Letter From Charlie Ergen

fz5j2r

SatelliteGuys Guru
Original poster
Nov 27, 2003
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I recently wrote a letter to Mr. Ergen complaining about poor HD picture quality and the VOOM debacle. This is the response I received.

Did anyone else get the same response?



"Thank you for your message. I do appreciate hearing from customers. Let me try to address your concerns:

1. Voom did not make the investment in their channels per our contract and thus left us little choice going forward.
2. The 22 channels we added will be adding a lot of HD content over the coming months and more and more of it will become true HD. We do understand they don’t always broadcast in true HD for the entire day yet.
3. We will be adding more HD channels throughout the rest of the year.
4. No other major company carries Voom (except their other owner, cablevision)
5. normally OTA HD is a better picture and if you can get OTA (this is true for all video providers) we do not force customers (as others do) to purchase our local to local HD as we sell it a la carte.
6. your HD channels should not macro block. We do have some signal issues in along the coast in the northwest which we will solve with the launch of a new satellite late this year. It is possible your dish alignment is not quite perfect or you might need a slightly larger antenna.

I take your comments seriously and we will get much better."


Charlie
 
That is,
Voom didn't invest in the channels according to DISH'S interpretation of the contract. They' are rebuking something that is clearly stated in the contract. Voom, in fact, DID invest in the service in the way they were obligated.

Dish just signed a contract that 5 years later they realized was more than they could handle.
 
That is,
Voom didn't invest in the channels according to DISH'S interpretation of the contract. They' are rebuking something that is clearly stated in the contract. Voom, in fact, DID invest in the service in the way they were obligated.

Dish just signed a contract that 5 years later they realized was more than they could handle.

Yea, trying to figure out how much $$ a corporation is allocating to a specific piece of its operation is very complex. As I've said before, Dish can try to interpret it one way but Voom can just as reasonably interpret it another and then it's down to the accountants and mathematicians, as expert witnesses, and how they impress the judge/jury. For example, if you spend money on overhead (e.g. electricity, rent), should some part of that count as expenditure on "programming"? One could reasonably say: "sure, because without that electricity and rent the programming couldn't exist".

There are two sides to every story and Charlie has been on the wrong side more than once. In this case, who knows since no one here is privy to all the facts.
 
That is,
Voom didn't invest in the channels according to DISH'S interpretation of the contract. They' are rebuking something that is clearly stated in the contract. Voom, in fact, DID invest in the service in the way they were obligated.

Dish just signed a contract that 5 years later they realized was more than they could handle.
The courts didn't exactly agree with your comments
 
The courts haven't made any decisions other than whether or not to grant an injunction, have they?
 
Yea, trying to figure out how much $$ a corporation is allocating to a specific piece of its operation is very complex. As I've said before, Dish can try to interpret it one way but Voom can just as reasonably interpret it another and then it's down to the accountants and mathematicians, as expert witnesses, and how they impress the judge/jury. For example, if you spend money on overhead (e.g. electricity, rent), should some part of that count as expenditure on "programming"? One could reasonably say: "sure, because without that electricity and rent the programming couldn't exist".

There are two sides to every story and Charlie has been on the wrong side more than once. In this case, who knows since no one here is privy to all the facts.

If the contract was properly drafted (which I'm guessing it was), it is a safe bet that "programming" is specifically defined.
 
I think everyone would agree, that with the constant repeat of their programs, no too much $ was invested in that dept.

Impossible to say unless you just want to make an uneducated guess. One episode of a tv show costs 2 to 15 million dollars. Despite what "some" would like to have everyone believe, Voom was putting on new programming every month along with their repeated programming. A simple use of search on this forum will show you that there was several new shows started and new episodes of existing shows during Vooms stay on Dish.
 
The courts haven't made any decisions other than whether or not to grant an injunction, have they?
The court said Voom failed to show that it satisfied the spending requirement in the affiliation agreement. That opened the door to remove the VOOM channels, which they did shortly afterwards.
 
The court said Voom failed to show that it satisfied the spending requirement in the affiliation agreement. That opened the door to remove the VOOM channels, which they did shortly afterwards.
I think the court determined that it would be worth their time to hear a case to determine whether Voom spent money the way Echostar wanted them to. No determination has been made on whether that is actually the case. There are a few threads on this and the facts of the case are in there somewhere.
 
The courts haven't made any decisions other than whether or not to grant an injunction, have they?

Yes. we have ruling from a judge on the NY supreme Court ( not the highest court there). Denying the VOOM request fora temporary injunction. we do not have the final outcome yet but we do have a ruling on the injunction. they did not dismiss the case. They did not sa whether it was "worth their time" to hear the case. They just ruled on the request fora temporary injunction.

how many threads do we have to have on all thsi?
 
I think the court determined that it would be worth their time to hear a case to determine whether Voom spent money the way Echostar wanted them to. No determination has been made on whether that is actually the case. There are a few threads on this and the facts of the case are in there somewhere.
I just cut and pasted the court comment from an article I found after doing a google search on dishnetwork and voom.
 
I recently wrote a letter to Mr. Ergen complaining about poor HD picture quality and the VOOM debacle. This is the response I received.

Did anyone else get the same response?



"Thank you for your message. I do appreciate hearing from customers. Let me try to address your concerns:

1. Voom did not make the investment in their channels per our contract and thus left us little choice going forward.
2. The 22 channels we added will be adding a lot of HD content over the coming months and more and more of it will become true HD. We do understand they don’t always broadcast in true HD for the entire day yet.
3. We will be adding more HD channels throughout the rest of the year.
4. No other major company carries Voom (except their other owner, cablevision)
5. normally OTA HD is a better picture and if you can get OTA (this is true for all video providers) we do not force customers (as others do) to purchase our local to local HD as we sell it a la carte.
6. your HD channels should not macro block. We do have some signal issues in along the coast in the northwest which we will solve with the launch of a new satellite late this year. It is possible your dish alignment is not quite perfect or you might need a slightly larger antenna.

I take your comments seriously and we will get much better."


Charlie

HOGWASH! This is just a canned response..Usual crap!
 
That is,
Voom didn't invest in the channels according to DISH'S interpretation of the contract. They' are rebuking something that is clearly stated in the contract. Voom, in fact, DID invest in the service in the way they were obligated.

Dish just signed a contract that 5 years later they realized was more than they could handle.

well the court did comment on that in the initial ruling and the judge clearly did not accept the VOOM interpretation. This is not over but i don't see how you can make a decalaration like that given what we saw in that ruling.
 
I just cut and pasted the court comment from an article I found after doing a google search on dishnetwork and voom.

If I was overly dismissive or seemed rude I apologize. But the court simply ruled on whether VOOM was entitled to a preliminary injunction and decided that it was not . They were not ruling on a motion to dismiss and I just don;t see how you or the author of the article could conclude that the court thought that it was or was not worth the time to hear the case.
 
Yes. we have ruling from a judge on the NY supreme Court ( not the highest court there). Denying the VOOM request fora temporary injunction. we do not have the final outcome yet but we do have a ruling on the injunction. they did not dismiss the case. They did not sa whether it was "worth their time" to hear the case. They just ruled on the request fora temporary injunction.

how many threads do we have to have on all thsi?

Absolutely correct, and all that means is that E* did not "irreperably harm" VOOM by removing the channels. In non-legal terms it means that even if E* is in the wrong, monetary damages at the end of the case will be sufficient to make VOOM whole again.....ordering the channels back before the conclusion of the case is not neccesary.
 
Absolutely correct, and all that means is that E* did not "irreperably harm" VOOM by removing the channels. In non-legal terms it means that even if E* is in the wrong, monetary damages at the end of the case will be sufficient to make VOOM whole again.....ordering the channels back before the conclusion of the case is not neccesary.

Perhaps. But it also means that people are reading things into the ruling. The specific post I was responding to claims that the court said little about an aspect of the case that they actually made substantive comments on.
 
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