Retailer Chat Recap: January 14, 2010

First Sorry if I offend anyone with my sarcasm here.. But welcome to socialism. Dish Network has basically raised prices on all their customers who are already spending over $100 a month. Customers who are are everything pack subscribers with multiple recievers and more than likely DVR. While if your a single tuner receiver subscriber with a basic package you wont get any increase. I agree with everyone here that $10 for an additional DVR instead of $7 is paying EXTRA for DVR! Also I think they made a mistake on the pricing for the duo boxes for two reasons. First Duo boxes SAVE Dish money!! It is ONE box! and one smart card. Secondly As a customer and a retailer why would I or a customer use a 222 (with one output SD mind you) instead of 2 211's when it is the same price. Going back to my first point the 222 saves dish money why not create a savings benefit to use a 222. Another possibility is follow the direction Directv has gone with the multi room viewing. When I was at CEDIA I went to the Dish Network booth and asked the questions about using ethernet or coax to share and stream content around the home and was told they have prototypes in engineering. Beyond that they had no answers or eta. If customers could have one large DVR and and access it anywhere it makes the DVR price issue a non issue. A further idea is to allow the 211 for example to tune to a channel and stream back to a DVR eliminating the need of a DVR to utilize 3, 4 or more tuners.

Just some food for thought.
 
Many cable companies are changing their signals from analog to digital to save bandwidth and add more hd. I think comcast was the first to start doing this, they did it last year during the dtv conversion even though that mandate was for only broadcast channels. So cable ready tvs will not get most of the channels, depending on what you want to watch on those secondary tvs you might still need an sd box.

And in area's they have done that they left basic cable channels free and clear in QAM spec which most tv made in the last 2-3 years can watch just fine. So you still don't need a box unless you got an older analog TV or HD TV that does not support QAM. And QAM boxes are under $50 to buy online so if the only thing you want is to be able to watch basic cable on those TV it is still cheaper to buy QAM boxes over renting cable boxes making Cable cheaper than paying Dish new inflated cable prices.

With that said people on absolute and some of the turbo packages with 1 box will end up staying with Dish as that will still be a cheaper alliterative. Anyone on an America Top 200 package or above using dou HD receivers in single tv mode are ones who will be able to switch to cable or fios/u-verse and save money as they will be paying pricing comparable to cable DVR charges and using plain HD boxes and with Dish trying to collect "$100 upgrade fee" from those customers trying to switch to HD receivers to avoid the increases on top of getting them to agree to new contracts will make cable look much more attractive as their will no be no upfront costs and their bill will go down right away. People with tons of DVR bill will increase to comparable cable companies bill, So unless those people can switch to Fios/U-Verse and get away with a total DVR package current limitation of a maximum of 4 recorded shows per household(1-3 in HD on U-Verse at a time based on distance) they will not be able to save any money.
 
Troi... I think you will be seeing something like that at CES from Dish next year..

This year we saw the first piece of the puzzle... and the flash announcement was a major portion of it.
 
Well, if you are cancelling Dish and want to avoid all of those $15 per receiver fee for returning the receivers to them, then there is a trick around that. Before you cancel just tell them that you want to return all of your receivers except one. After you return them THEN cancel the service where it will only cost you $15 to cancel (if you are out of your contract already). Otherwise bend over and use a jar of vaseline.

Also, since they forced me to a leased receiver coming from a 721 to 522, I do NOT think it is right that they expect me to pay to return it to them! I don't think its right for them to charge it anyways. They will need to send someone out to pick up the equipment then with a receipt that it was picked up or they can screw themselves.
 
First Sorry if I offend anyone with my sarcasm here.. But welcome to socialism. Dish Network has basically raised prices on all their customers who are already spending over $100 a month. Customers who are are everything pack subscribers with multiple recievers and more than likely DVR. While if your a single tuner receiver subscriber with a basic package you wont get any increase. I agree with everyone here that $10 for an additional DVR instead of $7 is paying EXTRA for DVR! Also I think they made a mistake on the pricing for the duo boxes for two reasons. First Duo boxes SAVE Dish money!! It is ONE box! and one smart card. Secondly As a customer and a retailer why would I or a customer use a 222 (with one output SD mind you) instead of 2 211's when it is the same price. Going back to my first point the 222 saves dish money why not create a savings benefit to use a 222. Another possibility is follow the direction Directv has gone with the multi room viewing. When I was at CEDIA I went to the Dish Network booth and asked the questions about using ethernet or coax to share and stream content around the home and was told they have prototypes in engineering. Beyond that they had no answers or eta. If customers could have one large DVR and and access it anywhere it makes the DVR price issue a non issue. A further idea is to allow the 211 for example to tune to a channel and stream back to a DVR eliminating the need of a DVR to utilize 3, 4 or more tuners.

Just some food for thought.

Because it is meant to save Dish Network money, not the customer, and Dish Network realized this so they raised their prices. Dish Network wanted to see the benefit instead of the customer. The only benefit of having a dual tuner receiver now is to simply use a splitter to split it off to additional rooms and change the channels in the other rooms without having to buy a UHF upgrade kit.
 
If someone needs tv in two rooms they will see no change in their price (if they have dual tuner receiver). If someone needs tv in three rooms they will see only a $2 price increase (if they have dual tuner as first receiver and one tv output on their second receiver). Those with a 612 as their second receiver will actually see a $3 decrease ($1 decrease if you trade in a 522/625 for this if you only use tv1 compared to what you was paying before) or a $3 decrease if you downgrade your 622/722 to a 612 if you dont need tv2.

Those that have tv in four or more rooms are the ones that are going to see a price increase. I think the reason why Dish Network set it up this way is due to the fact that they think that customers with that many televisions must have a lot of money therefore can afford to pay more money per month. Dish Network must be tired of subsidizing people that have a lot of money for additional tv's when that is not much of a money maker for them.
 
I can't believe how many dual DVR's on their account. Is that really neccessary? And then to complain about how high their bills are. I'm curious if these people have multiple accounts.
 
What does Comcast charge for service calls!? I believe 0 is the answer. Could be wrong. Haven't had cable in 12 yrs.
In NJ - and it varies a lot by COmcast system - charge is 0 if you live in a MDU. Otherwise, you either pay about 5 bucks/month for insurance or a tech visit was something like 39 bucks and above, when I left, back in April of 09.
 
If someone needs tv in two rooms they will see no change in their price (if they have dual tuner receiver). If someone needs tv in three rooms they will see only a $2 price increase (if they have dual tuner as first receiver and one tv output on their second receiver). .

I disagree with you many customers I bet with HD TV in the past had dual tuner receiver in single mode for PIP like myself or were willing to put up with 2nd HD having access to SD programing only because it was free. Under the current pricing you have be a total moron to use a dual tuner receiver over have 2 211 as it will be the same price and that 2nd tv will no longer be limited to SD but if it was an HD can enjoy full HD picture quality.


Those that have tv in four or more rooms are the ones that are going to see a price increase. I think the reason why Dish Network set it up this way is due to the fact that they think that customers with that many televisions must have a lot of money therefore can afford to pay more money per month. Dish Network must be tired of subsidizing people that have a lot of money for additional tv's when that is not much of a money maker for them.

Again that goes back to the point currently people with those Dual receivers were watch programing in SD on 2 TV even tho they had 2 HD TV. The only reason they took those receivers over having 4 HD receivers was because it was FREE and some TV on those HD TV was better than no TV or OAT only. And Now Dish took that away and is insisting those customers not only pay "$100 upgrade fee per receiver" but agree to a new 2 year contract. Btw how is Dish subsiding those customers? Lets take 222, Dish charged a $100 upfront lease fee on that box when many people signed up, then lets assume old pricing $7 a month for 24 month added up to $168 so over 2 year dish collects $268 which is more than that box costs dish to make. If the box breaks unless you have service plan which is another $6 per month you have to pay to replace it not dish which already collected the full value for the box anyways.

So not sure how Dish is subsidizing anyone TV honestly this move is pure and simple, greed, Dish knows most customers are not going to complain if they loose a % they don't care as they overall gross profit and gross margin from the customers who do stay will be going up anyways which means they will be more profitable over all as company.
 
Yes I know about this, but they still have quite 60 or so analog channels. All of this just doesn't make it worth it anymore, eh? We could go to internet streaming services, Netflix, and OTA and be more than happy. I see more and more people doing stuff like this. I know a friend that just canceled his $100+ a month cable bill, for $9 a month Netflix bill and threw in a dual tuner OTA tuner in his HTPC for watching TV. Now that's a huge savings a year.

Thats good, I think Comcast has been the most aggressive in doing this, some areas only have 26 channels analog, which is mainly the locals and public access. My sister lives in Boston and had to ad a box to her bedroom tv to get the basic channels.
 
What credit? They weren't billing for additional tuner unless you didn't hook up.
Yeah I know but now they are trying to say that those who had a phoneline hooked up were getting a credit instead of a charge...

Thats not the way they billed it on customers bills...
 
Yea they need to make all receiver fees identical across the board. If there is simply one DVR fee per account, then dish has no excuse but to make all the fees the same.
If all receivers had identical capabilities, I could understand where you're coming from. As it is, I'm not sure your position makes sense.

A Duo HD DVR certainly offers more functionality than a Solo receiver and as such, should cost more. The HD DVR costs more to support and more to replace.
Bad move on dish. Im still in my 30 day period, im beginning to wonder if I should consider directv again over these fees.
What do you mean by "30 day period"???
 
They are wrapping up the chat now by talking about Team Summit...

No mention of new HD on the chat.

So as I promised here is the list of HD that is currently up in testing on Dish Network. While the channels are in testing, it does not mean that customers will EVER see these channels. I have no idea or even a clue when these channel will launch.

Here we go..

TMP59 is testing E! HD
TMP60 is testing Hallmark E
TMP61 is testing Sportman
TMP63 is testing Outdoor Channel HD
TMP64 is testing TruTV HD
TMP65 is testing EPIX HD (Looks like SD only is getting launched this week)
TMP10 is testing BBC America HD
TMP11 is testing QVC HD
TMP12 is testing SHORTS HD
TMP13 is testing Showtime West HD
TMP14 is testing Retro HD (An Encore Channel)
TMP15 is testing Indie HD (An Encore Channel)

And there you have it. :)

Next Retailer Chat February 17th, and Charlie Chat on March 8th.
Scott, thanks for this posting. I have a question: How do you know this information? Are those channels available to retailers? Or is internal Dish personnel sharing knowledge with you?
 
Ok went back and took a look at the receiver pricing...

And it was still fuzy, but was abble to get a bigger screen shot making it easier to read.

That chart makes the fee increases look pretty reasonable. Too bad it is completely WRONG for AEP customers.


I can't believe how many dual DVR's on their account. Is that really neccessary? And then to complain about how high their bills are. I'm curious if these people have multiple accounts.

Who can afford multiple accounts?? You mean stacking. Some of Charlies BEST customers like to have dual tuner HD PVRs on every TV. Too bad he has decided to screw his best customers in Robin Hood fashion.
 
The business rules state right now that a customer can only lease 4 tuners/2 receivers and can have up to 6 tuners on one account. That means anything over that would have to be set up as a second account.

So a customer who wants 5 dual tuner receivers would have to have 3 on one account and 2 on another account. At least, as a retailer, thats how I have to set up a customer following Dish's business rules.