December 18th Dish Retailer Chat Recap

Interesting that the 501 & 508 are not listed on the renamings list. I wonder if we should read something into that.....
 
Dish is just implementing the "pop" business strategy of the past few years. When revenue drops, instead of lowering prices to sell more, raise them to sell less at a higher rate and hopefully with an increase in revenue. Just look at beer or Pepsi/Coke. U.S. gallon consumption has been falling for both for several years, so what has been the response from the vendor, keep raising the price to recapture that lost revenue. That's why a 12-pack of Pepsi/Coke is being retailed now at $6, when it was less than $3 less than 3 years ago. And all the beer majors (at least here in metro-Denver) implemented a 20% price increase this fall (as confirmed by the owners of my local liquor store).

I'm beginning to think that this economic downturn may be much worse than that of the early 1980s because prices are continuing to climb on many products and services and those prices that shot up dramatically last summer (e.g., food products, airfares), ostensibly because of higher fuel costs, have not come down with the dramatic drop in fuel costs this fall. While consumers are tapped-out and many are losing their jobs, the real cost of living continues to rise. This sets the scene for the largest split of rich and poor in the U.S. since the Great Depression. I think a large segment of folks will be permanently pushed down out of the economic middle class by the coming economic collapse.


Don't sugar coat it tell us how you really feel. ;)

No I agree with every thing you wrote. DISH is pricing itself right out of the market of most people's homes. Lets look at some of their brilliant moves in the past few years.

1) NO dvr fee on any dvr to 5.98 PER DVR. The stupidest move in history. Came out with dvr advantage but only cover 1 dvr.
2) No phone connection fee to 5.00 for dual tuners & now back to .00 for the first dual tuner dvr ,but will be charged for second and or third receiver if they are dual tuners.
3) Raising prices for additional receivers from 5.00 -6.00 for sd and 7.00 for hd receivers. Directv still charges just 4.99 per receiver for additional receivers after the first.
4) Raising prices on pay per views from 3.99 to 4.99 for sd /5.99 for hd and if you hit the preloaded video on demand movies on DISH's portion of the hard drive 5.99 for sd/6.99 for hd . THIS is the highest in the satellite industry.

Now they could of cut any of these fees to offset some of the increases or made it more attractive to sub to a pack, but NNNNNNOOOOOOOO!!!!! They just try to combine a fee or two and say they save you .98 cents. WHOPPEE!!. IF they had any balls they would do somethings that would be truely bold in the industry.

NO DVR FEES and no ADDITIONAL RECEIVER FEES if you sub to AEP. Really want to make a statement ? REDUCE the hd fee if you sub to all AEP + hd +platinum pack. You could only charge 15.00 instead of 20.00 .

This would do two things; It would make a lot of subs start subbing to AEP + hd + platinum pack which would cause the average cost per sub to go up, which is supposed to be good for channel providers and helps DISH rake in more money. This would also help attract more new subs who would go to DISH to get in on this great deal which would add new subs that DISH needs to stay in business and to get its stock up. Conversely more new receivers would be needed so Echostar would benefit from an increase in demand for receivers.

Or DISH could continue to play the shell game and rename your programming packs, receiver names, combine existing fees in different combinations , all in an attempt to obscure from the customers that you are indeed Raising your prices every damn year way above inflation. This is not the time to raise the prices this much. Revenue per sub will go down as customers make the decision to either cut down on programming and /or cut off extra receivers. Either way DISH will continue to lose existing subs to the competition over their greedy fee structure and ever increasing prices.
 
People are gonna leave because the quality of programming to price ratio will be too low.

Whan a-la carte is implemented (wishful thinking), that will be end of "socialsm for the content mongers".
 
The only way I see this being fixed is if a la carte programming is forced in by the FCC. . . .
A la carte would end all that. You would pay a base fee to your provider and then add on packages for each channel group you wanted. Those channel groups would be forced to compete on content and price as seen by the consumer. The channel providers would be free to raise their prices all they wanted, but their watchers would pay the price, not every sub to a system that may never tune in their channel.

Wait a cotton-pickin' minute. A la carte is NOT adding "packages" for each "channel group"! A la carte should mean you add just the individual channels you want. I signed up for Dish before they actually started service, and my first Dish programming package was called "Dish Picks - 10 for 10". I had my choice of (almost) any 10 channels for $10. It later became 10 for $15, then it was eliminated when Dish adopted the tier pricing model used by cable companies. I loved it when I had it. If you can't pick ONLY the channels you want, it's not really a la carte. The sports channels are so much more expensive than anything else that they'd have to charge more for them, but I'd gladly pay $30.00 a month for my pick of ANY 10 non-premium, non-sports channels in HD. I probably don't even watch 10 different channels now, but I'll not pay an extra $30 a month just to get the one channel I want in an upper tier.
 
As an HD Absolute customer, the only channel that would get me to switch up to a new HD package would be Fox News. Otherwise, I'm happy.
 
We checked our dvr timer list tonight and found that 70% of them were on the local only channels. The others were on stations that offer the programs online for free. Too bad we're in the middle of Amish Hell, Ohio otherwise we could drop them altogether. Unfortunately,m like the movie, "O Brother Where Art Thou?" we're 'two days from everywhere and running up a 35' aerial isn't an option. What about FTA setups though?
 
Innovation by obfuscation. Confuse the bejeebus out of the customers so they can't figure out what's really going on. Another in a continuing string of dissapointments.

These pricing changes confuse the hell out of me, and I work for them! Plus, the renaming of the receivers are just going to make my job that much more difficult. :mad:
 
If ala carte happens the following will take place:

Channels will try to provide BETTER content to COMPETE for your business, as it should be all along. This means better content but ultimately fewer channels. This will also mean that these channels will want more money since their channels are being purchased more often. The crap channels will end up not surviving. We will have fewer channels but there will be more room on the satellites so we will either get better quality or more channels that are worthy of purchase.

Imagine how much the local network stations will want then for their channels. When ala carte happens, you can look forward to paying at least 3-10 times as much for those network stations since that is probably what most people watch especially for their news during the evening. At this point there will be even more content available on demand (IPTV).
 
Imagine how much the local network stations will want then for their channels. When ala carte happens, you can look forward to paying at least 3-10 times as much for those network stations since that is probably what most people watch especially for their news during the evening.
That's why 'a la carte' won't work and if forced, will not be the great option people think it will be. Currently, a network can base their price to a carrier based on the number of subscribers and "discount" the price. With 'a la carte', the initial price will be rather high.
 
Hello,

I've searched through this thread but can't find the info I need re: the price increase. We're renting a place through the winter and they have Dish so they asked that we keep Dish service (rather than switching to another company) if we wanted some sort of "pay tv service". I looked at the bill breakdown yesterday and see that they have the Digital Home Advantage Pack with 2 receivers, AT250, locals and I think the insurance/service plan. No DVR's at all and the receivers are wicked old.

Any idea how the price increase will affect us?
 
That's why 'a la carte' won't work and if forced, will not be the great option people think it will be. Currently, a network can base their price to a carrier based on the number of subscribers and "discount" the price. With 'a la carte', the initial price will be rather high.

DING! DING! DING! We have a winner! We'll end up paying more and getting less.
 
Sounds like what a dish customer might be saying...If there bill is going to go up $10.00

Unfortunately, this is a Pandora's Box problem. Many of us feel that the prices will go up, but nobody can really say for sure. However, once we open this box there is no going back. If prices go down, it will probably drive down the prices of packages and people will go back to these packages, but after a lot of channels die. Then package prices will rise again. If prices go up, we will end up paying more for fewer choices and that system will remain in place.
 
Yes, but with less channels. There will be plenty of bandwidth to go around. I can see even the SD channels looking good.:D

But when the tradeoff for more channels or more quality comes up, everybody always wants more channels. I'm currently stuck with Comcast, and they went to 3 HD digital channels per analog channel. It looks like garbage, but few notice. Comcast has a policy of hooking everything up with a piece of coax feeding NTSC channel 3, even HD DVRs. I bet that 80% of the HD setups here are being fed with RF and nobody notices.

We all want 100% coverage of the stuff we are interested in, and 0% coverage of the stuff somebody else is interested in.

I can guarantee that if and when this hits, some of your favorites will be history.
 
Wait a cotton-pickin' minute. A la carte is NOT adding "packages" for each "channel group"! A la carte should mean you add just the individual channels you want. I signed up for Dish before they actually started service, and my first Dish programming package was called "Dish Picks - 10 for 10". I had my choice of (almost) any 10 channels for $10. It later became 10 for $15, then it was eliminated when Dish adopted the tier pricing model used by cable companies. I loved it when I had it. If you can't pick ONLY the channels you want, it's not really a la carte. The sports channels are so much more expensive than anything else that they'd have to charge more for them, but I'd gladly pay $30.00 a month for my pick of ANY 10 non-premium, non-sports channels in HD. I probably don't even watch 10 different channels now, but I'll not pay an extra $30 a month just to get the one channel I want in an upper tier.

It would probably be channel groups as packaged by a provider. While it could be individual channels, most likely it would end up being the HBO model, you buy HBO, you get all the HBO channels. Discovery has a bunch, Disney, ESPN, etc. The providers could make deals, 5 ESPNs for $X or just ESPN for $Y. Very similar to the C-Band method where you buy channel groups.
http://www.callnps.com/alacarte.htm
 
Unless legislatively mandated (NEVER HAPPEN), a la carte will never happen, because the business model is already set by the program providers (you buy a programming package from me and I charge you a modest price for the whole enchilada).

It will never be mandated by legislation, because the content providers have an effective lobby in DC and they like it as it is (yes, the major networks own most of the cable content channels).

It also works out well for the distributors, they do not have to keep track of each and every channel, who has what and how much do we charge him (what a nightmare that would be).
 

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