Retailer Chat Recap: July 9, 2009

[Scott Greczkowski]

Now we are joined by Phil Klein the Marketing guy (Not relationship to Bill Nye The Science Guy)

Phil shows some ad slicks of upcoming Dish promotion. (The ads are ugly and give me a headache trying to read them.) I wouldn't know it was an ad for satellite television except for the Dish Network logo in the corner.

This months retailer product of the month is a Dish Network umbrella.

And with that Phil wraps up...

 

[Lt Disher]

Effective August 1st New and Existing customers upgrading to HD will get the PlatinumHD package FREE with the underlying HD add on package. It will appear on the bill as HD & Platinum for $10 a month.

Now word of if existing customers will see their bill go down $10 a month who already have HD. (If not then I will drop my HD package before August 1st and readd it and save myself $10 a month!)

If I read this correctly, this is another nail in the coffin of TurboHD. PlatinumHD is given free with the HD upgrade to the Classic packages. If you have the TurboHD you would still have to pay $10 to get Platinum HD.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

They then talk about broadband. They want retailers to push broadband...

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Heres one that don't make much sense to me...

Effective August 1st, new customers living in a Western Arc DMA and subscribe to HD programming must be installed with all MPEG4 equipment...

Well DUH. (I dont know of any MPEG2 HD programming being broadcast by Dish)

 

[mike123abc]

Heres one that don't make much sense to me...

Effective August 1st, new customers living in a Western Arc DMA and subscribe to HD programming must be installed with all MPEG4 equipment...

Well DUH. (I dont know of any MPEG2 HD programming being broadcast by Dish)

Probably means no SD equipment for non HD TVs in other rooms. One receiver upgraded to HD means all receivers upgraded to HD. This combined with the new LiL 8PSK requirements is starting to look like a phase out of the SD boxes. Probably have quite a few in stock and they want to get rid of them before HD only.

 

[Jerryinvirginia]

Eg: If a customer has 3 tv's, 1 HD 2SD, won't be able to have a single tuner SD receiver{311}.

 

[mike123abc]

If I read this correctly, this is another nail in the coffin of TurboHD. PlatinumHD is given free with the HD upgrade to the Classic packages. If you have the TurboHD you would still have to pay $10 to get Platinum HD.

It makes it harder to sell TurboHD, the price difference is shrinking and the missing channels make it a very hard sell.

 

[tomcrown1]

Now we are joined by Phil Klein the Marketing guy (Not relationship to Bill Nye The Science Guy)

Phil shows some ad slicks of upcoming Dish promotion. (The ads are ugly and give me a headache trying to read them.) I wouldn't know it was an ad for satellite television except for the Dish Network logo in the corner.

This months retailer product of the month is a Dish Network umbrella.

And with that Phil wraps up...

Fire Dish marketing department they are idots!!!!

Dish look at the current Direct Tv ads they work yours will make folks leave please get wise and get a new marketing team.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

And now for the best part of the show... its time for tech talk with Leslie Harper!

922 Testers be on the look out a new beta software release is do out in the next few days.

The new software will enable dual mode so you can output to TV2 and will add the option to unlink a remote from the sys info screen.

The 922 does not have software download at night feature enable yet, so make sure to shut off your 922 when your not using it so you can get the new download.

And that wraps up Leslies portion.

 

[Jerryinvirginia]

The economics to Dish under present additional receiver fees, HD =$7...SD= $5....Gain $2 more per mo. Good for Dish, not good for Customer......

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

On to question time...

Which means this chat is done... I will keep an eye on the chat incase there any interesting asked in question time.

Again thanks again for being SatelliteGuys!

 

[M Sparks]

Free in perpetuity? What a kick in the face to existing subs! This is much, much worse than their normal new-customer freebies. There should be a law requiring them to give all customers equal pricing.



I would be very, very surprised if Dish allowed either of those things. If they were really interested in doing the right thing, they'd just combine the Platinum package (which probably only has one or two channels that any given customer would watch, and therefore is financially unsupportable) with the base HD packages for everyone. That's the way it was before they added Voom, so they should go back to it.

Yes, but it was $20 instead of $10.

I said they were setting up for a price increase, let me make an addendum to that. Let's suppose that all the Platinum channels cost DISH $2 a month per subscriber. Right now they're making $8 on each subscriber. But let's suppose that only 10% of all HD subscribers take Platinum. They could make MORE money giving the channels to everyone and charging them an extra $3, even though they'd only make a $1 on each subscriber. Not to mention the fact that they can go to the channel providers and say "We just increased your subscribers 10 fold, how about you cut your fee 20%"

If they just added those channels to the HD pack and then raised the price a few bucks, tons of people would whine about being forced to pay for channels they don't want. (Never mind the fact that they've been saving $10 a month for several years.) So here's what they do. They open a new package called "HD & Platinum" and close the other packages to new subscribers. Current subscribers don't get switched automatically, but they will give it to anyone that asks. Current Platinum subscribers in the know can call and ask for "HD & Platinum" and save $10. Current NON-Platinum HD subscribers in the know can call and get the extra channels for free. People not in the know get ripped off, but they're not in the know, so they'll never know.

BUT...when February rolls around, "HD & Platinum" goes up to $12.99. The Platinum subscribers who didn't already switch will get moved into it and save $7 automatically, so they'll be happy. The HD Gold/Silver/Bronze subscribers who didn't take the bait stay grandfathered in at $10. Everyone else gets a price increase.

This is my prediction (though knowing DISH, they'll probably try for $14.99), and any of you who jump to the new package to try to get something for nothing- no whining when the price goes up and you can't go back.

 

[M Sparks]

Heres one that don't make much sense to me...

Effective August 1st, new customers living in a Western Arc DMA and subscribe to HD programming must be installed with all MPEG4 equipment...

Well DUH. (I dont know of any MPEG2 HD programming being broadcast by Dish)

Yes, but someone could theoretically put MPEG2 equipment in a bedroom or something for an SDTV. This helps set them up for getting rid of SD locals, or at least switch them to MPEG4.

I don't know why they sell any SD equipment at all any more. A very basic HD receiver should be the base equipment in every room.

EDIT---Oops, Mike beat me to it.

 

[No_Brains]

have they said anything about if the bluefield/ beckley/ oakhill locals are coming since they are uplinked on last weeks uplink report

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

have they said anything about if the bluefield/ beckley/ oakhill locals are coming since they are uplinked on last weeks uplink report

Not a word.

 

[cubsfan34]

Maybe I missed it here, but was there any mention of future HD Local launches. I thought on these they usually would announce the next few markets.

I'm mainly wondering about Davenport, IA / Rock Island, Ill, as this market was originally announced a long time ago, then disappeared from their list of "to be added soon", then was mentioned a few months back as "coming this summer", which I assumed meant August?

 

[gopherscot]

What is up with my locals in HD? Announced coming soon last November and then one of eight cities announced coming soon in May. Now all the other seven are uplinked and we are not even mentioned for August. What is up? ... getting frustrated! My locals are the Quad Cities (Davenport, IA- Moline, Rock Island IL).

 

[No_Brains]

i dont really care at this time if the bluefield/beckley/oakhill locals are hd. i would just be glad to have them in sd rite now. im tired of not having any network programming.
but the local channels here are crap anyways. but i just want them for the network programming......
i just hope that they come soon, since they have been uplnked according to the uplink report last week. but since they didnt mention them today i guess its gonna be a while before we actually see them

 

[halsan40]

And now for the best part of the show... its time for tech talk with Leslie Harper!

922 Testers be on the look out a new beta software release is do out in the next few days.

The new software will enable dual mode so you can output to TV2 and will add the option to unlink a remote from the sys info screen.

The 922 does not have software download at night feature enable yet, so make sure to shut off your 922 when your not using it so you can get the new download.

And that wraps up Leslies portion.

Will you be able to output HD to TV2?

 

[comollitd]

Does anyone have an authoritative answer as to which Dish receivers will be affected by the TIVO controversy? I have read reports that say it will be only the older models but I assume the the technology used in my 722 is relatively the same. The company will NOT give me a straight answer to the question but, rather, they refer me to the "Charlie Chats."