seriously, where does everyone get their sense of entitlement?
hd absolute is getting all the channels it is supposed to get. it was well known it was going to be ending. it was well known dish was going to not add new channels to those grandfathered in. oh, lets not forget....programming subject to change blah blah blah. we all know it. sounds like someone has case of the supposedahs. if you do not like the hd only packages that you can get from dish, then perhaps you should go purchase an hd only pack somewhere else. oh snap, you cant. other companies probably do not have hd only packs as they do not want to deal with the haggling of network owners, who pretty much have the final say on what channel goes into what package. if charlie did pay the amount viacom would probably require to have their new hd channels in a turbo package, it would probably drive the rate up so high it would be pointless. at least you have an option for hd only.
as for the fees, every company has them. direct tv may only have one dvr fee per account, but they got a 4.99 fee per extra tv no matter what. at least dish gives us the opportunity to plug in the phoneline line or broadband. i only got one fee listed on my account, just my extra rec fee. and i have one lousy 7.00 fee for my third television. dda plan covers my dvr fee.
oh, and the comment about dish having to spend money to make money? they are spending money to make money. its called echostar x, xi, and soon to be up xii. these satellites are not free. yes, i know echostar xii was a formerly purchased rainbow sat, but it wasnt free. money was spent to be able to supply more hd. its like you think charlie is santa clause and has a fleet of elves providing slave labor making his satellites, launching them, and also designing and building new receivers such as the vip922.
and when you got the hd install done, wasnt there some money spent by charlie upfront as well? yes you may have a 24 month commit and a large package, but think of the cost of say an install for a 722k 222k to four rooms, ea dish, and the labor and parts put in to install it. even if you did pay an upgrade fee of say 100.00 bucks for a dishintup, that 100.00 bucks doesnt even cover the cost of a dish antenna upgrade. this is all money spent by charlie up front. how is this money not spent to make money?
YOU ARE MISSING THE MAIN POINT.
When I say "spend money to make money" I am not talking about spending the money they spend every day to install people or to launch more satellites. That is the cost of doing business every day. I am talking about spending money to win market place, restore the amount of subs they have now and to win more new subs for the future to GROW the company. If DISH were to allow the $10.00 hd fee to go away this would accomplish all of these problems.
This would mean Charlie would have to transistion from HD as a premium , which they list it as today, to the norm. This would be an investment in the future . Making Charlie and DISH truly a revolutionary in the tv industry. DISH would gain all kinds of publicity and attract potential subs for the FREE hd with any programming packs. He would make his existing HD sub base happy as hell because they would gain a $10.00 rollback on their packs. This is a true sacrifice of easy money that Charlie is getting today charging for hd, but it would pay back 10 fold in his business in the near future.
Will Charlie do this ? No. I already listed my reasons why he won't in the above post. You have to look for the big picture in the business world and for longer than just your present quarter if you are to survive as a company. This why Charlie is penny wise and pound foolish. Directv did invest in more hd and in more advertising ,even in these bad times and guess what? They continue to GROW their business and have great stock prices right now. DISH has lost in customers& stock prices . Charlie won't look long range and think outside of his own little box and because of this , his business will continue to dwindle because of it.