If y'all think Cinemax was behind it....please explain what they had to gain by having Dish subs be on automated billing and paperless?
First off, any promo deal has to be based on an agreement with the parties involved. No one can unilaterally come up with a deal. Therefore at a minimum this deal had to have Cinemax's ok.
Second, Charlie is a hard bargainer, it is not unusual for him to muscle out some incredible deals from the content owners.
Third, any promo deal will mean less revenue to the parties, shared in one way or another. Those shared losses will have to be justified in some other ways. For example, the premium movie content owners like HBO and SHO will be happily not making any money on those new subs for three months, if DISH and DirecTV also are willing to share some of the loss, all with the expectation that after three months, at least a percentage of the subs will continue to sub to the channels and pay the full prices, and therefore off set the loss from all the new subs for the first three months.
Last but not the least, the parties can figure out other innovative ways to offset such losses. An example is the autopay plan, because with the autoplay plan, you have less of issue of late payment or payment dispute, because people do not see the details only the charges on the credit card bills, which are charged automatically on the due date, no late payment or non-payment. More on-time payments and less customer payment disputes mean more profit, which can be assessed to offset the loss of revenue from a special promo deal.
I am not saying the above is exactly what is happening, just to show how things are connected. Not rocket science really.
