Team Summit: General Assembly Notes

[Peter Parker]

First, why bring a political reference into this to begin with?

And second, RSNs are national. If you subscribe to the sports pack you get all of them, ergo they are available nationally.

/QUOTE]

I agree with you on the political reference. It does nothing except offend the people who disagree with it.

But on counting RSNs I disagree with you. Many of these RSNs are broadcasting little to no HD content except the games themselves---and those are blacked out outside the home market. It is misleading to count them without at least saying how many are these RSNs. In addition you don't get them unless you subscrbe to something other than the HD package.

 

[TalonDancer]

The only purpose of the "number of National HD channels" count is marketing and advertising.

If DirecTV uses a specific method of counting and says "We have 100" and Dish uses your method and says "We have 50", then Joe Sixpack is going to think DirecTV have lots more even if the difference is only the method of counting.
...

IMHO DirecTV does a much better job of describing their HD channel offerings. Note on this page they break out their "national" HD channels, HD LiLs, RSNs, etc. They even include a footnote "In addition to the channel logos included here, the total channel count includes fifteen HD Pay Per View channels, and eight HD DNS channels." But they don't mention that 10 of their national HD channels would require subs to premium movie packages (e.g. Starz, HBO, Cinemax, Showtime)

Compare this relatively clear layout to the dishHD page with it's jumble of HD logos. Note on this page Dish explicitly acknowledges that it only offers 45 national HD channels (including 5 PPV). Figuring out that the rest of the HD channels are actually HD LiLs, RSNs etc. is left as an exercise for the reader

Talon Dancer

 

[tigerfan33]

First, why bring a political reference into this to begin with?

And second, RSNs are national. If you subscribe to the sports pack you get all of them, ergo they are available nationally.

/QUOTE]

I agree with you on the political reference. It does nothing except offend the people who disagree with it.

But on counting RSNs I disagree with you. Many of these RSNs are broadcasting little to no HD content except the games themselves---and those are blacked out outside the home market. It is misleading to count them without at least saying how many are these RSNs. In addition you don't get them unless you subscrbe to something other than the HD package.

Dish did say at Team Summit that they are looking to make some RSN hd 24/7 because RSN have picked up their hd content. Which RSN are they talking about??? Good question.

 

[gopherscot]

Comcast Chicago is supposed to be 24/7 from what I hear

 

[Peter Parker]

Dish did say at Team Summit that they are looking to make some RSN hd 24/7 because RSN have picked up their hd content. Which RSN are they talking about??? Good question.

Which are YOU talking about/ Most are not 34/7 HD and since receiving one requires subbing to yt another package it is deceptive to count them as natioanl HD without at least qualifying it. Bit if one is 24/7 and they five you access to it it si fine to list it. But are there ANY like that?

If Ia m wrong and DISh does sell them 24/7 as part of an HD pack please correct me. i am unawre of any RNs like that but if there are some I would like to know about it.

 

[drdroo]

THe claims of calling it a channel when it isn't 24/7, I agree, is rather faulty. However, they count channels like Cinemax, HBO, Starz as National HD and those require another package too.

I do feel that any 24/7 channel that you can get for money, should be counted as a channel. It doesn't matter if it's in a different package or not.

 

[Peter Parker]

THe claims of calling it a channel when it isn't 24/7, I agree, is rather faulty. However, they count channels like Cinemax, HBO, Starz as National HD and those require another package too.

I do feel that any 24/7 channel that you can get for money, should be counted as a channel. It doesn't matter if it's in a different package or not.

Actaully that sia good way to put it. I appreciate the different perspective on it.

 

[vegassatellite]

I am curious what portion of your new customers have chosen the $10.00 Dish HD Essentials Vs the $20.00 HD Ultimate since that choice has been available. I assume that when you do an install, you explain the package choices and what is in them. Also what portion of existing customers who have the $20.00 package (from when it was the only one available) have kept the $20.00 package.

If, as you assume (maybe correctly), that the vast majority don't care about Voom, are many paying extra for channels that they don't watch (and now are no longer available)?

This question is directed to vegassatellite and any other installers.

Roy

Most of them get the Dish HD Essentials, we explain to them what channels they get with Ultimate and many don't care to get the Voom channels in the first place. Some do get Ultimate, but very few. VOOM didn't want to be re-tiered because they knew they couldn't stand alone in an upper HD tier. They knew their subscriber count would fail.

As far as selling the packages, we have salesmen who do that. They do a very good job of it as I don't find myself modifying many packages on site unless the customer was indecisive about a package.

So they "know to call you first" about programming questions, even though you are powerless in this respect. In other words, you tell them to waste their time with you in the hopes of making another buck off people too incompetent or lazy to drill a few holes in the wall.

If a customer DID call you to complain about VOOM, do you just tell them they're "worthless"? Because I can get a CSR to do that for free.

Yes, they do call us for programming issues and they know to call us for that. We'll call DISH and make the change on their behalf. We don't want the customer dialing 1-800 for anything. Otherwise they end up talking to Mujibar in India, a.k.a Bob, who screws everything up. It's not hard to call DISH and say your a tech on site and the customer wanted the following changes. Usually, when the customer calls me with programming changes, I'll write down what they want and tell them their salesman will call them back to confirm it. Then I call the salesman and he can call DISH and call back the customer. They usually get referral sales out of it as well so talking to a customer any chance they get is something they love.

Our customers love it because they don't have to go through a psychotic automated phone system. They call us and either a human answers or our voice mail. How many times have you called DISH and just wished you could have gotten a human directly? ...and an English speaking one at that!

 

[JTBenson]

Your jumping in in the midle of a discussion. MY original post stated that HBO, 5Max etc were in my count. Charlie still needs nearly fifty channels to reach 100 by my count, even if you count Big 10 as 10 channels(which it isn't) and it isn't even a 24/7 channel. Before commenting read my original post.

I didn't say that it wasn't in your package. My point is that Big 10 is as much a national channel as HBO is because both are in packages that are available nationally. Big10 has more HD than other some other National HD channels.

 

[Tyralak]

Ceil 2 is suppost to take care of that problem when it gets lauched. From what Im hearing it's going to take care of alaska and hawaii real good as the beams are suppost to be really strong for those areas.

That's good news. Maybe then they'll get to have the full HD packs there.

 

[kb7oeb]

Did they state that, or is it speculation. I know that's the general consensus as to why we haven't had it already, but do the specs show exactly what kind of tuner?

ATSC modulator worked on the Dish 5000 because the video was already MPEG2. Since Dish is now using MPEG4 they would have to also convert it

 

[drdroo]

I didn't say that it wasn't in your package. My point is that Big 10 is as much a national channel as HBO is because both are in packages that are available nationally. Big10 has more HD than other some other National HD channels.

Anyone can get it, if they pay... so I agree with you.

 

[Hall]

I do feel that any 24/7 channel that you can get for money, should be counted as a channel. It doesn't matter if it's in a different package or not.

They (and any provider) has to be able to count packages like that. It's not their "fault" if a customer chooses not to subscribe to a package that doesn't include. It is available to them though. Some could argue Dish only has "x" number of HD channels based on a customer having AT100+HD.

To count regional channels that are not available to everyone is flat out wrong and misleading. If they're going to count them, they'd better give it to customers who call and upgrade to get them (and will pay additionally).

 

[xtop]

did i just see a 722 with sling and a 1tb drive?? so what should we expect to upgrade to that do you think? and are we still stuck with only recording 2 hd sources

 

[dangue]

THe claims of calling it a channel when it isn't 24/7, I agree, is rather faulty. However, they count channels like Cinemax, HBO, Starz as National HD and those require another package too.

I do feel that any 24/7 channel that you can get for money, should be counted as a channel. It doesn't matter if it's in a different package or not.

Come on... what's the difference between 24/7 National HD channel like Travel Channel HD that only shows HD part of the time and upconverted SD the rest of the time and a non-24/7 RSN that is only turned on when there is HD content?

To me in terms of HD, that amounts to the same thing (although the SD on the HD channel is bound to look a little better).

My only issue with the count is when those RSNs only show HD for professional sporting events that can't be seen out of market and Dish doesn't offer a sports package that will allow people nationwide to get around the blackouts. Then it's not a matter of the customer choosing not to pay for access to an HD channel, it's that they can't access the HD on that channel at all.

In that scenario, I think counting the RSN is flawed.

 

[drdroo]

Come on... what's the difference between 24/7 National HD channel like Travel Channel HD that only shows HD part of the time and upconverted SD the rest of the time and a non-24/7 RSN that is only turned on when there is HD content?

NESN (and other RSNs) have other HD programming besides games that is never viewable by us because of the game only HD. I definitely do not think you get to call it a 'channel' when you're only getting just games in HD.

In other words, we're not getting a channel, we're getting a selected show on a channel for that point in time. This isn't any different than an 'alternate' channel. Are we going to start counting those too? Heck there's other games on NESN HD that they don't show on the NESN HD Dish feed, they might as well call it "Red Sox in High Def", which I'd still not call a 'channel'.

I do agree with you that it isn't a 'national HD channel' unless you can get it nationally, for any cost.

EDIT: And yes I am aware Bruins games are also on NESN.. But that's pretty much it. They had a replay Mothers Day Red Sox game the other day and it wasn't on NESN HD. We're talking about a channel thats on for basically two teams.

 

[kstuart]

NESN (and other RSNs) have other HD programming besides games that is never viewable by us because of the game only HD.

Such as what ?

 

[drdroo]

Such as what ?

Like the legacy and replay games that are in HD that they don't show us on NESN HD on Dish. Like Sportsdesk, Ultimate Red Sox Show, those are both in HD as far as I know. I believe several other shows are in HD too now or will be shortly.

When they had the overseas games I'd tune in for the replay, would've been nice if THOSE were in HD since they were early in the morning on the first run.

Sure I realize I could DVR the live game and play it back, but it's still HD content that is over the air that we're missing out on.

 

[M Sparks]

Usually, when the customer calls me with programming changes, I'll write down what they want and tell them their salesman will call them back to confirm it. Then I call the salesman and he can call DISH and call back the customer.

I can see your point here, but I still maintain that anyone that would call you to COMPLAIN about the removal of channels is an idiot. I mean, I suppose it's about as useful as calling a CSR...they can't do anything either.

I've never used an installer, so I didn't know you could handle ordering programming.

 

[Tyralak]

I can see your point here, but I still maintain that anyone that would call you to COMPLAIN about the removal of channels is an idiot. I mean, I suppose it's about as useful as calling a CSR...they can't do anything either.

I've never used an installer, so I didn't know you could handle ordering programming.

The most we can do, is call the CSR for the customer and ask they add whatever programming the customer wants. It's exactly the same as if the customer called.