what I don't get

[iml]

...is why Dolan pushed to even keep the thing open when it was a 15-0 that shut it down

Was he hoping someone would step up to the plate and offer funding?
Was he thinking about funding it?
Is there still some plan?
Was it all just a cruel joke on us?


I cancelled my digital cable to go to Voom and my install date was today...which isn't going to happen now. One thing I can tell you is that I am not going back to cable anytime soon, E* offers don't look that great, and D* will never get a penny from me. Looks like I will be stuck with lame basic cable on my SDTV and slow arse Block Buster online for my 110" screen. I was so looking forward to Voom on the 110" screen.

 

[salsadancer7]

MY thinking is the board probably promised to KEEP Voom21 and sell to satellite and cables companies on the condition that he vote FOR the shutdown of VOOM dbs.

 

[FIREBIRD81]

MY thinking is the board probably promised to KEEP Voom21 and sell to satellite and cables companies on the condition that he vote FOR the shutdown of VOOM dbs.

And we have a winner! I agree 100%.

 

[iml]

which probably wasn't the best idea...I am wondering who would even bother picking the channels up

TW for example can't even support the 4 or 5 HD channels they have now, much less 21 new ones

 

[gutter]

MY thinking is the board probably promised to KEEP Voom21 and sell to satellite and cables companies on the condition that he vote FOR the shutdown of VOOM dbs.

True...but you have to have the channels on the air to really market them? Who do you think will annouce picking them up before April 30th? E*?

 

[Walter L.]

MY thinking is the board probably promised to KEEP Voom21 and sell to satellite and cables companies on the condition that he vote FOR the shutdown of VOOM dbs.

I agree. There must be a good reason why the vote to shutdown VOOM was unanimously, meaning that even Chuck voted "yes".

 

[1080iBeVuMin]

That sucks. Well, what I don't get is why Chuck Dolan waited until after the sale of the satellite to take a big interest in rescuing Voom. After the satellite sale there wasn't much he could do to rescue Voom. Why did he wait so long and let that sale happen?? Why the sudden energy after the sale when it should have been before?

The other big question I have is how these billionaires ever expected a revolutionary satellite service to be profitable in less than 18 months. In fact the initial threats to shut it down came in less than 12 months. What's up with that? Even a small business needs 2 or 3 years to be profitable.

Either more Voom surprises are coming or a better postmortem explanation will be coming. But the current public information does not explain what happened.

 

[Bruce]

The other big question I have is how these billionaires ever expected a revolutionary satellite service to be profitable in less than 18 months. In fact the initial threats to shut it down came in less than 12 months. What's up with that? Even a small business needs 2 or 3 years to be profitable.

It was not that, it was how much more un-profitable it was becoming, Voom's own business plan was based on having 300,000 subs at the end of it's first year and a million at the end of the second, no one expected them to turn a profit that quickly, including them, but they needed to be shown there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

 

[danielle_s]

It was not that, it was how much more un-profitable it was becoming, Voom's own business plan was based on having 300,000 subs at the end of it's first year and a million at the end of the second, no one expected them to turn a profit that quickly, including them, but they needed to be shown there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

having 300,000 subs at the end of their first year is not a bad expectation, however if they really wanted that many subs they should have done a better job marketing. There is also no reason that the channels they added over the past month along with the rsn's and ppv could not have been available at the time voom launched.

 

[bobaphx]

Says 1080iBeVuMin:
"That sucks. Well, what I don't get is why Chuck Dolan waited until after the sale of the satellite to take a big interest in rescuing Voom. After the satellite sale there wasn't much he could do to rescue Voom. Why did he wait so long and let that sale happen?? Why the sudden energy after the sale when it should have been before?"

This is exactly what I've been wondering all along too. I'm not sure of the exact dates or chain of events, but surely Chuck knew they were talking to Dish about a possible purchase. I mean that satellite and uplink center got sold in what... a day?? Why didn't Chuck make his $400 million counter offer back then???

 

[salsadancer7]

WHAT I don't really understand is how CVC complained about how much money they were losing with VOOM, but had NO PROBLEMS proposing to dish out 16.5 BILLION dollars for something so past tense as cable! Or is it me...

 

[NiFi]

The funny thing is, as far as an Installer and dealer side of Voom, i did more sales and subed installs in the past few months than i did in its whole existance, Things were really starting to take off over the past 4 mths or so.

 

[Bruce]

The funny thing is, as far as an Installer and dealer side of Voom, i did more sales and subed installs in the past few months than i did in its whole existance, Things were really starting to take off over the past 4 mths or so.

End of Sept.04- 28,000 subs
End of Feb.05- 40,000 subs

That is what was reported to the SEC, that is not taking off.

 

[NiFi]

Cant claim to know what is being sold or done nationwide, but as stated, the amount of installs and sales i had for Voom over the past 4 mths was probably double what i did before. A friend who was still doing work for Idiots inc was averaging 15 Voom installs a week lately, where before, maybe 3. I would say thats taking off i guess "locally"

 

[iml]

when was Voom started? ...all I can tell is their marketing completely sucked.

I found out about it from a friend and had never heard of it until then. It wasn't until the very end after it was pretty much over that Voom seemed to start actually marketing the product and attracting customers. Their marketing strategy when opening was their demise IMO.