2015 Dish Price Increase

[SomeRandomIdiot]

Sure it does, if I can live with ESPN, I wouldn't have to pay for it.

again you missed the point.

You might not pay for ESPN or the other Sports "packages", but that does not matter as they are under contract to the networks for up to 10 years.

That does not mean the price is going down for these TV rights anytime soon.

And again, I suspect that 2022-2024 might be when we begin to see PPV events for individual games. The leagues would certainly try that route if ESPN et al did not come up with the cash.

Imagine paying $49 for a single Football Game. Why not? People do it for Wrestling and Boxing.

 

[The Fat Man]

Yes ,Dish is no longer the Hd leader either.They are way behind on Hd.Charter spectrum in my area blows Dishs number of hd channels away.

You have a good point. I'm noticing with Comcast in my area that between HD offerings and SD offerings, there isn't much that Dish has that Comcast doesn't. When I visit family with Cable, the only two channels left off Comcast that I notice are EPIX and Boomerang. They recently added WGN America, which was a third. Now on the other end, Comcast has CSN New England which Dish just dropped, C-SPAN 3 (I prefer the C-SPANs to cable news), and...well...I really don't know the rest. I really don't care. The fact is that the offerings are shrinking between the providers, while Dish's prices continue to increase.

 

[SomeRandomIdiot]

Actually, I was under the impression it had to do with the streams of the channels and how they were manipulating them in order to record them all using without using all the timers.

Anyone that argues otherwise is a fool. Hopper users can use the "What's Hot" function to confirm this -- especially during primetime hours. Programming from the (4) 'local' channels will likely dominate that listing. Yes, there will be some "cable" channel shows thrown in (a MNF game, Walking Dead, etc). As to how accurate that info is, well, that's not clear.

 

[Yespage]

again you missed the point.

You might not pay for ESPN or the other Sports "packages", but that does not matter as they are under contract to the networks for up to 10 years.

Dish is under contract to pay ESPN a certain amount per sub. If they did a la carte, a new agreement would need to be appended. That doesn't change anything that I said.

And again, I suspect that 2022-2024 might be when we begin to see PPV events for individual games. The leagues would certainly try that route if ESPN et al did not come up with the cash.

What is with the baseless scare tactics. A fortune is paid by Fox and CBS for the NFL... and you can watch those games OTA.

Imagine paying $49 for a single Football Game. Why not? People do it for Wrestling and Boxing.

That couldn't possibly be sustainable. The Super Bowl is the Wrestlemania of the NFL, yet that is shown for free as well. There are so many eyeballs glued to that screen, companies will pay absurd money to show commercials during it.

 

[ChadT41]

99.99% of Fox News Customers have no idea about the details of the Fox dispute - and quite simply, we only have Charlie's word that is true (and we know what that is worth....).

I will take it as mostly truth, until I hear something in response from Fox. Fact of the matter is this, Dish has offered the oppurtunity for customers to air their greivances. Dish knows EXACTLY how many Dish customers watch Fox News and all other channels, and how long. Fox on the other hand, has Neilsen Tracking, and also has offered customers the avenue of bitching to Dish. Fox has not responded to anything specific, but sure has played out the blame game. What I find funny is that Charlie admitted he would pay the price increase for Fox News. If it was about Fox news and FBC, you would think this would be over, with that media %&^$-Storm that would follow Charlie, and you can guarantee Rupert would use that to his advantage(just look what he did about Fox coming down 9 minutes early). So, all in all, yes... I beleive Charlies take on it.

 

[Hall]

Actually, I was under the impression it had to do with the streams of the channels and how they were manipulating them in order to record them all using without using all the timers.

They could have picked LOTS of different channels that are already on the same transponder to do this. They picked the locals for a reason. Look at the growth of both Directv and Dish from when they started through now and look at the impact adding local channels had. It won't be a spike necessarily because they didn't add them all at once, of course.

 

[SomeRandomIdiot]

Dish is under contract to pay ESPN a certain amount per sub. If they did a la carte, a new agreement would need to be appended. That doesn't change anything that I said.

You still do not get it. Does not matter if Dish drops ESPN. ESPN is under contract with the leagues/conferences et al for those teams long term. They will be forced to pay regardless. So the price is not coming down in the next 5+ years.

In fact, while ESPN (Main Channel only) is at approximately $6.04 wholesale right note, the contracts have it up to $8.50 by this time 2 years from now.

Again, the Conferences/Leagues have long term contracts. You bill will not be coming down even if a la carte started today.

What is with the baseless scare tactics. A fortune is paid by Fox and CBS for the NFL... and you can watch those games OTA.

And Fox, CBS and NBC cannot afford to pay for those without Higher Retransmission fees. So a large number of people watch OTA instead of with a MVPD, the games will move to ESPN et al as over 66% of their revenue is from subs, not advertising.

That couldn't possibly be sustainable. The Super Bowl is the Wrestlemania of the NFL, yet that is shown for free as well. There are so many eyeballs glued to that screen, companies will pay absurd money to show commercials during it.

Again, see above.

The Bowl games were all on OTA TV at one time as well.

And as you clearly have not been following the news, many former Advertisers are pulling out the Superbowl. In fact, most Automobile Brands have pulled out this year, while Auto sales are having an incredible year in 2014. Right now, Nissan, Toyota and Mercedes are the only brands to have purchased spots in the upcoming Super Bowl. Lincoln, Jaguar and Volkswagen (among others) have already backed out - and VW had one of the most memorable spots several years ago with the Dark Vader/Dark Force spot.

When ESPN can pull in over $7 Billion this year in subscriptions ALONE, it is virtually impossible to outbid them for Sports.

 

[SomeRandomIdiot]

I will take it as mostly truth, until I hear something in response from Fox. Fact of the matter is this, Dish has offered the oppurtunity for customers to air their greivances. Dish knows EXACTLY how many Dish customers watch Fox News and all other channels, and how long. Fox on the other hand, has Neilsen Tracking, and also has offered customers the avenue of bitching to Dish. Fox has not responded to anything specific, but sure has played out the blame game.

No, they do not know EXACTLY how many Dish customers watch Fox News and for how long.

The only way to know exactly how many Dish customers are watching is to have constant communications 24/7/365 with every Dish STB.

Roughly half are not connected to the internet - and even those do not have anything near constant contact as anyone observing their local network traffic can see for themselves (Google Packet Sniffers).

Then the other STBs that call home on a landline certainly are not in contact constantly - not even close. And the connect time does not allow for granular data of the type you are suggesting.

And finally there are STBs that are not connected to Land Line or Internet.

So Dish has a small sample as to who is watching what at any given time, it does not know EXACTLY how many are watching.

So, all in all, yes... I beleive Charlies take on it.

I believed in Santa Claus once as well, until the long term evidence pointed me to in a different direction.

Remember, Charlie also said Dish did not need CNN et al on Turner. He also said on the Q3 Conference call that he could drop Turner and not have a price increase in 2015.

Why is Turner back on when Charlie said Dish did not need it and how much is your bill going up? And yet, there is no new contract with Turner.

Hmmmmm.

How do you tell if Charlie is lying? In my opinion, if his lips are moving.

 

[Yespage]

You still do not get it. Does not matter if Dish drops ESPN. ESPN is under contract with the leagues/conferences et al for those teams long term. They will be forced to pay regardless. So the price is not coming down in the next 5+ years.

There is nothing stopping ESPN from allowing their service to be available a la carte, other than ESPN.

Again, the Conferences/Leagues have long term contracts. You bill will not be coming down even if a la carte started today.

The price for a la carte would be higher, but if all someone wanted was the ESPN suite, it could make sense. This isn't about making ESPN cheaper than their going rate, it is about people being able to pick and choose a small number of channels and get an overall cheaper package.

And Fox, CBS and NBC cannot afford to pay for those without Higher Retransmission fees.

You can show the numbers on that.

So a large number of people watch OTA instead of with a MVPD, the games will move to ESPN et al as over 66% of their revenue is from subs, not advertising.

Disney only owns rights to MNF.

The Bowl games were all on OTA TV at one time as well.

The same ones typically are. There are probably 2 to 3 times the number of "Bowl Games" these days (38 in all).

When ESPN can pull in over $7 Billion this year in subscriptions ALONE, it is virtually impossible to outbid them for Sports.

There is a hole in my bucket. They get the higher rates because they bid so much on the programming. It is self-perpetuating.

 

[Yespage]

They could have picked LOTS of different channels that are already on the same transponder to do this. They picked the locals for a reason.

Fine. I'll go with that.

 

[ChadT41]

Turner being back on is not him saying "we need CNN". He said he would be hurt losing TBS/TNT, and funny thing, there was an extension as soon as the TNT/TBS contract was about to expire. Weird. So, yes, I still believe what he is saying, as his side is so far the most rational and consistent with the situation. I would rather look at the big picture, and not jsut small examples that really do no justice. As far as "Roughly half are not connected to the internet - and even those do not have anything near constant contact as anyone observing their local network traffic can see for themselves (Google Packet Sniffers)." can you state your source for this? Or is this rhetoric?

 

[Hall]

No, they do not know EXACTLY how many Dish customers watch Fox News and for how long. The only way to know exactly how many Dish customers are watching is to have constant communications 24/7/365 with every Dish STB.
(snip)
And finally there are STBs that are not connected to Land Line or Internet. So Dish has a small sample as to who is watching what at any given time, it does not know EXACTLY how many are watching.

Dish surely has tried to change that though, from years ago almost making installers connect the receivers to a phone line, to later trying to connect them via ethernet, and later, with USB WiFi adapters for receivers to built-in WiFi on the current Hopper.

Even if receivers aren't connected at all, Dish can statistically come up with reasonably accurate data based on the ones that are connected and check in.

 

[SomeRandomIdiot]

Dish surely has tried to change that though, from years ago almost making installers connect the receivers to a phone line, to later trying to connect them via ethernet, and later, with USB WiFi adapters for receivers to built-in WiFi on the current Hopper.

Even if receivers aren't connected at all, Dish can statistically come up with reasonably accurate data based on the ones that are connected and check in.

Agreed - and as I stated, I do not disagree with you, but that is not the definition of EXACT as the OP stated.

 

[ChadT41]

How about near exact. Would that make you feel better? Still 1000x's better than neilsen.

 

[SomeRandomIdiot]

There is nothing stopping ESPN from allowing their service to be available a la carte, other than ESPN.

The price for a la carte would be higher, but if all someone wanted was the ESPN suite, it could make sense. This isn't about making ESPN cheaper than their going rate, it is about people being able to pick and choose a small number of channels and get an overall cheaper package.

Yes, as stated, by Sports Illustrated, ESPN a la carte would be at least $30 a month.

You can show the numbers on that.

Yes, that is well proven and can be seen by reading a 10-K, providing you can do math.

Disney only owns rights to MNF.

Yes - and Disney moved MNF to ESPN, again proving my point. ABC could not afford the rights fee with out a heavy re-transmission fee.

The same ones typically are.

Actually, no.

http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/549875d7ecad04b75a7c3bbd-800-600/01-687.png

There is a hole in my bucket. They get the higher rates because they bid so much on the programming. It is self-perpetuating.

Again, the hole has no chance of being plugged for over 5+ years

http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/547d15bbecad04fd4a8b4567-800-600/01-671.png

 

[SomeRandomIdiot]

How about near exact. Would that make you feel better? Still 1000x's better than neilsen.

lol....Nielsen is much better if you knew anything about probability, standard deviations and scientific random samples.

Actually, I bet Nielsen has a bigger sample than Dish at any moment in time, as Nielsen is 24/7/365 down to the second in granularity.

 

[Yespage]

99.99% of Fox News Customers have no idea about the details of the Fox dispute - and quite simply, we only have Charlie's word that is true (and we know what that is worth....).

Fox admitted as much on the record.

Yes, as stated, by Sports Illustrated, ESPN a la carte would be at least $30 a month.

That is one analysis.

Yes, that is well proven and can be seen by reading a 10-K, providing you can do math.

Meow! Could please turn it down a notch?

Yes - and Disney moved MNF to ESPN, again proving my point. ABC could not afford the rights fee with out a heavy re-transmission fee.

The NFL doesn't set the price, the networks bid for it. The Networks are the only source of the costs going up to get the programming rights. Disney didn't have to bid about $100+ million a game to win the MNF rights.

 

[SomeRandomIdiot]

Fox admitted as much on the record.

link please

That is one analysis.

Correct. Other analysis have it at $50 a month or higher. $30 is the lowest estimate.

Meow! Could please turn it down a notch?

Well, read it and prove you can understand the 10-K.

The NFL doesn't set the price, the networks bid for it. The Networks are the only source of the costs going up to get the programming rights. Disney didn't have to bid about $100+ million a game to win the MNF rights.

But they have won it now. They own it.

And they will pay the money in the Contract that they owe.

And considering they have the following under contract, The bill for ESPN will not be going down this Decade as most contracts run into at least 2022.

You seem to have a hard time understanding this.

http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/547d15bbecad04fd4a8b4567-800-600/01-671.png

 

[JM42]

lol....Nielsen is much better if you knew anything about probability, standard deviations and scientific random samples.

Actually, I bet Nielsen has a bigger sample than Dish at any moment in time, as Nielsen is 24/7/365 down to the second in granularity.

Nielsen extrapolates ratings for 200+ Million from a sample size of around 20,000 homes (and I think that may include diary only homes).

Dish has about 14 million homes with millions connected. Dish has sample sizes orders of magnitude larger than Nielsen, and plenty of historical data readily available as well. For Dish's purposes their own data should be much better than anything Nielsen could provide, regardless of analysis methods.

@ChadT41 's point was that Dish had better data about their own customers than Fox had, not the populous in general.

Nielsen may be better for advertising, may be more granular, may be closer to real time, etc, but none of that matters in this context.

As to whose Fox spin is closer to the truth, I don't really care.

 

[SomeRandomIdiot]

Nielsen extrapolates ratings for 200+ Million from a sample size of around 20,000 homes (and I think that may include diary only homes).

Dish has about 14 million homes with millions connected. Dish has sample sizes orders of magnitude larger than Nielsen, and plenty of historical data readily available as well. For Dish's purposes their own data should be much better than anything Nielsen could provide, regardless of analysis methods.

@ChadT41 's point was that Dish had better data about their own customers than Fox had, not the populous in general.

Nielsen may be better for advertising, may be more granular, may be closer to real time, etc, but none of that matters in this context.

As to whose Fox spin is closer to the truth, I don't really care.

Nielsen has a sample that records every second.

Dish does not have 20k STBs reporting in every second.

Nielsen's Sample cost Millions to recruit with Statisticians and Demographers - to reflect the DMA.

Dish's Sample is just whoever paid $100 to Dish, was not on their phone at the time, and a random check in of connected STBs at that moment.

Furthermore, as already stated, not all units are even connected and check in. Mine have never been in 10+ years.

But 14M/20,000 = 700 (that would mean that EVERY Dish Sub would need to check in every 11.6 minutes to have a bigger sample than Nielsen.

Even the internet connected subs do not do anything close to that.

And again, it is not scientifically weighted - just whatever unit can use a phone line or internet at the time.

Furthermore, Nielsen Families have to punch in when they are in room with TV and continue to do so on a semi-regular basis, or they are deemed "left the room". Dish has no such controls.

So yes, I bet at any time, Nielsen's sample is MUCH higher than Dish's.