Lifetime offers $200 to Dump Dish

[joeb2112]

so where's my $200??


"Lifetime Ads Say 'Dump Dish'
From Bloomberg News


Lifetime Networks, known for its tear-jerker television movies, is running newspaper and TV ads asking viewers to "dump Dish" after EchoStar Communications Corp.'s Dish Network dropped the channels.

Lifetime, jointly owned by Walt Disney Co. and Hearst Corp., teamed up with cable operators, which are offering $200 to Dish satellite TV subscribers who switch their service. In an open letter, Lifetime and 50 women's groups also asked EchoStar Chief Executive Charles Ergen to bring back Lifetime channels.

EchoStar, the No. 2 U.S. satellite TV provider, pulled the Lifetime and Lifetime Movie Network channels from its lineup because of a contract dispute, EchoStar said Jan. 1.

"The contract they sent over called for a 76% price increase," EchoStar spokesman Mark Cicero said. He challenged Lifetime to waive the right to pricing confidentiality.

Lifetime spokesman Gary Morgenstein disputed Cicero's comment, saying the new contract called for 4 cents more per customer than a previous agreement that expired Dec. 31. Negotiations were ongoing, he said.

Lifetime on Thursday ran radio, TV and print ads, after Wednesday's newspaper ads, two full pages side by side, told viewers to "Take Back Your Lifetime!" The letter to Ergen says that because of the removal of the channels, "millions of women will not get the inspiration and support they need and deserve."

Cicero offered to broadcast, at his company's expense, any valuable information or public service announcements to its viewers that they were missing by not watching Lifetime."

 

[fenwah]

I called Time Warner Cable in my local area and they knew nothing about this. I would consider switching for $200 cash. Now if it's $200 in goodies from the cable company, then I would not switch (e.g. 2 free on-demand movies a month for a year). Also, how long of a contract do you have to sign up?

 

[joeb2112]

not sure - nothing I could find on the Lifetime site - http://www.lifetimetv.com/about/dish.html stated the offer - but the mention of the $200 has been picked up by a few wire services - so I too I'm unclear on how to collect..

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

My question is what is Lifetime hiding?

Last night I spent all night sending letters to the DISH Network CEO from the Lifetime Website THANKING him for dropping lifetime.

 

[Neutron]

What do you mean?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Sorry I meant liftime.

I was talking on the phone with someone from Sirius when I was replying.

 

[CJPC]

For $200 Ill dump Dish, then sign back up after Febuary 1'st to get some good godies

 

[fenwah]

For $200 Ill dump Dish, then sign back up after Febuary 1'st to get some good godies

I'm sure there's a catch...they're not just going to give you $200 and then let you cancel the following day. If this is true, expect a 1-2 year commitment (plus cable prices are so freakin' high...you might break even if you're lucky).

 

[joeb2112]

ha - "where's my burrito...where's my burrito!"

I never watched the channel anyhoo - I just want the 2 benjamins to cover my switch to D*!

 

[CJPC]

For the Package I have w/ E now (AEP, 7 tuners), I pay 130ish, priced it with cable, id be paying about $215 / month !

So Id reallly be outta luck!

Edit: Not to mention, Comcast will give me $400 in credits to dump dish, possible I could get 400+200, now that would be something !

 

[tawhite]

Lifetime on Thursday ran radio, TV and print ads, after Wednesday's newspaper ads, two full pages side by side, told viewers to "Take Back Your Lifetime!" The letter to Ergen says that because of the removal of the channels, "millions of women will not get the inspiration and support they need and deserve."

Inspiration and support? Are they kidding, if anything Lifetime promotes the role of victim and victimization to women. They need to have suicide hotline numbers scrolling across the screen on those channels.
The .04 per sub argument looses validity to me when you do a little math and get close to half a million dollars for the increase. Thats not chump change to me.
I am also wondering if openly offering money for people to switch from Dish network couldn't be construed as tortuous interference with their business practices. I'm not a lawyer or anything but it seems like it may be a problem.

 

[chaddux]

So they're willing to pay $200 to a customer but not willing to lower their outrageous price increase? Yeah, that makes sense. I wonder how much of that $200 is actually coming from Lifetime.

 

[CPanther95]

Considering Lifetime stands to lose about $120 million of their $900 million revenue (annually) - they could be subsidizing it, but I bet the bulk of that offer is coming from the cablecos (and D*).

 

[John Kotches]

As CPanther points out, they are losing revenue. Why? Because the commercials that they run are now blocked out of 12 million potential viewing households and as such they can't charge as much for their commercials as they were before.

Meanwhile, frankly Lifetime is looking worse with each passing day.

Lifetime says "It isn't much per subscriber"

Dish says "let's show everyone the numbers and let them decide".

You don't call if you don't have a strong hand, and Dish called Lifetime.

Cheers,

 

[mdonnelly]

...
You don't call if you don't have a strong hand, and Dish called Lifetime.

Cheers,

Looks like Lifetime has called Charlie and raised him back with this ad campaign.

 

[jeffwtux]

You don't call if you don't have a strong hand, and Dish called Lifetime.

Cheers,

The fact that probably 90% of women understand that is Lifetime's problem. Nobody's watching Golden Girls reruns; they're watching Celebrity Poker

 

[CPanther95]

Ad dollars and carriage fees. For most networks (even the ones still labeled as "ad supported") the carriage fees actually represent a more significant chunk of revenue than the ads do.

If HBO started showing ads, subs would revolt - but the fact that ESPN does doesn't seem to phase anybody despite costing probably 75% as much as the "premium channels".

 

[jeffwtux]

People, this $200 offer to dump dish by the cable companies is nothing more than taking advantage to the Lifetime dispute to give a different way to market an offere that they've been offering to DBS subscribers(Dish and Dircect) for years now. It's usually something like: subscribe to analog expanded basic and get the digital package and all the movie channels free for 6 months. I'm sure that's the offer from most cable companies and DirecTV people can get the same deal too.

 

[LASooner]

In a response to this ad Ergen is reported to have said. "Are you done ironing my shirt or what? That dinner's not gonna cook itself"

 

[jeffwtux]

This isn't Lifetime's offer either, and they aren't subsidizing it.