Dish Bankruptcy - Business as Usual

[fmj77]

Except you do not need a Gemini Air for DirecTV Streaming, a Roku ( or others) will work also, no lease fee.

The ATT C71KW-400 DirectTV streaming box i got off Ebay has no lease fee either and uses a traditional remote and UI where you can easily flip through channels. No need for the crappy app DTV has for Roku and Android.

 

[slow_poke_pete]

I guess you had that issue since cable was invented

No!!! And me and how many others with what cable costs today the crap customer service reps in some cases and all of the commercials it's just not worth it any longer

 

[Strega]

Certainly conventional cable TV has involved paying for channels with ads at least back to when I first saw cable TV. However, the percentage of time for ads keeps increasing, and the prices keep going up.

But a quick check at an inflation calculator makes me question whether they are going up faster than inflation. For example, I think our cable TV bill in the early 70s was in the teens, and an inflation calculator says that $13 in 1973 is about $98 now. And that was for about 18 analog SD channels with commercials, one cable box, no DVR, no remote even.

There are more ads per hour now, however the number of ads actually watched per hour is probably at least 80% lower due to DVRs. This presents a bit of a vicious cycle for those who don't skip the ads because they have to make up for the rest of us.

 

[dishdude]

Certainly conventional cable TV has involved paying for channels with ads at least back to when I first saw cable TV. However, the percentage of time for ads keeps increasing, and the prices keep going up.

But a quick check at an inflation calculator makes me question whether they are going up faster than inflation. For example, I think our cable TV bill in the early 70s was in the teens, and an inflation calculator says that $13 in 1973 is about $98 now. And that was for about 18 analog SD channels with commercials, one cable box, no DVR, no remote even.

There are more ads per hour now, however the number of ads actually watched per hour is probably at least 80% lower due to DVRs. This presents a bit of a vicious cycle for those who don't skip the ads because they have to make up for the rest of us.

This is like talking about the number of ads in a newspaper. Times change and technology rolls on.

 

[comfortably_numb]

Times change and technology rolls on.

Exactly. I absolutely love satellite tech, it was my hobby for years. But the writing has been on the wall for a long time (and we certainly didn't need a certain poster on this site reminding us of it every couple weeks)

 

[Bobby]

Exactly. I absolutely love satellite tech, it was my hobby for years. But the writing has been on the wall for a long time (and we certainly didn't need a certain poster on this site reminding us of it every couple weeks)

Consider him the Dow Jones Index page for Satellite Guys.

 

[navychop]

reminding us of it every couple weeks

You are far too generous. Doubt it's that long.

 

[slow_poke_pete]

Certainly conventional cable TV has involved paying for channels with ads at least back to when I first saw cable TV. However, the percentage of time for ads keeps increasing, and the prices keep going up.

But a quick check at an inflation calculator makes me question whether they are going up faster than inflation. For example, I think our cable TV bill in the early 70s was in the teens, and an inflation calculator says that $13 in 1973 is about $98 now. And that was for about 18 analog SD channels with commercials, one cable box, no DVR, no remote even.

There are more ads per hour now, however the number of ads actually watched per hour is probably at least 80% lower due to DVRs. This presents a bit of a vicious cycle for those who don't skip the ads because they have to make up for the rest of us.

I remember in 96 my cable bill was $ 5.00 a month just for basic broadcast locals only. We had dtv and ussb

 

[slow_poke_pete]

Exactly. I absolutely love satellite tech, it was my hobby for years. But the writing has been on the wall for a long time (and we certainly didn't need a certain poster on this site reminding us of it every couple weeks)

I was waiting for that person to tell Scott that he was crazy and didn't know what he was talking about and that Cloud dvrs are better than the hopper 3 . I prefer sat all programming is in front of my face and for what I watch streaming would cost more than a sat sub

 

[slow_poke_pete]

Consider him the Dow Jones Index page for Satellite Guys.

Well Scott's not making any $$$ lol

 

[Strega]

We had a locals only cable package called "Lifeline cable" for around $10 in the 1980s. I believe that was government mandated. Anyway Dish's Locals pack at $14 is in the same range after inflation. (A bit more than your price but less than ours.) Though I don't think anyone forces satellite vendors to offer it as a separate package.

 

[Juan]

We had a locals only cable package called "Lifeline cable" for around $10 in the 1980s. I believe that was government mandated. Anyway Dish's Locals pack at $14 is in the same range after inflation. (A bit more than your price but less than ours.) Though I don't think anyone forces satellite vendors to offer it as a separate package.

In the 70s cable with HBO was like $7 or $8... had one of those old descrambler boxes for HBO...flip a switch you could watch HBO but everything else would be scrambled

 

[comfortably_numb]

In the 70s cable with HBO was like $7 or $8... had one of those old descrambler boxes for HBO...flip a switch you could watch HBO but everything else would be scrambled

Wrong. They had traps they put at the pole or in-line outside your house. I know because my dad bought some of the ones that descrambled HBO and the Disney Channel at the Hamvention in Dayton in 1984.

 

[Juan]

Wrong. They had traps they put at the pole or in-line outside your house. I know because my dad bought some of the ones that descrambled HBO and the Disney Channel at the Hamvention in Dayton in 1984.

Later they did but originally circa 1978 they had desrambler boxes...every cable company was different...this was way way before comcast..way before convertor boxes and most of the cable only channels

 

[dishstaller]

They had traps they put at the pole or in-line outside your house

Yep, that's the way it was at my first apartment. Someone mentioned the trap to me so I opened the box and sure enough, there was the lifesaver roll sized thing that was inline. I removed it and HBO magically appeared. Seems like there was just one channel of HBO but this was in 1985 so I can't remember.

 

[comfortably_numb]

way before convertor boxes and most of the cable only channels

I may only be 47 but I'm fully aware of the distinction between analog cable TV and modern digital cable TV

 

[Strega]

As far as I can remember, where we lived, ADDing HBO was $9. We didn't - dad thought that was ridiculous for just one channel. Actually he thought the whole cable bill was ridiculous, but basic cable was the family compromise.

We had a mechanical button cable box that could theoretically select 36 channels, (a row of 12 buttons and a rotary selector for 3 rows of numbers) but only the first two rows were populated and some of those were HBO etc, that we didn't pay for.

 

[Juan]

I may only be 47 but I'm fully aware of the distinction between analog cable TV and modern digital cable TV

Cable was basically a large centralized antenna with a few added microwaved channels...I wouldn't even call it analog cable

 

[Strega]

Here is a photo I found of the same model converter box we had - this picture is obviously from much later than ours because MTV, CNN, ESPN etc were years in the future when we had that box. However, it is similar to ours in that HBO, Cinemax etc. were each one channel.

 

[Juan]

As far as I can remember, where we lived, ADDing HBO was $9. We didn't - dad thought that was ridiculous for just one channel. Actually he thought the whole cable bill was ridiculous, but basic cable was the family compromise.

We had a mechanical button cable box that could theoretically select 36 channels, (a row of 12 buttons and a rotary selector for 3 rows of numbers) but only the first two rows were populated and some of those were HBO etc, that we didn't pay for.

This was when HBO was only on after 5pm and was on weekends all day...way way way way way back