Negative things about this Voom purchase

[rtt2]

It is good to see that Voom will live on but I see a lot of people here putting the cart before the horse.

The VOOM divestment is going to require that significant changes will have to occur and that VOOM will no longer have the Cablevision organization to rely on for size and skill.

VOOM will lose people and manpower. In the 8K they already talked about severance.

VOOM will be providing service on a bird that it will not own and providing content that it really does not own. The service will go from a DBS service to a FSS service. (Primestar all over again)

From VOOMs form 10 filing they talk about the size of the required dish "our leased transponders on the Americom-6 satellite, all of our subscribers will need to use a single dish antenna measuring approximately 35" wide by 20" high."

Tis is quite big and presents a big marketing challenge, WAF, as well as training installers. Personally this is just too big to be accepted in my community.

Voom21 really does not own its own content. It is all leased from major studios. VOOM benefited by having Rainbow Media negotiating and doing a lot of the back-end work.

In addition Rainbow Media is the arm that manages the uplink through Rainbow Network Communication. http://www.rncnetwork.com/ This is not being divested and VOOM will have to pay for their services to continue uplinking.

This is all I can think of off the top of my head but I will post more

 

[compurocker]

The exclusive channels owned and operated by Rainbow Media were supposed to go to VOOM as part of the original spinoff (which the FCC repeatedly declined), and I know EchoStar didn't buy them. Is Cablevision hanging onto them, are they going to VOOM HD LLC, are they still up for sale, or are they getting trashed? It sounds like they would be going to VOOM HD, LLC, but I could be wrong.

Was that information about the size of the dish required to pick up "Rainbow-2" from a current filing, or from a filing when Rainow DBS still had Rainbow-1? I know the original plan was to have one large eliptical dish that could see both Rainbow-1 and "Rainbow-2" without the need for two dishes. Now that Rainbow-1 will be out of the picture, perhaps we can just point our existing small dishes at "Rainbow-2" rather than getting new larger dishes.

I think in the short term it might be a good idea to lease satellite capacity like they are doing with "Rainbow-2" because it should theoretically be cheaper than owning your own satellite like they did with Rainbow-1. I don't know this for a fact, but it should be. In the meantime, they still have contracts with Lockheed for brand new birds. They can lease now to get the VOOM service off the ground, and move to their own equipment once they have a good subscriber base going.

Everything's speculation at this point. I just hope for more good news in the coming months.

[edit] I had meant to mention, too, that the original plan was for VOOM to spin off to its own company with Charles and Tom Dolan heading it up, completely separate from Cablevision. The FCC wouldn't let them do it. This sounds like Chuck's way of going around the FCC and doing it anyway. As long as they can secure funding (which they would have had to do if they had spun off last year as planned) this should allow Charles Dolan to run VOOM the way he wants to run it, without James and others on the Cablevision board getting in the way.

 

[Mr Tony]

Rainbow 2 is at 72 degrees
72 degrees is a FSS (also known as KU band) slot and is lower powered

Minimum size dish for FSS is 30" Anything else won't work real well

The existing 18" won't work at all

Rainbow 1 is at 61.5 and is a DBS satellite. They are about twice as powerful, thats why the 18 will work

and before anyone asks, no you cannot put a DBS at 72, since FSS is already there and due to spacing

 

[Walter L.]

From VOOMs form 10 filing they talk about the size of the required dish "our leased transponders on the Americom-6 satellite, all of our subscribers will need to use a single dish antenna measuring approximately 35" wide by 20" high."

That was needed to receive signals both birds (Rainbow-1 & AMC6). Now, we don't need to receive from Rainbow-1. I'm not sure what kind of dish will be needed for AMC6 only.

Voom21 really does not own its own content.

Not completely true. A lot of content is produced by them (WolrdSport evens, Rush HD series, ect.). Also, they own some of the movies, I believe mostly from MOsnterHD (Sean Mota: can you confirm?).

 

[rtt2]

The AMC bird is a FSS signal. You cannot receive that signal with a small dish. It is simply not possible. That is precisly why the DBS signal became so pupular. It allowed the signal to be received with a smaller dish.

It is similar to the way the signal comes in for the Suprdish Locals. A subscriber cannot pick them up without a larger dish.

 

[compurocker]

Ahh, I didn't know that about DBS vs FSS. Maybe VOOM could just use the 30" dishes that they were giving people to help with rain fade, rather than rolling out a brand new eliptical dish.

 

[Bruce]

Think the Primestar Dish ( Primestar was a FSS service)

 

[SonicRob]

Who Cares

Let's all think about the postive thing about Voom staying in the Game, i don't think we are going to need PrimeStar Dishes.Voom will add more Channels and a new DVR in March that is Positive.

You also forgot that the FCC must aprove these so we got 3 to 6 months before we hear any news about these so sit tight and enjoy Vooming.

 

[rtt2]

Yes Primestar was FSS.

I bet VOOM will chose whatever works best and is already comercially avaliable at a reasonable price.

 

[rvsixer]

Personally this is just too big to be accepted in my community.

That would indeed be a personal decision. The community however, by FCC ruling, must accept a 1m or smaller dish.

 

[Mr Tony]

Ahh, I didn't know that about DBS vs FSS. Maybe VOOM could just use the 30" dishes that they were giving people to help with rain fade, rather than rolling out a brand new eliptical dish.

They probably will...all that would need to be done with those is switch out the LNBF.

Eliptical dishes usually (key word usually) were for more than one slot on a dish (like StarChocie or DirecPC)

 

[Walter L.]

Hopefully, the new LNBF doesn't look like this...

 

[Sean Mota]

Before disregarding Rainbow 1 or anything else, let's wait until we hear more concrete news. The fact remains that with or without Rainbow 1, VOOM was going to use an elliptical dish that was going to exceed the 18" requirements. I know some thought that they could have just stay with the 18" pointing to Rainbow 1 if they did not want to pick up what was going to be on Rainbow 2 (AMC-6). However, you will be fooling yourself if you did not want to see what was going to be on Rainbow 2. You and I as customers would be crying for the elliptical dish.

Anyway, it is too early in the game to say goodbye to Rainbow 1. We'll see where everything leads in a couple of months.

The 21 HD channel content:

Ultra HD ----> Theirs
Gallery HD ---> Theirs
Rush HD -----> Theirs
WorldSport ---> Theirs (except for Jr Hockey and Japanese WorldSeries. Also I say theirs loosely because Rainbow Media pays for the rights of transmitting those soccer and basketball games).
lab hd ----> Theirs
Animania ---> Various contracts acquistions that would be carried over.
Cinema HD and Monsters HD ---> Contracts acquisitions that would be carried over and they own some Monsters movies.
Rave ----> Various contracts acquisitions that would be carried over.

Non Exclusive HD channels on VOOM contract acquisitions that would be carried over.

The interested question is how much of Rainbow Media will VOOM HD LLC get. Will it be 100%, 75%, 50%, 25% or what. It is interested also that when everybody was waiting for the sale of Rainbow Media, most people agreed that it will be the whole enchilada. Rainbow Media is big and it is also responsible for MSG, FSNY, FUSE, etc stuff that is valuable to CVC as well. I am sure that there will be a mutual agreement between both entities to utilize and part with their respective products and be able to support one another in the future.

Even though in paper it looks like two different entities, there are a lot of stuff that is done by both sure enough there will be agreement in place to continue a good working relationship. These people are not stupid. They know that they will need each other on a consulting basis in the future and they will work it out.

 

[mike123abc]

All you have to do is look at Dishnetwork. Superdish 105 and 121 is about what they will need. SuperDish is primarily a Ku-FSS dish.

 

[Mr Tony]

All you have to do is look at Dishnetwork. Superdish 105 and 121 is about what they will need. SuperDish is primarily a Ku-FSS dish.

actually, If Voom was smart, they'd use a regular 30" dish instead of eliptical.

Why?

30" dish doesnt need as big a pipe and is smaller than SD or eliptical

My 30" dish can use a regular Dish pipe (1 5/8" I think?)
an Eliptical needs about a 2 3/8" (and braces)

 

[screech]

Sean what about EquatorHD content

I don't think you mentioned that in your post.

If FSS=Ku then maybe those of us with BUDs can find a use for them instead of knocking down more trees around the house.

 

[Sean Mota]

Equator HD is both an acquisiton in programming and they produce very little on it. I also forgot HDnews which they produce lots of it but also get highlights and news from other news organization.

 

[screech]

Is the currently announced increase in channels planned for the current satellite?

 

[rtt2]

Sean I agree that there will be an agreemet between Rainbow Media and VOOM. But this will now be a contratual work done between the two companies where VOOM pays for the Rainbow services.
They will lose a lot of the synergy they once had.

The other bad thing is that say Dolan is putting Cablevision up for sale to fund this venture. What will become of Rainbow Media. With companies like Sony, NBCUniversal and even Disney looking at the Rainbow property how willing will they be to kep certain divisions going. They want the channels but they will find cost efficiencies in their own organizations that will force Dolan to look for services elsewhere.

Out of all the divisions of Cablevision likely to be sold the most likely is Rainbow Media. Then the Core Cable Division.

 

[Sean Mota]

I agree. It will be interested to see where Rainbow Media ends (especially their core channels). We have to wait and see how everything folds.