"A la Carte Freedom of Choice Package"

TRAAMY

New Member
Original poster
Jul 8, 2005
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HERE IS AN IDEA I SENT TO DISH NETWORK VIA EMAIL. IF YOU LIKE IT, COPY WHAT YOU NEED OF IT OR ADD TO IT AND EMAIL IT TO DISH NETWORK AND MAYBE THEY WILL GET THE HINT WE WOULD LIKE FREEDOM OF CHOICE OVER OUR CHANNELS WE PAY FOR. "A la Carte Freedom of Choice Package"

It looks like that you guys at the Dish would pull more customers in from your competition if
you sold customers a package where they had a minimum number of channels
they had to purchase per month, but in the same turn give them a choice of what
channels they could select based on a price for each channel per month and
it would be based on their viewing needs instead of being forced to pay for
channels they would never watch, like all those sports channels for me because I never watch sports. I think you could even implement this into Dish Interactive TV. I am under a contract with you for the next
two years and I can tell you I am happy with the picture quality and the
ease of use of the DVR box but that is not what will retain my contract. I
have had your America's Top 60 Package for only a few weeks and I have done
made my decision that if you guys at Dish don't offer more freedom of
choice on your channel line ups in the future I will go back to land line
cable for my basic channels and 4DTV C-band for my movie channels when my contract is up. There is 24 channels right off the top of my
head that I never watch not including sports channels. I am just pleased as pie to be paying for something
I do not use. I am a c-band owner and some of the channels you offer in the top 60 are free to air on c-band like TV Land. What a rip off. Why can't dish just sell us the channels we want to watch and get all the other free to air dead beat channels that nobody wants to waste their time skipping over with the remote off my channel line up. I can't understand why Dish Network pays big money to put a down link sat. in space and airs useless channels like shopping channels. If you want to shop go get on the net. I am sure Charlie Ergen sits home and watches Catalog TV,Auction TV and ishop.
 
Trammy,

When you deal with 4DTV you are dealing directly with the CONTENT owners.

Dish has to sign retransmission contracts with the content owners to be able to resell those stations to their subscribers. Since all Content owners want their channels to be bundled together in packages in a Core package of channels Dish is NOT ALLOWED to sell most channels ala carte specifically by the contracts that allow them to carry the channels in the first place.

John
 
John's got it. I chose not agree as well because it's not dish you have to deal with.

Dish has no problem providing ala-carte programs but they cant
 
It is a good idea, but the bottom line is MONEY. Not just subscriber money, but advertiser money & contract money, software programmer/hardware money.

IMHO, it would also be a nightmare to implement(software wise) if everyone had a different package. Now they can just toggle a bit and turn on a whole tier. People would be changing subscriptions daily/weekly/monthly.

As it sits now, they only have a dozen or so 'sets' of channels to worry about instead of 2000 individual settings per user.

I support the idea, but sorry to say it won't happen any time soon. (So I chose - Disagree)
 
This is a good idea but,

If this ever happens then Dish and Direct will not give the receivers away free. They have the package prices and contracts set so when a person signs it an commits to keep it a year than they will be reimbursed for the equipment they gave away for free.

With E*'s DHA plan were the customer is on a lease contract they would more than likely do away with that wich I think is a good thing. They would also make everyone buy the receivers, dish and pay for the installation outright.
 
I bet Charlie Ergen homself agrees. Remember the "DishPix" package? Dish was forced to give that package up when the most popular channels REFUSED to be included. Most channels demand to be on the lowest tier package and refuse to be made available a la carte. When Dish Pix was available the MTV networks (including Nick and TVLand), the ESPN Networks and the Disney channels were NOT available as choices.

So, though I agree with the statement, the e-mails need to be sent to Viacom and ABC/Disney which own most of the most popular channels and many other programers like Fox/NewsCorp and Rainbow.

See ya
Tony

See u
 
Now the closest you will get to having a smaller basic package on DBS small dish is to subscribe to the SkyAngel package.
 
I agree this should be available and have emailed them about it in the past, but being realistic I realize it will probably never happen.
 
It's money. I'm on the 180 package because the channels I want are at that tier. If there was an ala-carte package, I'd have a bill at least $50 less per month than now, and I think most people would have the same number of channels. There is probably a good number of channels each never watches.I can do without the kid's, MTV/VH1's, shopping, foriegn and religious stations.
 
Dish used to have an offering called DishPix, which allowed you to choose around 15 channels from a list of about 20 and it cost ~ $17/month, or about a $1/channel/month. I had this service for quite some time as I watch very little TV and was not interested in paying $30/month for 100 channels I did not want. It went the way of the Do-Do Bird.
 
This is my Ala Carte Programing with Dish Network

CD Music Pak. . . . . . . . . . . . . .$4.99
Encore Movie Pak. . . . . . . . . . .$4.99
HBO. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$13.99
HD Pak. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $9.99
Showtime Unlimited. . . . . . . . .$11.99
Access Fee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . $5.00
2nd Receiver Access. . . . . . . . $4.99
Sub Total. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$55.94
Discount. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $2.99
Sub Total – Discount. . . . . . . $52.95
Voom HD Pak. . . . . . . . . . . . . $5.00
Total – Discount. . . . . . . . . . $57.95
Tax @ 7%. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $4.06
Total. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$62.01

The $5.00 per month Access Fee is because I do not have a Basic Package. A discount is applied if you have two or more premiums (HBO + Showtime).

I was with DirecTV for 9 years. They would not let me add their HD programming to my ala carte package (all SD) so I switched to Dish Network a year ago. I only want HD programming.
 
Now that you mention it, I am Ala Carte as well:

Dish Hd Pack...................$9.99
Voom 10.........................$5.00
Showtime Movie pack.......$11.99
Encore Movie Pack............$4.99
Access Fee.....................$5.00
Extra receiver fee.............$5.00
7 HD OTA channels...........$Priceless
Grand Total....................$41.97, about the same price as AT160 but I get what I want without the crap.

No taxes in Oregon.
 
Not including foreign language channels, here is the a la carte menu for SD channels

Individual channels available A La Carte:
Bloomberg TV (Business News) $1.50/mo
*PBS $1.00/mo
Disney Channel (East and West) $9.99/mo
The Outdoor Channel (Not Outdoor Life Network) $1.99/mo
The Golf Channel $4.99/mo
**KTLA WB Los Angeles $1.50/mo
**KWGN WB Denver $1.50/mo
**WPIX WB New York $1.50/mo
**WSBK UPN Boston $1.50/mo
**WWOR UPN New York $1.50/mo
**ABC, CBS, NBC or Fox affiliate from up to any
two of the following cities: Atlanta, Chicago,
Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles or New York, $1.50/mo
*PBS no longer allows the national channel to be sold unless the subscriber qualifies to receive this channel. Go to the or the PBS Web site to see if you qualify to receive a channel that is supported by YOUR tax dollars.
**Customer must qualify to get this station per FCC regulations. See the Dish Web Site and click on "Locals" to see if you qualify.

Adult channels


Playboy Channel $14.99/mo or PPV
Extasy $27.99 or PPV
TEN (The Erotic Network) $22.99/mo or PPV
ETC (Erotic TV Clips) $22.99/mo or PPV

Mini-Packages
Dish Locals in over 160 cities. $5.99/mo
Superstations Package $5.99/mo
Action Pack Programming (NO LONGER AVAILABLE) $4.99/mo
Encore Pack Programming $4.99/mo
*Multi Sport Package $5.99/mo
Dish CD (32 CD Stereo Music Channels) $4.99/mo
*Dominion Sky Angel (Independent DBS Service) $11.99/mo (61.5°) ($14.99 after Sept 1)
 
There are a few senators who wanted to push this through congress.. nothing ever came of it.

You're better off writing to congress before Dish. Mccain was one of the sentators trying to write up a bill.
 
Not to get off topic, but if I had my choice of channels...

*3- Springfield Mo. local
*111 DIY
*112 HGTV
214 Weather (rarely)
6008 Sirius 80's
9421 DISC-HD
9471 EquatorHD
*9479 GUYTV
9482 HDNEWS

*=most watched

Rarely do I watch ANY of the other channels. 'If' there is anything on HD channels, I'll watch, but that is the limit to my personal list. So I'm shelling out over $105.00 per month for maybe 10 channels.

Even my DVR'd events are limited to HD action/adventure movies or some DIY/HGTV programs.

I need several dozen club dish cards to give out. ;)
 
The only way I could see any provider going to ala-carte would actually be POD. (Pay on Demand)

This would be the next logical evolution of media distribution.

You would be charged for monthly USAGE blocks just like you do water/electricity/gas.

You could watch any channel you want, but you would be metered and charged at the end of the month. Of course there would be a minimum usage charge and no maximum.

*I* see this coming as technology becomes even more miniaturized and we start watching broadcast content on hand held video units, phones & other mobile/vehicle content reception services.

I won't expect this happening in the next decade or maybe even 20 years.

But just think if you accidentally leave your tuner 'ON' and go away on vacation, you could come home to a $1000.00+ viewing usage bill. :mad:
 
My most frequently watched channels are the free ones ;) (NBC,CBS,FOX)

Then out of my HD pack I watch HDNet, HDNet Movies, Majestic, and HDNews the most

Then out of AT120 I watch Comedy Central, E!, GSN, Cartoon Network, and Sirius: Hits One, Rewind, Buzzsaw, Octane, Alt Nation
 

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