Dish Adding Voom to there Line up?

[ScottChez]

In the Retailer Chat Tuesday Charlie seemed to stumble when has about Voom.

He said something like we may buy the Service as in offer there channel package at 65.5

Or was He saying they will just buy the whole service or company.

I think He was telling the true with the word *MAY* in that He does not know as they are still in talks.

Here is a new article that talks about this new Joint deal- its at the very end.
(this was pasted from an other posting on this board in the voom forum)

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NEW YORK (Variety) --- Chuck Dolan's satellite programming service Voom has launched the first 24-hour high-definition all-news channel in the U.S.

HD News becomes the 21st exclusive high-def network offered by the Voom service to the approximately 5,000 owners of satellite dishes and high-def TV sets who buy Voom from Rainbow Media Holdings, the Dolan operation that markets it. (The 5,000 is a Wall Street estimate; Rainbow declined to reveal the actual number of subscribers.)

"We've built a fully equipped, fully automated HD studio with robotic cameras," said Greg Moyer, president of regional programming for Rainbow Media Holdings, who oversees Rainbow's high-def programming and production. Rainbow is a division of Dolan's parent company, Cablevision Systems.

Handicapped by a small subscriber base and by zero advertising revenues (none of the 21 networks will take 30-second spots), HD News will keep costs down by drawing on the expertise of Dolan's two-decade-old 24-hour regional news net News 12 Long Island and its spinoffs in Connecticut, New Jersey, Westchester and the Bronx.

Moyer says Rainbow is opening bureaus in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and Miami, where producers will tape their stories with high-def cameras specifically for HD News. For international news, Rainbow is negotiating with NHK Japan, which Moyer said has more HD cameras covering worldwide news events than any other broadcast operation, here or abroad.

HD News also plans to start engineering what Moyer calls "a sharing pool" for stories shot in high def by local TV stations throughout the country. More of these high-def stations have started cropping up in the last year or two; Moyer said his staff would barter stories put together by HD News in exchange for stories with national implications that are produced by stations in local markets.

Another Rainbow high-def network, Ultra-HD, has begun operation. It will also save money by focusing on the kind of fashion coverage that has served as a staple of Dolan's Metro TV, a local cable network targeted to the greater New York area.

"We're adding high-def cameras to Metro TV's coverage of the New York fashion scene and making it available to a national satellite audience," said Moyer.

Can news and fashion give Voom a needed adrenaline shot to bring in more subscribers? The majority of analysts who cover Cablevision are deeply suspicious of Voom's prospects as a stand-alone business, especially given the stiff competition from DirecTV and EchoStar and the cable sector's recent embrace of high def.

Cable networks ranging from HBO and Showtime to Discovery and ESPN are creating high-def clones, and the broadcast nets are transmitting an increasingly higher proportion of their primetime series in high def. DirecTV and EchoStar are trying to speed up the licensing of these networks and TV stations, hoping to create enough high-def programming to discourage their customers from defecting to Zoom.

To help fund Zoom, Dolan is due to spin off Rainbow DBS later in 2004, assuming the SEC completes its investigation into Cablevision's accounting discrepancies.

Last fall, Cablevision announced it would couple the fledgling DBS business with its Rainbow-owned cable nets IFC, WE and AMC, which are valued at around $4 billion.

Proceeds from the stock spinoff are intended to finance the venture. Some analysts are concerned that too big a chunk of Cablevision's resources could get siphoned into Voom if the spinoff is delayed for too long.

Another possibility is an outright sale of Voom. EchoStar would be the leading candidate because, according to analysts, it has fallen short on capacity to deliver its own high-definition services. Wall Street speculates that the Voom satellite could fetch $300 million.

But Dolan has given no indication that he's looking for a buyer at this stage.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Charlie made a comment yesterday on the retailer chat saying something to the effect of, he was looking to buy product from VOOM.

I have the Retailer Chat from Yesterday in AVI format and I will try to capture the audio of Charlie talking about VOOM for all to hear.

 

[ScottChez]

Remember last Fall in the Emergency Retailer Chat when Charlie said, to future proof your instal you should add the second 65.5 dish?


He must of been talking to Voom even back then.


How about $9.95 for the basic HD Package on 110

or

$19.95 for the 110 basic package AND the VOOM package.

Would you buy that?

 

[Mr Tony]

ScottChez

Its 61.5, not 65.5

 

[gpflepsen]

Zoom = Voom

65.5 = 61.5

Just the facts, Ma'am.

 

[jeffwtux]

I say buy the whole company, then they can have some leverage against Time Warner and Comcast/Disney when they get blackmailed annually over rate hikes.

 

[Bobby]

Remember last Fall in the Emergency Retailer Chat when Charlie said, to future proof your instal you should add the second 65.5 dish?


He must of been talking to Voom even back then.


How about $9.95 for the basic HD Package on 110

or

$19.95 for the 110 basic package AND the VOOM package.

Would you buy that?

Would I buy that? Without a doubt in my mind!!! But only if it mirrors on 148. My look at 61.5 is almost blocked by redwood trees in a public park. In a short time, I'll have no look at all.

 

[Bruce]

I remember a story about Charlie meeting with Dolan around the Time of the MVDDS auctions and right after the story came out South.com stops bidding on some of the Top Areas and DTVNorwich(Dolan)got them,I wonder if something else is going on?

 

[James Long]

Remember last Fall in the Emergency Retailer Chat when Charlie said, to future proof your instal you should add the second 61.5 dish?

I remember a lot of things that now could very well be irrelevant.

At the time Charlie said that, E* didn't know what they were doing with HD. The expectation prior to that date was to move to 105 at some point for "one dish" HD, but when Charlie realized that the coverage really was as bad as the coverage map it threw 105 out of the game (until 105's bird can be replaced).

HDs appeared on 110, and no new HDs (after the initial rush) have made it to E*. Charlie doesn't think any of the missing channels are compelling. Is E* providing 61.5 dishes for HD subscribers (other than CBSHD) now? Or are we clinging on to ancient words from Charlie and assuming that he still thinks 61.5 is required for "future proofing"?

It does appear that if VOOM's *programming* proves to be compelling we will see some of VOOM's offerings appear on E*. Perhaps via transponder sharing or perhaps via rebroadcast on the new AMC-15 105. From the clip Charlie mentions buying the programming.

If V* does sell its exclusive programming to E* it would hurt their claim of "exclusive HD content". That can probably be worked around by keeping the Voom name prominent. "Voom Exclusive HD Channels via Dish Network".

Anything is possible if enough money is envolved.

JL

 

[WLong]

I remember a lot of things that now could very well be irrelevant.

At the time Charlie said that, E* didn't know what they were doing with HD. The expectation prior to that date was to move to 105 at some point for "one dish" HD, but when Charlie realized that the coverage really was as bad as the coverage map it threw 105 out of the game (until 105's bird can be replaced).

HDs appeared on 110, and no new HDs (after the initial rush) have made it to E*. Charlie doesn't think any of the missing channels are compelling. Is E* providing 61.5 dishes for HD subscribers (other than CBSHD) now? Or are we clinging on to ancient words from Charlie and assuming that he still thinks 61.5 is required for "future proofing"?

It does appear that if VOOM's *programming* proves to be compelling we will see some of VOOM's offerings appear on E*. Perhaps via transponder sharing or perhaps via rebroadcast on the new AMC-15 105. From the clip Charlie mentions buying the programming.

If V* does sell its exclusive programming to E* it would hurt their claim of "exclusive HD content". That can probably be worked around by keeping the Voom name prominent. "Voom Exclusive HD Channels via Dish Network".

Anything is possible if enough money is envolved.

JL

I would pay an extra $10 a month for that.

 

[TBarclay]

After listening to Scott's audio cut of Charlie's comment, I'm convinced Charlie was just talking about offering some of the programming Voom has, not actually getting the programming FROM Voom. I could be wrong, but that was my take.

 

[WLong]

The more HD content they can muster up on DISH, the better. It would be nice if they didnt charge more than the fee for the HD Package as well.

 

[dlsnyder]

I may be off base here but I don't think that E* hardware is capable of handling what Voom is putting up on 61.5. Even if it is possible now it won't be when they make the switch to MPEG-4. It seems to me that retransmission would be necessary if this were to happen, unless E* made an outright purchase of Voom.

 

[WLong]

I may be off base here but I don't think that E* hardware is capable of handling what Voom is putting up on 61.5. Even if it is possible now it won't be when they make the switch to MPEG-4. It seems to me that retransmission would be necessary if this were to happen, unless E* made an outright purchase of Voom.

When are they switching to MPEG4? After they finish adding the 39 channels?

 

[dlsnyder]

As I recall that was the announced plan from day one. The speculation was that they wouldn't be able to deliver on the promise of 39 HD channels until they made the switch and that they would have to swap out all IRDs in the field. No official word has come out on either rumor as far as I know.

 

[rtt2]

Isn't VOOM using Digicipher II with a NDS Conditional Access system? If this is the case that is one hell of signal and Dish Network boxes cannot decode that signal. That is all being delivered in MPEG2 8PSK with 3/4 FEC.
Unless VOOM is able to transmit 2 signals with two conditional access systems like Nagravision and Digicipher II NDS I don't see how both systems would be combatible.
Loosing the compelling exclusive content on VOOM loses all reason to buy VOOM as a service provider. Why go VOOM when you can go Dish?
This may evolve into a messy relationship in a few years like the Pegesus relationship is for DirecTV. If VOOM just esentually is reselling for Dish what is the point? VOOM should just concentrate then on content production and forget distribution.

 

[Hotdish]

When are they switching to MPEG4? After they finish adding the 39 channels?

Voom's current plan is to switch to MPEG-4 in the late summer / early fall of 2004. They claim the Harmonic transmission gear is not quite ready (although Harmonic claims it's ready to go now).

 

[Hotdish]

Isn't VOOM using Digicipher II with a NDS Conditional Access system? If this is the case that is one hell of signal and Dish Network boxes cannot decode that signal. That is all being delivered in MPEG2 8PSK with 3/4 FEC.
Unless VOOM is able to transmit 2 signals with two conditional access systems like Nagravision and Digicipher II NDS I don't see how both systems would be combatible.
Loosing the compelling exclusive content on VOOM loses all reason to buy VOOM as a service provider. Why go VOOM when you can go Dish?
This may evolve into a messy relationship in a few years like the Pegesus relationship is for DirecTV. If VOOM just esentually is reselling for Dish what is the point? VOOM should just concentrate then on content production and forget distribution.

I can't confirm re. Digicipher II and NDS C/A, but I can tell you that the program guide is NDS, and that Cablevision's cable systems use NDS Conditional Access. So it seems very likely that you are right.

 

[Stargazer]

Perhaps Dish would have some kind of deal like they do with EarthLink or something where you can bundle your services and save from each provider when you sign up for service for the first time, or Dish could just sell some programming for them to Dish subscribers or share satellite space.

 

[orcatek]

Maybe an expansion card can be used in the boxes to read the Voom feed.

Then you send another upgrade check to E* or maybe voom and pay for the feed. Voom get sell it as a VOOM expansion module for your dish reciever. They could still claim it was Voom exclusive, as you need their add-on card to get it.

Thoughts??