Is Dish a Screwed Up Company or what?

[Scott Greczkowski]

Ok I sent in a question to last weeks Dish Network retailer chat asking about the status of the Viacom HD channels which were supposed to be launched on April 1st (and that have since launched) and just got this reply back a few minutes ago...

4/1 was the intended target date, however, this has been delayed for unspecified reasons. We are still working diligently towards a launch and will provide further direction when available.

Is there anyone at this company with more then half a brain? (Besides Parker)

 

[riffjim4069]

Perhaps they saw what happened with VOOM and decided to pull out of the deal before they too got stiffed...

 

[chainblu]

I wonder if we'll ever know what the "unspecified reasons" were.

 

[jdmacor]

Unspecified reasons? Perhaps the time was spent trying to come up with the most inventive way to alienate an emerging segment of your customers...

I know I am complaining all over the place, but as a Turbo sub, I feel screwed and have no means to fight back; too much time left on the contract, gold package has "must have" channels for me, and I am not willing to pay significantly more for classic gold just to receive a handful of HD channels. Most of all, I am just upset out of principle. We may hear that X and Y channels are launching in HD next week, but I could not have any reasonable expectation that I would be receiving them. It is frustrating to say the least...

 

[theoak]

Scott ... you have been very negative with Dish lately? This seems to be not like you ...

 

[jacmyoung]

Perhaps they saw what happened with VOOM and decided to pull out of the deal before they too got stiffed...

But they launched them already, there was a news release by E* on Friday regarding the launch.

But I think the screw up is more that someone might have had too much fun during the Easter Holiday not paying attention to the Friday's news, and still plugging the official excuses from last week.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I just find it funny that the channels ALREADY launched but they just emailed me that "We are still working diligently towards a launch and will provide further direction when available."

Do they not know they launched these channels last week?

And since we now have "The N" 24/7 why is Noggin still showing for 12 hours a day and the other half of the day is showing "The N" ??? Shouldn't Noggin be showing 24/7 too?

 

[jacmyoung]

Unspecified reasons? Perhaps the time was spent trying to come up with the most inventive way to alienate an emerging segment of your customers...

You made it sound like E* has been adding a lot of net new subs

What is the price difference between a comparable Turbo pack and AT package?

 

[jdmacor]

You made it sound like E* has been adding a lot of net new subs

What is the price difference between a comparable Turbo pack and AT package?

Whoops. That is definitely not the impression I want to be making.

Either way, the Turbo Gold package is $49.99 regular price, while the Classic Gold is $57.99, but you need to add HD to that for $10 more bucks, bringing it up to $67.99. That is about what my total price is now for Turbo with DVR and Locals, so I don't want to pay $20 more for viacom and fox, along with a slew of SD channels I am not interested in (or forgot about). I mean, I just started paying a $10 increase... you would think I would be benefiting from that somehow...

 

[tigerfan33]

Maybe they have not been launched in Charlies house.

Now that would be funny to see ole Chuck get on the phone to someone named "Bob" that did not speak a lick of English to find out where his Viacom hd channels are.

 

[jacmyoung]

Whoops. That is definitely not the impression I want to be making.

Either way, the Turbo Gold package is $49.99 regular price, while the Classic Gold is $57.99, but you need to add HD to that for $10 more bucks, bringing it up to $67.99. That is about what my total price is now for Turbo with DVR and Locals, so I don't want to pay $20 more for viacom and fox, along with a slew of SD channels I am not interested in (or forgot about). I mean, I just started paying a $10 increase... you would think I would be benefiting from that somehow...

I see your point.

Historically content owners always insisted to pair their SD channels with the HD versions. The Turbo HD thing was strange in the first place, and I had thought something bad could happen to those new packs.

Again content owners do not like to have their SD and HD versions separated. You pay the SD version, get the HD version "for free."

E* might have been too much ahead of the curve on this one.

 

[GaryPen]

Scott ... you have been very negative with Dish lately? This seems to be not like you ...

Sokath, his eyes uncovered!

 

[jdmacor]

I see your point.

Historically content owners always insisted to pair their SD channels with the HD versions. The Turbo HD thing was strange in the first place, and I had thought something bad could happen to those new packs.

Again content owners do not like to have their SD and HD versions separated. You pay the SD version, get the HD version "for free."

E* might have been too much ahead of the curve on this one.

Yeah, E* might be a bit ahead of the curve, but for a package that is "100% turbo charged high definition content", I sure get a butt-load of SD channels, including the SD counterpart for basically every national HD channel out there...

 

[Fiachra]

Maybe they have not been launched in Charlies house.

Now that would be funny to see ole Chuck get on the phone to someone named "Bob" that did not speak a lick of English to find out where his Viacom hd channels are.

He may well have FIOS. j/k LOL!!

 

[ncted]

Sokath, his eyes uncovered!

LOL. Tamarian has a whole list of metaphors for Dish:

"The beast at Tanagra" - an obstacle to be overcome
"Kadir beneath Mo Moteh" - failure to communicate/understand
"Kiteo, his eyes closed" - refusal to understand
"Shaka, when the walls fell" - failure
"Zinda, his face black, his eyes red" - anger or conflict, also can indicate pain or discomfort
"Chenza at court. The court of silence." - unwillingness to listen

 

[jacmyoung]

Yeah, E* might be a bit ahead of the curve, but for a package that is "100% turbo charged high definition content", I sure get a butt-load of SD channels, including the SD counterpart for basically every national HD channel out there...

That is the point. Even in the so called HD-Only packs, E* still must first sell the SD versions before providing the HD simulcast versions. They never actually got some deals with the content owners to provide only the HD channels.

Now I hope people can put things in perspective. Basically what the Turbo subs are asking E* to do is to sell you all the channels at a $20 discount.

No doubt E* also screwed this up, they should never have started this HD-only thing until they actually got some HD-only carriage deals first, apparently they did not.

 

[claytonboen]

As far as I am concerned they have screwed up in every way possible, with the exception, perhaps, of creating some fantastic DVR's. Although IMO they could improve them drastically as well. They're just the lesser of all evils right now.

But you can add it to the list of reasons I created CANCEL DISH NETWORK

 

[bebop]

As far as I am concerned they have screwed up in every way possible, with the exception, perhaps, of creating some fantastic DVR's. Although IMO they could improve them drastically as well. They're just the lesser of all evils right now.

But you can add it to the list of reasons I created CANCEL DISH NETWORK

Clayton - I'm still waiting for that $200 you owe me for conning me into cancelling dish network and getting dinged with that early termination fee. You need to mention that upfront.

BTW - there is not only one way to get them to change their ways.

 

[Pepper]

And there are now 24 pages of comments on the article over at slingcommunity taking Echostar/Sling to task for not supporting the older slingboxes with the iphone, and not a peep out of Echostar/Sling about it.

Any functional company would have attempted some sort of damage control, instead by letting this fester with two weeks of silence, they have taken a community that built sling's reputation by word of mouth over the years and turned them into a bunch of zealots bent on revenge through an equally effective word of mouth campaign.

 

[bebop]

Do they not know they launched these channels last week?

Okay, I'll bite on your rhetorical question:

No Scott - they don't know. They don't get paid enough to know.

Should have emailed it to 'ceo @'. You sent it after they already launched, right? I'm just laughing at that response. Thanks for sharing.