Any chance this channel loses the HD-only treatment Dish is giving it and adds it in SD to channel 308 as well? Would seem to make since Dish is increasing the price of HBO..
HBO Zone in SD?
- Thread starter Chris Walker
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Probably not.This is Dish networks way of getting people to come over to hd so they 
can make more money.They will probably do the same thing to Cinemax when they add some more of their channels, Thriller max,@max,wmax,outermax.Im only speculating this on Cinemax...
can make more money.They will probably do the same thing to Cinemax when they add some more of their channels, Thriller max,@max,wmax,outermax.Im only speculating this on Cinemax...
Im not sure but I think the CINEMAX deal for 1 cent a year is still on.You can call them and check.You have to sign up for autopay however.I have the Cinemax for a penny dealNo doubt HBO probably wants additional fees for the SD feed and Charlie won't pay a penny extra for anything unless he has to.
It doesn't work that way. I really need to save this somewhere so I can just cut and paste it...-----------------------------------------------------
Subscription Fees for Premiums are for a SERVICE, not for a channel. The service includes multiple feeds. The provider (whether it be cable or a satellite service) has the option to carry as many or as few of the feeds as they want. There is no additional subscription fee.
However there is the "cost" of the loss of bandwidth or channel capacity. The providers must weigh the benefits against their limited channel capacity. Will adding one more HBO channel make more people subscribe, or are we better off using that space to add the Yarn Channel to the top tier and get knitters to move up to it?
The premiums seemed to reach a saturation point...for a while, they all seemed to be racing to add the most feeds. It was still a novelty in the late 90s, then people got used to it. Some people even consider them a negative somehow ("more reruns"). The providers stopped adding them, so the services stopped making new ones. Starz even trimmed back their channels that were already announced.
Now they are making HD feeds available, because that's what is driving subscribers. But the providers have to weigh the bandwidth costs even more carefully.
Essentially, ALL feeds are available to be carried for the same subscription fee. This is why a small town cable provider may still only have a few SD-HBO feeds, DISH has 8 HD feeds, and FIOS carries EVERY east and west feed in both SD and HD, but they all charge around the same price.
It is in the SERVICE'S interest to have as many feeds offered as possible. In most cases, they pay for the rights to show a movie or program on their SERVICE during a specific window. Having more feeds lets them show each movie more often, while increasing the perceived value of the service to subscribers.
There are a few exceptions to this...Encore theme channels each carry a separate fee. And supposedly, Showtime Next, Women, and Family are all "digital cable only", but I don't know if that's contractual, or if it's just because neither DISH nor DirecTV showed any interest.
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WHEW...last time I'm typing all that. Now, in this specific case...years ago, DISH was supposed to add both HBO Comedy and HBO Zone, but bandwidth was much more limited, and they eventually decided Comedy would be a bigger draw than Zone, probably because Zone was aimed at younger people who are probably watching on cable in an apartment building, not homeowners installing DISH and spending $90 a month. Later on, they added HBO Latino, because they were pushing their Spanish packages.
When adding all the HD feeds last year, they probably saw an opportunity to offer an HD exclusive, since they want as many people as possible to step up to HD. (Though, I haven't really seen them market it as such.) But, bandwidth is always an issue, and apparently DISH saw more value in Zone HD than HBO-2 West HD, so it was left by the wayside.
I thought you had to commit to 24 months. I am hopefully moving to FIOS territory in 2009, so I'm not committing to anything.
Nope, the only commitment required for the penny cinemax is to sign up for auto billing and paperless statement.
Thanks. It doesn't show up in my deals online. Oddly, I signed up for the free HBO/Starz thing yesterday, even though I already pay for them.
I'm not sure it's worth spending time on the phone with them...so painful.
