For those here complaining, how much HD has Direct added in the last six-eight months?
Ironically, Dish and Direct have the same number of channels in HD and Dish leads Direct in premium channels in HD.
Time for Charlie to resign!!!!!
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For those here complaining, how much HD has Direct added in the last six-eight months?
Ironically, Dish and Direct have the same number of channels in HD and Dish leads Direct in premium channels in HD.
LOL. He is a billionaire so this does not make him a idiot??
So you are telling me that the Charlie Chat is a put on?? You are saying that good ole Chuck is really a smart man but when he talks shop on tv he turns into Gomer Pyle??
We need to somehow nominate him for an Oscar.
BTW. The company that he started from the ground up, is being run straight into the ground by the same man.
I completely agree with all of your assessments from the equipment, to the HD additions, to the price.
However, the only thing I'm frustrated about is that this was a flat out mistruth that came directly from the mouth of the person running the Company. It was done in a publicly accessible forum that is meant to inform the customers. He should NEVER have thrown a date out there unless he knew 100% it would happen. I probably won't watch any of the channels involved, but it would be nice for them to reach out in some fashion and let the customers know what happened.
In other words, Scott (thanks again!) shouldn't have to pry information from his sources to explain to all of us what happened. Charlie and/or the company should have made a statement.
I am amazed
I don't post often and I'm not going to blame or defend in this post. However I am amazed at the number of people who are complaining about not getting something for free. Did Charlie say there would be new channels April 1st? Yes. Did he say you would have to pay more for them? Not that I heard. Folks, it's just TV. Relax. If your bill had already seen in ancrease to cover the new HD channels and they were not available yet, THEN I could understand. But to gripe about a delay with new channels that will not cost you one extra dime...please. You may be thinking...but Sluggo, we got an increase already in early February. Right, you did. So did I and so did millions of other customers. Get over it...price increases happen every year whether there are new channels or not. Take a few minutes today and think about whether you have been harmed by not having those channels in HD. If you have in fact been harmed in some way, then you might have a legitimate complaint. It not...then stop the whining and go somewhere else. There's good churn and there's bad churn. The company might be better off without your dollars.
I don't post often and I'm not going to blame or defend in this post. However I am amazed at the number of people who are complaining about not getting something for free. Did Charlie say there would be new channels April 1st? Yes. Did he say you would have to pay more for them? Not that I heard. Folks, it's just TV. Relax. If your bill had already seen in ancrease to cover the new HD channels and they were not available yet, THEN I could understand. But to gripe about a delay with new channels that will not cost you one extra dime...please. You may be thinking...but Sluggo, we got an increase already in early February. Right, you did. So did I and so did millions of other customers. Get over it...price increases happen every year whether there are new channels or not. Take a few minutes today and think about whether you have been harmed by not having those channels in HD. If you have in fact been harmed in some way, then you might have a legitimate complaint. It not...then stop the whining and go somewhere else. There's good churn and there's bad churn. The company might be better off without your dollars.
Only if you include the premiums. Take the premiums out and Direct leads in the basic HD channels (no RSNs, no PPV, no Premiums). Add all of those (even without PPVs) Direct leads by even more.
You Dish guys are hilarious. Start a petition to get the owner to resign? Too funny. You are dellusional if you think these companies actually care about your viewing experience. The only way to make them care is to drop the service and newsflash : there arent enough of you to make a difference.
Hey, the natives are restless - how dare you try to calm them with the voice of reason?
That said, I finally decided to empower myself a little and put principle ahead of money. I have switched the majority of my programming from Dish to cable. I had to draw the line and stop supporting a company that constantly resorts to what I consider too close to deception tactics. Actually, I may even be saving a few bucks but it's hard to compare apples to apples.
What are you talking about? My bill went up a steep $10 per month just for my programming package (Turbo HD Gold), or 25% higher! 25%!! That is unheard of, even in the realm of cable price gouging! That is not your run-of-the-mill price increase of a dollar or two.
Then, when he announced the price increases, he said they would make it worth it. Well here we are, and I have already paid for a month of high price service, and yet I have no additional value! So, to contradict your point entirely, I was told I would have to pay more, and that in return, I would get more hd; yet here we are. The point is, as a Turbo subscriber, HD is important to me, because if it isn't in hd, I don't get to watch it. In fact, even if it is in hd, apparently, I still might not get it (Fox News and Fox Business). So yes, I think we have been "harmed" in so far as a pay tv subscriber can be. Is it the end of the world? Probably not, unless of course my girl friend kills me for promising MTV and yet we still don't have it...
Let me ask you this so that I can understand. In years past when the yearly price increase rolled around, were you always given "additional value" to make up for the increase? Because if not, you have no argument other than someone said that they would deliver new HD on a certain date and for whatever reason (NONE of us know the reason) that didn't happen. Also keep in mind that no one at Dish has said that you wouldn't get them, they just haven't shown up yet.
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LOL. He is a billionaire so this does not make him a idiot??
So you are telling me that the Charlie Chat is a put on?? You are saying that good ole Chuck is really a smart man but when he talks shop on tv he turns into Gomer Pyle??
We need to somehow nominate him for an Oscar.
BTW. The company that he started from the ground up, is being run straight into the ground by the same man.
He could be an idiot if he inherited the company and never did a days work... He could be an idiot if he accidental invented something or found something that made him rich... But, he made his money the old fashion way, he started a company, adapted existing technology to a new product, made a series of smart moves along the way and ended up with one of the top companies in its field.
An idiot would have been kicked out of the door a long time ago, investors never would have bought stock in his company. Just because he wants to own a super majority of voting shares does not mean investors will go along with it. Investors have gone along with it because he has consistently delivered on expectations and profits over the years. He is under pressure now with some sub losses, but that still does not mean the company is going under any time soon.
Remember his results are not judged by how many HD channels he lights up, or even how many subs he has, it is by profits. Higher subs numbers generally means more profits, driving programming and offers to get those subs is the business plan. Giving away the store to bring in customers does not mean profits or long term survivability of the company. Every company has a strategy to drive sales and increase profitability. Some plans work and some do not. Dish seems to have been sacrificing some subs to improve/maintain profitability lately. Is it a good long term strategy only time will tell.
So, do you really think that Dish profits are going to be effected in any way by missing this deadline? In fact they may actually go up if Dish got to save a month of royalty fees by the delay.
Which do you think would kill Dish stock more? Missing an HD deadline only a few people know about, or having the CEO calling it quits and walking out on the company? This entire thread just wreaks of people with a mob mentality and not knowing the first thing about business and making money. Perhaps that is why they are having trouble even paying their TV bill much less making money in a successful business.
I signed up with Dish last October, so this was my first price increase. Before that I had Time Warner, and before that I had Comcast. With them, price increases were more frequent, but they were on the order of $0.50 to $1.50 at a time. They did not add services at the time of the increase, but the annual total increase always seemed to amount to about $2 - $4. So like I said, this Dish price changes was a monumental increase for me (seriously, 25%?!?!). Now, I happened to be the type of subscriber that took the largest hit (Turbo Gold), but all subscribers did. If anything, I am more upset about the whole Fox News debacle, which I still don't have; and I don't really care about the channel, other than the fact that it is HD and I do not receive it. Therefore, I don't even know if I will get the new channels when they get flipped on. I have no sense of place for my standing with Dish; they have terrible information dissemination and that doesn't seem likely to change any time soon.
I agree that the price hike on the package you have was high, mine was $3.00. I also agree with your comment on the dissemination of information, it could be better.
Turbo Bronze went up $5 (20%), Turbo Silver went up $7 (21%) and Turbo Gold went up $10 (25%). Jim said at the December Retailer Chat when the rate increases were announced they would make the increases worth it with new HD programming. Thus far, nada. The new HD added in February (Fox News, Fox Business)didn't even go to the Turbo subs, only to the classic subs. The Viacom scenario wouldn't be an issue by itself, but E* has been playing a bit loose with talk of adding HD since last Fall when they said by the end of the year. One suspects they may be doing this to lessen churn.
You have been bitching about HD programing, Speed Channel, since May of 2008. When does your contract with Dish expire? At that time you may go elsewhere, without penalty. Are you exploring your options?
So being a subscriber precludes someone from bitching? Customer dissatisfaction is one of the ways that cause things to be changed. The squeaky wheel is the one that gets the most grease.
Sluggo, I see your point. However, & I can't speak for everyone, but I feel like the reason most are complaining (about whatever regarding E*) has to do with a number of things. And maybe the latest thing or two was just the straw that broke the camels back for some people, such as myself.
If people not being able to watch VH1's Rock of Herpes in HD was really the cause of all these complaints, I'd be rolling my eyes as well.
The issue is that dish got everybody's hopes up for new HD on a certain day, and it was pretty much set in stone, and then they didn't come through.
Thus, it's human nature that when people are promised something by a certain date and don't get it, they get pissed. Not so much cuz they don't have said "thing", but more so cuz it's delayed, with no explanation, apology, or new date.
I can understand that. I'm sure most people can. I know when I order a new "toy" online and tracking tells me I'll get it on a certain date and I don't, I really get upset.
So what I'm saying is that if E* wasn't 100% sure these channels were gonna launch by the 1st, they shouldn't have said a word about a release date (they should have stuck to the old standby "we'll have them "soon"". Then we wouldn' thave got hopes up for anything, which we wouldn't have been let down.
People have right to complain about price increases too. Remember this economy is in the crapper right now, and whether E* hikes the price as they should, or beyond what they should (which happened to me) while at the same time actually losing more good HD than we are getting...then people have right to be pissed.
And not everybody knows price hikes come in feb. I sure didn't. Not everybody has been with a sat provider for years.
Thus, with the economy + E* dropping the many good HD channels (Smithsonian the latest) to make room for HD channels that have no business being HD cuz they hardly offer any HD programming (BETJ, C&I)...combined with the price hike, sorry I can't say people shouldn't be upset over that.
Especially when E* subscribers have to watch their friends with D* have so many good national HD's. Or also in many places, like mine, watch D* subscribers have local HD here since last summer, while still no official month/date from E* on when they will add at at least 1. Hell I would have been happy with just PBS!
Point is, with E* having such a high profile competitor with D*, we get to see, and wonder, how D* is having no issue adding good national HD and staying ahead with local HD as well. Having a competitor like this can either make you shine if you are holding strong or doing better, but if you are falling fast behind, everybody notices. Everybody wonders why, with all the mega bucks E* has generated over the years (& all the mega bucks we are paying them), why they can't at least keep up with D*.
And in regards to the price hike again, I'm sure I'm not the only one who started getting not only the standard price increase, but a little extra as well. My bill after feb looked like it was written by aliens in outer space, and after trying to decode it, all we could make of it was that we were being charged about $26 more than we normally paid (and it wasn't the end of a promotion either, which ended over 10 months ago).
Our bill was normally $70-ish, then the bill in march comes and its $96 something. After feb is was supposed to up, what, like $3 or $5 like everybody else with our package, but a $26 price hike! As I said, even $5 is pretty damn extreme in this economy, especially when E*'s programming hasn't been any better than what it was, or if anything worse than what it was last year.
However, despite that we still wouldn't put up much of stink over $5. But when our bill jumps from $70 to $96, oh hell no!
So we called an E* CSR to help sort this out. Now that is an hour of my life I really want back! During the 20% of the time that we could even understand her broken english, the only thing that she made clear was that the bill was correct, but we got no explanation. Apparently it just was what it was and we could go suck it!
We did end up finding that $6 of our $26 price hike was some sort of optional insurance type thing we never asked for, and had never been on our bill before. So that pissed us off. Yeah we cancelled it, but still, it was too late.
At that point it became pretty clear we were better off cancelling the last 2 months of our contract, get D*. Scheduled for apr 2nd, this being the day after the "where's our new HD fiasco", and all I could do is laugh and relax being extra glad we were switching, knowing D* was coming tomorrow.
Called to order D* and was so refreshing talking to an american with actual communication skills and an above average understanding of our native language!
From that point on, so far so good. The installer was able to come a week after we ordered D*, the guy was fast, quiet, and we got the best of the best hardware. SWM LNB's, HR23's, and even an HD reciever where we were only supposed to get a standard reciever. Yeah, the installer actually went above and beyond the call of duty here.
We've been enjoying all the extra HD since then, no problems. Even watching Rock of Herpes in HD! Ah, now that's a luxury!
In conclusion, if you complain on these forums about E*, I feel you. And I suggest that when people don't like the complaining and tell you to just switch, actually take that advice if you are deep enough into your contract, or out of it completely. E* could add the viacom HD's today & HD locals and I still wouldn't be remotely regretful of switching, doubt I ever will. Sure D* isn't perfect either, but I seriously doubt they can do a worse job with us than E* did.
Going back to my college Econ days, let's put this in terms of the Kano model of customer satisfaction. Since these new HD channels were promised by 4/1, most people who were aware of their planned launch would have taken them for granted and therefore they become "basic factors." Since the consumer expected the 4/1 launch, it would cause dissatisfaction when that expectation was not met. For the rest of the population who were unware of the 4/1 launch, the new HD channels are still "excitement factors". These customers would have been happy with the new channels being available, but are not dissatisfied with the missed deadline since they were not aware of its existence.
On an unrelated note, we are all paying for a service and to suggest that we are getting anything for free is ridiculous.
I have my opinion and really dont care what you think. Churning the pot is what gets things done. its pretty ridiculous that it takes this long to get a specific channel that launched over a year ago.
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