Dear Charlie:
What is my incentive to move to a new receiver?
I live in a Top 21 (or 22, OK, maybe 23) market. I am able to receive my locals OTA on a 921 and an 811. My 522's receive the STL locals in compressed, blotchy SD. When I feel like it, I am able to watch the Voom loops to my heart's content. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy the HD pack and the Voom channels. And HD ESPN along with HD HBO and HD Showtime. The new, additional Voom channels would be nice to have but are in no way worth $49, $99 or $299 to upgrade to a lease in exchange for my "owned" receivers. (And only one per year? Who thought that one up?)
For your consideration:
Your company has perhaps 25,000,000 (WAG) receivers out in the wild. I can't help but think that 80% (WAG) of your customers live in major metro areas and those of us that have adopted the HD lifestyle can receive locals OTA. Why would we want to purchase a re-processed, compressed local HD signal from your company? Seeing what Dish Network is doing to the SD locals and to Voom tells me that is a hard sell. I am not interested!
I also know from doing hundreds of Dish Network installs that an overwhelming majority of the customers that I installed had 20 year old RCA consoles or 13" TV's. I was occasionally embarassed when someone with a 36" SD TV would ask me about the picture quality of their brand new Dish Network picture. Many don't know HD from a hole in the ground. Forget MPEG4! And many would need a second mortgage to buy a big screen HDTV. This is likely to be the case for the next few years. What are they going to do with a 211 or 622 on their 13" NTSC TV?
So why are your marketing gurus making these apparent marketing blunders? I would gladly pay more per month for the additional non-local HD programming. I would do this just to have it and to support your efforts (R&D). I don't really see why you are slighting the customers that give you the most money per month by hiding the new HD content. Why would you drive them to your competition?
I can understand why the locals are being in introduced using MPEG4 due to bandwidth restrictions. Those that can't get OTA locals now will jump to the new MPEG4 receivers. This is good. Think about that. Straight-forward reason for forcing upgrades at a measured pace. "We (Dish Network) MUST send HD locals in MPEG4 because of bandwidth." This is definitely an acceptable premise and reason for people to upgrade. I just don't need HD locals.
I know technology evolves. SD receivers and SD TV's can't display ATSC signals. This type of change is mandated by Congress. False MPEG4 headers are not.
No, I just don't see the need for a new receiver(s). I will stay with my current setup and packages until the receivers die. And then I will see which provider will take the best care of me.
I am trying hard to understand.
Have your marketing people find a face-saving way to fix this.
That's all I have to say about that.
He strolls away, calmly putting on his flame suit......
What is my incentive to move to a new receiver?
I live in a Top 21 (or 22, OK, maybe 23) market. I am able to receive my locals OTA on a 921 and an 811. My 522's receive the STL locals in compressed, blotchy SD. When I feel like it, I am able to watch the Voom loops to my heart's content. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy the HD pack and the Voom channels. And HD ESPN along with HD HBO and HD Showtime. The new, additional Voom channels would be nice to have but are in no way worth $49, $99 or $299 to upgrade to a lease in exchange for my "owned" receivers. (And only one per year? Who thought that one up?)
For your consideration:
Your company has perhaps 25,000,000 (WAG) receivers out in the wild. I can't help but think that 80% (WAG) of your customers live in major metro areas and those of us that have adopted the HD lifestyle can receive locals OTA. Why would we want to purchase a re-processed, compressed local HD signal from your company? Seeing what Dish Network is doing to the SD locals and to Voom tells me that is a hard sell. I am not interested!
I also know from doing hundreds of Dish Network installs that an overwhelming majority of the customers that I installed had 20 year old RCA consoles or 13" TV's. I was occasionally embarassed when someone with a 36" SD TV would ask me about the picture quality of their brand new Dish Network picture. Many don't know HD from a hole in the ground. Forget MPEG4! And many would need a second mortgage to buy a big screen HDTV. This is likely to be the case for the next few years. What are they going to do with a 211 or 622 on their 13" NTSC TV?
So why are your marketing gurus making these apparent marketing blunders? I would gladly pay more per month for the additional non-local HD programming. I would do this just to have it and to support your efforts (R&D). I don't really see why you are slighting the customers that give you the most money per month by hiding the new HD content. Why would you drive them to your competition?
I can understand why the locals are being in introduced using MPEG4 due to bandwidth restrictions. Those that can't get OTA locals now will jump to the new MPEG4 receivers. This is good. Think about that. Straight-forward reason for forcing upgrades at a measured pace. "We (Dish Network) MUST send HD locals in MPEG4 because of bandwidth." This is definitely an acceptable premise and reason for people to upgrade. I just don't need HD locals.
I know technology evolves. SD receivers and SD TV's can't display ATSC signals. This type of change is mandated by Congress. False MPEG4 headers are not.
No, I just don't see the need for a new receiver(s). I will stay with my current setup and packages until the receivers die. And then I will see which provider will take the best care of me.
I am trying hard to understand.
Have your marketing people find a face-saving way to fix this.
That's all I have to say about that.
He strolls away, calmly putting on his flame suit......
