Dish Pricing Update

[Scott Greczkowski]

As you might have seen on the homepage, today in my MultiChannel column I posted a rumor about Dishes new pricing which is effective on February 1st.

It appears that the numbers I posted in my column are indeed correct, I have been contacted by a number of Dish employees confirming what I wrote.

You can read what I wrote at Rumor Alert: New Dish Pricing? - The Satellite Dish | Blog on Multichannel News

There has been some confusion though about the new monthly receiver pricing and if that pricing was per receiver or per account. A number of people claiming to be Dish folks wrote me to tell me that it is per receiver. But they also tried telling me that most folks bill won't go up much if anything at all.

One employee explained it best so I am going to cut and paste that persons explanation to me so that everyone has a better understanding of whats going on.

You are correct in some fashion about the receiver fees but they are eliminating or rolling other fees into one. But it will increase some bills and decrease some depending on what they have for programming and type of receiver family they fall into.

For example in your case with 6 duo dvrs you would be charged 17.00 per additional receiver so it would be 17.00 x 5. But you would eliminate five of your dvr fee so you would subtract 5.98 x 5. Plus you would eliminate your other five A/O fees so that would subtract another 25.00 or 30.00. So your bill will be one of the extreme ones that goes up around 30.00 because the average family does not have 6 duo dvr's. Plus if you have any tv2 connection fees those are going away. The receiver fee is only on additional receivers not the primary.

In my case I have 2 duo dvrs so I will be charged one 17.00 fee but I will have one dvr fee eliminated and my a/o fee eliminated and rolled up into the receiver fee so my bill will go up around 6.00.

I should note again that while employees are confirming the new pricing and pricing structure these numbers are not official until announced publiclly by Dish Network.

 

[kstuart]

Is there special pricing for 501s, 508s and 721-replacement-receivers ?

 

[JonE]

AppleTV and Netflix will look better and better if this goes through.

 

[navychop]

Actually, I think the DHPP bit is overdue. Too much abuse there.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

BTW the ones who will see the biggest increase are those with AEP since the DVR fees are no longer waived and are built into the receiver price.

I can tell you I will be dropping all the premiums when this new pricing takes effect.

 

[tigerfan33]

.....and I thought I was happy earlier this year when I ordered a 612 and they sent the 722k instead.

 

[ehren]

With the economy in the crapper they have some balls to do this!!!

 

[goaliebob99]

BTW the ones who will see the biggest increase are those with AEP since the DVR fees are no longer waived and are built into the receiver price.

I can tell you I will be dropping all the premiums when this new pricing takes effect.

What about those getting installed tommorow? Will they be locked in to the current pricing structure they were promised when they signed up? It would suck to have XYZ promised to you for your first bill, and have it really be ABC more!

 

[davec111]

The Last Straw

Have been a loyal DISH customer for 10 years. I just connected the Roku player with a $9.00 monthly Netflix plan for my HD set. Since I now have 17,000 titles to choose from, it will be easy to say goodbye to DISH. They just shot themselves in the foot with the February receiver increase.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I asked about the 501/508's since those currently have no DVR fee with them and was told that there was no answer yet and that question was asked at the meeting and they didn't have an answer.

Just to note... I am only passing on the info that is being given to me. Dish Network the company will not answer questions on this until after they announce the new pricing themselves officially, which I expect at CES. (I also expect them to say that they had no rate increase this year for programming which while true they are padding it in the backend with these receiver fees.)

 

[Amiga]

Owned equipment and a reality check

I'm at a loss to what this means for those of us who own our equipment and have never been under any commitment nor promotion? Does the primary receiver, whether dual tuner or not, include a fee or not?

Also, I don't get why DISH is doing this during a recession. I know, the cost of programming.

DISH recently found a means to kill (probably temporarily) the hacked FTA receiver community that uses IKS. I've actually been reading threads where these people lacking TV right now are buying legit subscriptions. Does Charlie really think these people are going to stick around being nickel and dimed.

 

[TheKrell]

Well, that is a confusing rumor.

$17 a month for a Duo DVR receiver, $14 a month for Duo receivers and Solo class receivers will be $7.

I have a 722 and (2) 612's which are currently costing me $12/mo apiece. Will they be going down to $7/mo apiece?

 

[nsafreak]

So if I understand this correctly since I only have a 722k hooked up on my account and no additional receivers then my bill won't change at all. That is a nasty price hike though for customers with additional receivers on their account. Your normal fee for each additional receiver currently if I recall correctly is $5 for SD and $7 for HD (whether it's a duo or single receiver) and then you have the $5.99 DVR fee for each DVR. So customers that used to pay $10.99 for a SD Duo DVR or $12.99 for a HD Duo DVR are going to be paying $17 a pop for each additional one of those on an account which would be a difference of $6.01 to $4.01 per receiver. And on top of that the AEP no longer waives the DVR fees that it used to waive.

So let's say you had 6 HD Duo DVRs on your account and they're all hooked up to a phoneline/network. Today you'd be looking at five $7 additional outlet fees per DVR along with six DVR fees of $5.99 apiece bringing it to a total of $70.94. You could at least sub to the AEP and bring the price down a bit which isn't bad. Instead you're now going to pay for five additional outlets at $17 apiece bringing the total to $85 without the possibility of saving anything even if you subbed to the AEP. That's a pretty significant increase.

I can understand the change for the DHPP. They've increased the price by a penny and now have tacked on a cancellation fee. I guess they had too many people adding it on then taking it off after the problem was fixed. At least they cut the cost for a service call in half to $15. Oh and as a quick note Comcast in my area charges for a service technician to come out to replace equipment unless you subscribe to their warranty plan although you do have the option of driving to the local office, which I guess isn't too bad.

Overall I'm not a big fan of this plan at all. I foresee a LOT of customers that were subscribing to the AEP for the sole reason that it eliminated the DVR fees cutting back on their programming level a considerable amount.

 

[TigerpounceTN]

So, is the first receiver still free even if it is a dual tuner like the 722k?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Yes first receiver is free.

 

[TigerpounceTN]

Yes first receiver is free.

Good. I shouldn't have to worry about this then.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Correct, for many folks there is not going to be an issue, infact a few will see their bills go down. Its not all negative.

 

[TheWGP]

Any idea how this applies to DVR Advantage? I'm on the TurboHD Bronze DVR Advantage and just wondering what the potential change would be. All I have is one 722 - so I'm exempt from the additional $17 fee, I take it. Man, I was thinking about adding a second 722... this is a HUGE disincentive to do that!

My real question is about the DVR fee - if that's going away, how does that get broken down for DVR Advantage? My understanding is that DVR Advantage saved you 98 cents, so it was technically a different price package or something like that?

Anxiously awaiting CES news... thanks for the rumors, Scott!

 

[all4jo]

This stinks for me because i lease a 722 and 2 622's. and i own a 508.
i also dont have the receivers plugged into a telephone line.

 

[n0qcu]

it looks like its a good thng I got rid of two of my duo dvrs may need to get rid of two more.