HBO/Cinemax Takedown

[comfortably_numb]

Everyone on this forum knows I hate Dish, especially after years of being one of their biggest advocates.

I’m 39 years old, been in this industry since I was 17 years old.

Worked my A$$ off to be one of Dish networks top retailers, and earned every dollar I made from them.

I was hoping to just work for Dish one day.

By the way things look, I’ll likely end up at AT&T or Comcast.

But to have everything you worked for your entire adult life taken away... Over greed from the upper management at Dish.

You would feel the same.

When I say the things I say, I don’t mean cancel your dish and get Directv, Comcast or spectrum through me. It would be nice and anyone who has done business with me knows I’m going to give them an unbiased honest opinion or anything I sell. If I can cost them a few customers along the way, I’m happy even if I don’t get those sales.

I know nobody here is going to cancel their dish subscription because of me. But a lot of people who personally know me and see how badly I was treated have.

But from a retailers point of view, channel take downs are brutal. You got angry customers calling all day threatening to cancel, and then you got the chargebacks from the ones who actually do.

When it comes to chargebacks, a chargeback is a chargeback and dish doesn’t care. At the end it’s your fault for signing up that customer to begin with.

Atleast when Directv had a dispute they said they would re-inburse us for any chargebacks they where responsible for causing.

Do I miss selling dish? Yes!

Would I go back to working with Dish again? Hell no!

I sleep so much better at night not dealing with dish.

I'm also 39. Satellite TV has been a passion for me too in one capacity or another since the early 90's. I know you lost money with Dish. It appears that they are a difficult business partner. Try to separate the emotion from it and remember its a business- its not personal. I sometimes wonder why you didn't sue them.

 

[mwdxer1]

Everyone on this forum knows I hate Dish, especially after years of being one of their biggest advocates.

I’m 39 years old, been in this industry since I was 17 years old.

Worked my A$$ off to be one of Dish networks top retailers, and earned every dollar I made from them.

I was hoping to just work for Dish one day.

By the way things look, I’ll likely end up at AT&T or Comcast.

But to have everything you worked for your entire adult life taken away... Over greed from the upper management at Dish.

You would feel the same.

When I say the things I say, I don’t mean cancel your dish and get Directv, Comcast or spectrum through me. It would be nice and anyone who has done business with me knows I’m going to give them an unbiased honest opinion or anything I sell. If I can cost them a few customers along the way, I’m happy even if I don’t get those sales.

I know nobody here is going to cancel their dish subscription because of me. But a lot of people who personally know me and see how badly I was treated have.

But from a retailers point of view, channel take downs are brutal. You got angry customers calling all day threatening to cancel, and then you got the chargebacks from the ones who actually do.

When it comes to chargebacks, a chargeback is a chargeback and dish doesn’t care. At the end it’s your fault for signing up that customer to begin with.

Atleast when Directv had a dispute they said they would re-inburse us for any chargebacks they where responsible for causing.

Do I miss selling dish? Yes!

Would I go back to working with Dish again? Hell no!

I sleep so much better at night not dealing with dish.

We have choices in this World. If you do not like a company, then move on. I like Dish. I even bought my own receiver, dishes, etc. I plan to stay with Dish, at least for now. Been with them for 19 years now. Have I been happy with these disputes? No! At times I wish Charlie would have just gave in a bit sooner and we paid a bit more. But Charlie feels when there is something unfair, he will not give in. Do I fault him? No. But no matter what outfit you go with, there is going to be something you do not like about there. I decided some time ago, to go with streaming via the Roku, Chromecast, and now Fire TV. That way if Dish has a dispute, if it is an important channel for me, then I can add it via streaming. I did that with HBO recently. Do I agree with AT&T's strong-arm tactics? no way! But I do like HBO.

 

[Claude Greiner]

We have choices in this World. If you do not like a company, then move on. I like Dish. I even bought my own receiver, dishes, etc. I plan to stay with Dish, at least for now. Been with them for 19 years now. Have I been happy with these disputes? No! At times I wish Charlie would have just gave in a bit sooner and we paid a bit more. But Charlie feels when there is something unfair, he will not give in. Do I fault him? No. But no matter what outfit you go with, there is going to be something you do not like about there. I decided some time ago, to go with streaming via the Roku, Chromecast, and now Fire TV. That way if Dish has a dispute, if it is an important channel for me, then I can add it via streaming. I did that with HBO recently. Do I agree with AT&T's strong-arm tactics? no way! But I do like HBO.

Do you save money owning your own equipment? Atleast with Comcast I can buy a TIVO and save on the rental charges.

Same applies on Directv, there is no point trying to own any satellite hardware.

As far as Charlie and his disputes, I used to stand behind everything the man used to say. There was a point where I would take a bullet for Charlie.

Consider this. Every February your rates go up with Dish, out of the 20 years I have been in this business, I can only remember once where they did not raise rates. I think that was back in 2001.

Every time there is a dispute we have up hear how Dish is fighting for you, saving money, looking out for the consumer Etc

The fact of the matter is that your rates are going up regardless in February. NOT once have I ever heard DISH was not raising rates because they won a programming dispute.

What these disputes amount to is over a few pennies per subscriber.

Do the math 2 cents per subscriber is $200,000/mo or $2.4 million dollars per year.

It’s all a numbers game! As long as the projected revenue they make is more than the number of subscribers they caused to cancel it’s a win win for Dish.

Your bill is going up anyways in a few months, so why deal With the irritation of missing channels?

Then they want to give you a small credit for the missing channel.

You see Dish post record profits while loosing subscribers. This is why.

 

[The Fat Man]

Everyone on this forum knows I hate Dish, especially after years of being one of their biggest advocates.

I’m 39 years old, been in this industry since I was 17 years old.

Worked my A$$ off to be one of Dish networks top retailers, and earned every dollar I made from them.

I was hoping to just work for Dish one day.

By the way things look, I’ll likely end up at AT&T or Comcast.

But to have everything you worked for your entire adult life taken away... Over greed from the upper management at Dish.

You would feel the same.

When I say the things I say, I don’t mean cancel your dish and get Directv, Comcast or spectrum through me. It would be nice and anyone who has done business with me knows I’m going to give them an unbiased honest opinion or anything I sell. If I can cost them a few customers along the way, I’m happy even if I don’t get those sales.

I know nobody here is going to cancel their dish subscription because of me. But a lot of people who personally know me and see how badly I was treated have.

But from a retailers point of view, channel take downs are brutal. You got angry customers calling all day threatening to cancel, and then you got the chargebacks from the ones who actually do.

When it comes to chargebacks, a chargeback is a chargeback and dish doesn’t care. At the end it’s your fault for signing up that customer to begin with.

Atleast when Directv had a dispute they said they would re-inburse us for any chargebacks they where responsible for causing.

Do I miss selling dish? Yes!

Would I go back to working with Dish again? Hell no!

I sleep so much better at night not dealing with dish.

Again, I don't fault you for your dispute, anger, frustration, etc towards Dish. I don't fault you for voicing it. But, you are using those feelings to debate people about a matter that doesn't have anything to do with your dispute. If this was a thread about Dish's buisness practices, then your experience is something I'm highly interested in having as officially provided to the discussion.

If you represented an independent party in Dish vs Univision, then your position is still biased because of your disdain for Dish, but its mostly unsolicited. That's until you start trying to sell everyone on DirecTV.

But, because you're in buisness with DirecTV, and this is an AT&T vs Dish dispute, your statements become completely solicited. You're now in buisness. And, because you represent DirecTV, anything you say directly impacts all of our opinions and biases towards AT&T. Some in a positive manner, but many in a negative manner. As I said before, my position is that this whole HBO and Cinemax mess (because of the parties involved and who owns what) is a means for AT&T to purposefully limit Dish's growth (artificially inflate DirecTV's value). To me, the only thing you are doing when you come on here, go over your personal issues with Dish, then start trying to sell us DirecTV; all you are doing is strengthen my opinion about this individual dispute (AT&T vs Dish over HBO and Cinemax). Your purpose actually has an adverse effect.

It's also mainly because where you are doing this. If you were in the War Zone posting your comments, then that's the purpose of Scott putting the War Zone out there. But here is strictly for Dish subs and people interested in Dish to discuss matters relating to Dish. In the War Zone, you're doing your job. In here, my opinion is that you walked into a place with a no soliciting sign and started trying to hawk your service.

 

[glynnp]

.

As far as Charlie and his disputes, I used to stand behind everything the man used to say. There was a point where I would take a bullet for Charlie.

I take a bullet for Charlie every time I turn on my Hopper 3...the Boss Daddy of all DVRs.

 

[NYDutch]

Consider this. Every February your rates go up with Dish, out of the 20 years I have been in this business, I can only remember once where they did not raise rates. I think that was back in 2001.

Every time there is a dispute we have up hear how Dish is fighting for you, saving money, looking out for the consumer Etc

The fact of the matter is that your rates are going up regardless in February. NOT once have I ever heard DISH was not raising rates because they won a programming dispute.

You seem to be completely overlooking the fact that most multi-year retrans agreements include annual payment increases by Dish to the programming providers. Even in a year with no disputes or new contracts, Dish's costs still go up.

 

[comfortably_numb]

The fact of the matter is that your rates are going up regardless in February

Corporations have a responsibility to their shareholders to increase profits year over year. Dish isn't running a charity.

 

[ncted]

I think I have posted this before here, but my parents' Spectrum bill went up $20 last month, and their neighbor's bill went up almost $100. These are not deals expiring, this is base rate increases in markets where they have a monopoly. I'll pay a few dollars more a year to Dish, if that is the alternative.

 

[ncted]

Corporations have a responsibility to their shareholders to increase profits year over year. Dish isn't running a charity.

Well, they certain think they need to increase profits. It used to be that corporations needed to be profitable enough to pay dividends and reinvest in the company and that was it. I am not sure when that changed, but it seems to be a source of a lot of problems these days.

 

[rad]

Corporations have a responsibility to their shareholders to increase profits year over year. Dish isn't running a charity.

You mean like AT&T is trying to do with the contract?

 

[comfortably_numb]

You mean like AT&T is trying to do with the contract?

No. It's very likely ATT is violating the law with what they are doing, and that is the reason it's under review by the Justice Department.

 

[dare2be]

Well, they certain think they need to increase profits. It used to be that corporations needed to be profitable enough to pay dividends and reinvest in the company and that was it. I am not sure when that changed, but it seems to be a source of a lot of problems these days.

I agree in principal, but Dish's profit margin has been historically steady at an average around 9%.

 

[ncted]

I agree in principal, but Dish's profit margin has been historically steady at an average around 9%.

Yeah, I wasn't talking specifically about Dish, just Wall Street in general.

 

[JSheridan]

You mean like AT&T is trying to do with the contract?

 

[ncted]

You mean like AT&T is trying to do with the contract?

Almost just like AT&T, aside from AT&T's anti-competitive behavior and vertical monopoly position. BUT, you did hit the nail on the head. It is Wall Street that is pushing companies like AT&T (and soooo many others, and, yes, Dish at times, although less so due to Charlie's control of the company) to behave this way. It was nice working in the print media business, where that kind of unrealistic revenue and profit expectation just didn't matter. People were just happy if we made a profit at all.

 

[dare2be]

It's why I never use banks, only credit unions. All profits go back into product improvements, better rates, and the customers, not shareholders.

 

[CU2000]

There’s a lot a things Dish has done that have been grossly unfair to its dealers. Claude needs to move on & stop throwing rocks while living in a glass house. Claude you need to come clean, you were not escorted away by security at the Dish convention for nothing. I would think you would tread lightly, the statute of limitations may not have run out.

 

[The Fat Man]

There’s a lot a things Dish has done that have been grossly unfair to its dealers. Claude needs to move on & stop throwing rocks while living in a glass house. Claude you need to come clean, you were not escorted away by security at the Dish convention for nothing. I would think you would tread lightly, the statute of limitations may not have run out.

Which is an interesting topic. That's why I laughed when I was equated to a fanboy who "just couldn't accept that HBO was gone from Dish" (It wasn't Claude who said that). I don't even subscribe to HBO or Cinemax. So, I can't complain that something that wasn't available on my TV to begin with is now not on someone else's TV. Charlie and the rest of people at Dish aren't saints by any means. But, that doesn't make AT&T correct for their actions in this dispute. Again, if we had five satellite companies competing in the United States, I would view this dispute differently. But, we have two. The owner of one is using a newly acquired property as leverage to get greater gains from a direct competitor. That's the issue.

 

[joewhite57]

There’s a lot a things Dish has done that have been grossly unfair to its dealers. Claude needs to move on & stop throwing rocks while living in a glass house. Claude you need to come clean, you were not escorted away by security at the Dish convention for nothing. I would think you would tread lightly, the statute of limitations may not have run out.

I’d love to hear the back story on that incident.

 

[rvvaquero]

I’d love to hear the back story on that incident.

Nothing really to it. He was just standing on a stool shouting "free Direct TV here, get your freebee right here".