better long term business decisions and just wait a whole 6 months to make sure before they don't toss all their eggs in one basket. They must hate us all...
Exactly. It never has. As mentioned, Dish has *always* had more premium channels then DirecTV. What's the old equation? DirecTV = Sports. Dish = Movies. Not much has changed and DirecTV is not in any way hurting because they don't have HBO the Ocho in HD. The vast majority of customers just don't care how many premium channels they have available. How many channels do you need old reruns of Fletch on anyway?
If something goes wrong with D12 I think they would much rather put something other then a bunch of HBOs on their limited bandwidth. But who knows, they may add 10 premiums next week for all we know.
No one is asking them to add channels they don't have the capacity to add. Whats D* going to do if D10 fails right now? Launch D12 tomorrow and have it up and running in 24 hour . Doubt it! They have 4 satellites Just for HD alone.
exactly. they already have a bunch of unnecessary HDPPV using up bandwidth than can be easily replaced with National HD channels without using up anymore bandwidth.
Bottom line if D* didn't blurt out we are going to carry 11 HBO and Cinemax channels in HD, Well I doubt we would be having this conversation. Instead you got 30 PPV in HD, Sorry 12 Real HD PPV choices.
True which is why I switched. I'm a movie watcher not a sports watcher. 95% of my viewing is movie channels.
I agree with that. Its good to be cautious, but there is overcautious too. I doubt they are thinking ahead to IF D12 does not make it, and they have capacity now. I agree with you that channels should be added to take the place of some of the PPVs that are up now, I am just mixed on WHAT they should add.
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