**Rumor:** Dish Network and Voom combined?

[slacker9876]

This would be a great move for both companies. As a D* sub I am in favor of anything that will keep D* on their toes. I just hope if it is a true rumor that the consumers are not forgotten, one receiver, one bill, etc. Integration should not be an issue given the satellite location.

 

[riffjim4069]

Does anyone know what bitrate cable transmits at?

It depends what your Cable Co. is doing. A cable channel (6Mhz, QAM) has a max data rate of about 38Mbps. My local cable company is stuffing 3 HD channels per 6Mhz frequency (38/3 = 12.66Mbs per HD channel). It has been reported that VOOM is using an average of 12Mbps per HD channel. The ATSC standard for OTA is 19.39Mbps. Of course, some broadcasters are multicasting, which lessens the bandwidth available for HD. The consensus appears to support that multicasting can be a bad thing with 1080i. IMO, a responsible cable company will transmit two (2) 15Mbps HD channels per frequency and use the remaining bandwidth for 2 SD channels.

 

[calikarim]

All Wishful thinking

This is a rumour going out of control. voom will remain stand alone. I think they are goingt to fight it out alone. I honestly believe there will be no merger, or news would have already leaked out. These are all great imaginary wishes. They are sadly not in the near future. HD is till two years away from its prime, so Voom will have to battle it out for at least the next 18 months

 

[HeavyC]

Well there has to be a reson for the absolutely sudden stop of information flowing from VOOM headquarters. Either they are being very very quiet before the spin-off, or they are talking about a merger.

They have too many customers on the cusp of leaving them right now to remain this quiet without something coming big coming down the pipe.

 

[Bear]

Yep, it's wishful thinking, but what else is there to talk about?

AS for Voom keeping anything separate in a deal, remember the worthless bit. If either D* or E* were buying just the satellite, then that would hang a lot of debt and hassle around Cablevision's neck. Since Cablevision has bundled the entertainment assets into one entity, then either a) the entity gets bought, or b) Cable vision keeps the bad parts. Both Charlie and Rupert are much smarter than to take someone else's garbage for free.

 

[gunn55]

This is a rumour going out of control. voom will remain stand alone. I think they are goingt to fight it out alone. I honestly believe there will be no merger, or news would have already leaked out. These are all great imaginary wishes. They are sadly not in the near future. HD is till two years away from its prime, so Voom will have to battle it out for at least the next 18 months

Ditto on that, Do you really think cablevision would let this happen and have more competition, that's why they got into this game to be competitive with D* & E* and be able to reach any where in the U.S.A.
It makes more $cents$ if V* buys out E*
Cablevision is spending millions right now with commercials and everything you could think of, Just trying to stop a stadium from being built on the east side of N.Y.C. for the N.Y. Jets. So they will loose money for future gains.
And as far as letting D*,E* to get there exclusives forget it that would chase More sub's from them, oh yea they would get paid for them but it wouldn't out weigh the more sub's. Wouldn't it take the exclusive out of exclusive.
Sorry to bust any body's balloon but I just can't see this happing unless V* is on the B#$% of it's A%$.

 

[riffjim4069]

Yep, this is indeed wild out-of-control rumor...but what else do we have to talk about? I am sure most of us were looking forward to discussing:

1. New DVR rollout (4th Quarter)
2. Bigger dish installs (4th Quarter)
3. MPEG4/WM9 module installs (4th Quarter)
4. MPEG4/WM9 migration plan (1st Quarter 2005)

Instead, we hear nothing and see nothing...but we surely don't have nothing to say. We are officially 16% into the 4th Quarter and I don't see any progress being made on of the above listed items. Why? I don't know and VOOM ain't tellin'!

 

[Lucky]

Yep, this is indeed wild out-of-control rumor...but what else do we have to talk about? I am sure most of us were looking forward to discussing:

1. New DVR rollout (3rd Quarter)
2. Bigger dish installs (3rd Quarter)
3. MPEG4/WM9 module installs (3rd Quarter)
4. MPEG4/WM9 migration plan (1st Quarter 2005)

Instead, we hear nothing and see nothing...but we surely don't have nothing to say. We are officially 16% into the 3rd Quarter and I don't see any progress being made on of the above listed items. Why? I don't know and VOOM ain't tellin'!

The answer might be in their inaction. Maybe they are not doing any of these, because the company will not be around long.

 

[riffjim4069]

The answer might be in their inaction. Maybe they are not doing any of these, because the company will not be around long.

I agree with you on the inaction part and that's the main point behind so much of this speculation. I can certainly understand VOOM being in a "quite period" prior to its spin-off, but that doesn't mean the Network Operations should put a halt to its previously announced upgrades and expansion plans.

Personally, I don't see Rainbow Media going anywhere, but VOOM DBS may be up for grabs. If so, new business partnerships are going to be formed in order to sell programming.

Anyone in the know care to leak information? (Blink once for yes and twice for no)

 

[dnyce]

Ditto on that, Do you really think cablevision would let this happen and have more competition, that's why they got into this game to be competitive with D* & E* and be able to reach any where in the U.S.A.

Wrong gunn55. Cabelvision got into the game to make money. And if a partnership with Dish makes them money, then they'll do it. They couldn't care less about making a statement and being the hero that fights the two Satellite giants. It's a business, their out to be successful. A partnership and/or merger with Dish would make them a whole lot of money.

And going back to the CSR that started this Rumor. According to VewDew his friend already signed up for Dish and the CSR volunteered this info. If he was trying to cancel and they said we're buying Voom don't leave, then I'd chalk it up to BS. But that wasn't the case. As a matter of fact, I'm calling Dish today. I'll let you guys know what happens....

 

[Bruce]

Yep, this is indeed wild out-of-control rumor...but what else do we have to talk about? I am sure most of us were looking forward to discussing:

1. New DVR rollout (3rd Quarter)
2. Bigger dish installs (3rd Quarter)
3. MPEG4/WM9 module installs (3rd Quarter)
4. MPEG4/WM9 migration plan (1st Quarter 2005)

Instead, we hear nothing and see nothing...but we surely don't have nothing to say. We are officially 16% into the 3rd Quarter and I don't see any progress being made on of the above listed items. Why? I don't know and VOOM ain't tellin'!

We are in the 4th quarter of the year,not the third.

 

[vinnyv07]

The answer might be in their inaction. Maybe they are not doing any of these, because the company will not be around long.

Thats right on the mark....why all the delays . A DVR should have been out during the summer. Clearly VOOM is not making any money and isn't going to in the near future unless something drastically changes...like their sub base goes up 3 million or so. Cablevision isn't going to buy out Dish Net.....Dish Net is going to acquire VOOm for their Sats....maybe its a rumor out of control...but I see it happening in the future. Enjoy VOOM while we still have it...nobody starts a business to lose millions.

 

[Sean Mota]

I put this thread as a sticky because it's good conversation. All of it is just "Rumors" with very little substance to go on. I believe we have been hearing the same for 5-6 months already. I do believe that Rainbow/VOOM is not talking because of the spin-offs that it is taken place this quarter. As you see there has been very little press release in any face of their operation. What the spin-off is going to bring is anyone's guess right now. Now just because during the spin-off there is a "silence" period does not mean that they are not working on the projects at hand.

It will be interested to see what takes place at the end but until it happens we can all speculate what is going to happen. Some of us will be wrong and some will be right. In the meantime, we all enjoy what we have as of today!

 

[Sean Mota]

By the way, there is a "method to their madness" and sometimes it is hard to predict them.

 

[riffjim4069]

We are in the 4th quarter of the year,not the third.

Doh! My brains knew it, but my fingers were on their own sheet of music. Perhaps all those Canadian Bier I drank while growing up are starting to affect my neurotransmitters.

Without naming names, can anyone tell us if VOOM has DVR Beta Testers among us?

 

[gunn55]

Wrong gunn55. Cabelvision got into the game to make money. And if a partnership with Dish makes them money, then they'll do it. They couldn't care less about making a statement and being the hero that fights the two Satellite giants.

Who said partnership, acquire is todays word.
Think what you want to make your Voom world full of fake flowers.
This is reality.
And guess what they are fighting them right now with a little company called Voom.
And who says anything about statement, everything I said is in line with making the most money.
And it's Cablevision not cabelvision.

 

[gunn55]

And going back to the CSR that started this Rumor. According to VewDew his friend already signed up for Dish and the CSR volunteered this info. If he was trying to cancel and they said we're buying Voom don't leave, then I'd chalk it up to BS. But that wasn't the case. As a matter of fact, I'm calling Dish today. I'll let you guys know what happens....[/QUOTE]

That's funny, they don't even tell you about a channel being added when you call up until its added, and you think there going to tell a person that answers a phone huge news like this.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Well there has to be a reson for the absolutely sudden stop of information flowing from VOOM headquarters. Either they are being very very quiet before the spin-off, or they are talking about a merger.

They have too many customers on the cusp of leaving them right now to remain this quiet without something coming big coming down the pipe.

From what I understand they are in their quiet period required by the SEC. However with that said anythings possible.

 

[ShadowEKU]

From what I understand they are in their quiet period required by the SEC. However with that said anythings possible.

 

[Bear]

To clarify Scott's point, Companies who are going public are not allowed to make any kind of non-fact-oriented statements during the run-up to the IPO. Google's founders gave an interview to Playboy, and that almost required them to pull the IPO. Salesforce.com DID have to pull its IPO due to shenanigans from its CEO. Basically, the way most companies operate during the quiet period is that it is a near complete dead time in terms of making announcements, major changes, etc.