I sent this email to voom, what do you think?

[danielle_s]

1) Remove the SD channels from VaVaVoom package, leave wealth tv, and put them in with the VOOM package. Charge $54.90 a month.

2) Remove the HD channels from the VOOM package, this includes the VOOM21, uhd, tnthd, discovery hd, espn hd and the rest of the sports marquee pack. Charge $39.90

This right here gives people a choice and it gives you a better chance to compete with the other satellite providers. For those that are on fixed incomes who can not afford to spend more than $39.90 a month they are forced to go with Dish or Direct for they're tv service provider.

3)Give back to the Customer. How? Create a program that helps get the word out that VOOM's the HD Leader by giving info to the customer to help the customer sign up their friends, family and neighbors. When they get people signed up they get rewarded. Dish gives it customers a discount on their bill for every customer they get. At one time if the customer got so many people signed up they would get a new receiver which at the time was a dvr receiver.

4)Attach a $5 monthly fee to the sport pack. This would only affect customers who were signed up to the $39.90 pack. This would allow the $39.90 customers to get their sports for only $5.00 more per month. That's still a savings of $5 a month over what you call the VOOM package

5)Attach all HD channels together execpt for espn hd and charge $5.00 a month for the package. This includes: VOOM21,uhd,tnt,discovery hd, & wealth tv.
This would only affect customers who were signed up to the $39.90 pack. This would allow the $39.90 customers to get their hd programming for only $5.00 more per month without the sports. That's still a savings of $5 a month over what you call the VOOM package

This is more to this email that I sent voom that I have not posted here. I just wanted to post my major concerns here.

Please tell me what you think.

 

[Walter L.]

I don't like your idea about increasing the price of the basic package. In fact I don't like any of the ideas you list. What they should do is create an add-on package for ~10/month with WealthTV + the new SD channels. In that way, only those interested pay the extra cost.

 

[MarcelV]

Walter, you have my vote. The current Voom (basic package), secondly a mid tier VaVoom package, with ALL SD and ALL HD, except for the HBO, Showtime, Starz, Cinemax and other optionals. And the current VaVaVoom. That would be great, and I will sign up immediately for the Mid tier.

 

[joep]

I like some of your ideas particularly an SD only price point of $39.99. However, I would further simplify the structure, along the lines of:

SD only package (excluding, of course premiums like HBO..) $39.99
HD add-on (including Voom Originals, Sports HD, WealthTV) $59.99
HD premium add-on package (HBO, Showtime, etc..) basically currently VaVaVoom $89.99
Voom Complete (All of the above plus adult programming, excluding upcoming PPV) $99.99
Voom Complete DVR package ($109.99)

 

[TheTimm]

I like some of your ideas particularly an SD only price point of $39.99. However, I would further simplify the structure, along the lines of:

SD only package (excluding, of course premiums like HBO..) $39.99
HD add-on (including Voom Originals, Sports HD, WealthTV) $59.99

Just curious... under this plan would I have to get the SD only package in order to "add-on" the HD's, or could I just get all the HD's for the twenty dollars/month difference and forget about the SD?

 

[joep]

Just curious... under this plan would I have to get the SD only package in order to "add-on" the HD's, or could I just get all the HD's for the twenty dollars/month difference and forget about the SD?

Yes, although it would be nice if Voom offered an HD only package, I don’t believe they will ever do it. With all of the recent SD additions to the lineup, I believe Voom can now compete with D*, E* and cable with their SD lineup alone and can attract that customer base (those without an HDTV) to sign up now, knowing that when they upgrade to an HDTV, they can later add HD programming.

 

[danielle_s]

I don't like your idea about increasing the price of the basic package. In fact I don't like any of the ideas you list. What they should do is create an add-on package for ~10/month with WealthTV + the new SD channels. In that way, only those interested pay the extra cost.

That's fair but I do have a quick question,
You want to create a "add-on package for ~10/month" and this package includes the wealth channel.?

When under my new package/price tiers you could pay the $39.90 which would include ALL sd channels in the voom package plus those that are in the vavavoom package and then add the hd pack for $5 more and the only thing you wouldn't have would be the sports pack and you'd only pay $44.90 a month. If you wanted to add the sport pack on top of your basic service, if you did the math, it would be no more expensive than what your paying now.

However, the first remark about increasing the price of the voom pack is in part due to the fact that even though both sat providers do not include the discovery channels or diy in their "basic pack" their "basic pack" is cheaper than voom's and for what your paying for voom's "basic pack" you can also sub to an upgraded pack for about the same cost with dish and direct.

In addition since VOOM probably knew that when they added the discovery channels, diy & etc... they were going into the vavavoom. they could have created the 3rd tier when all they had was fmc and the discovery channels. Just that alone would have signed up subs and even more subs would have signed up when last nights channels appeared in that tier as well.

But the fact that they haven't created an additional tier makes me wonder if they are going to do it. They do have over 10 channels and I think that is enough channels to start a 3rd tier of programming.