What would you want Dish to do?
- Thread starter HDRoberts
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I'd say put the FT HD-RSN's on spotbeams, but still maintain a few CONUS tp's for CI/LP game only coverage. During the offseason, use em for PPV. This won't gain any CONUS HD space, but will still help those of us looking for our local FT RSN's.
For those that say RSNs would not fit their territories on spot, look at the spotbeam maps for 119. There are some very uniquely shaped spots of that bird that cover big areas. i'm sure many would fit there. Yeah, Big 10 wouldn't, but I think the rest could.
And YES, I get it, RSNs on spot would kill out of market sports packs. But the point I;m trying to make is that more customers would like to see the national space reserved for real national channels, not HD offerings that only interest 5% of subs (or whatever the number is) who want to watch out of market games.
The point of the poll is to see what people would rather have. Space for more national, so full time RSN. Sadly, I don't think Dish can do both, probably not until the Revers DBS birds start transmitting, which is many years away.
And YES, I get it, RSNs on spot would kill out of market sports packs. But the point I;m trying to make is that more customers would like to see the national space reserved for real national channels, not HD offerings that only interest 5% of subs (or whatever the number is) who want to watch out of market games.
The point of the poll is to see what people would rather have. Space for more national, so full time RSN. Sadly, I don't think Dish can do both, probably not until the Revers DBS birds start transmitting, which is many years away.
How about a compromise? Put the full time RSNs only on the same arc as their corresponding locals. Half of them on Western Arc and half on Eastern. Then, reserve 2 or 3 extra channels for big games that are only on the opposite arc and operate them just like the current part-time RSN channels for Center Ice and other packages.
Wouldn't most games be broadcast on two channels anyway? Wouldn't a lot of games wind up on both arcs no matter what?
Wouldn't most games be broadcast on two channels anyway? Wouldn't a lot of games wind up on both arcs no matter what?
It can definitely be done on spotbeams -- D* originally did that and spent the last couple years moving everything back onto CONUS TPs. You do end up with individual RSNs on multiple spots due to their huge footprints though -- for instance the RSN for Lexington, KY is SportsTime Ohio.
The economics of this proposal are upside down. Dish could completely eliminate international channels and kill all PPV channels and make more room for more national HD, but they're not going to cut that capacity to allocate it into existing subscription plans where it increases their costs while still netting them no gain in revenue.
I think you might be underestimating the revenue generated by all of the sports packages by the time you factor in the out of market college basketball, college football, NHL, NBA and other college sports via the multisport pack. If you thought Dish's numbers looked bad with D* locking up the NFL and MLB, the bleeding would only get worse if they turn their backs on the sports fans they still have left. (The ones willing to pay a couple hundred bucks a season for the option to watch channels E* already has agreements in place for) It's the only content monopoly they have left -- I can get everything else on my sat package over the Internet -- either through Amazon, iTunes, Hulu, Netflix (watch instantly), etc or through physical distribution like Redbox, Blockbuster, Netflix (by mail). For fans who want to catch HD feeds of out of market sporting events, the only option is to point an antenna at the sky if the want the full selection of choices. You're not going to wait until the season is over and catch the whole thing commercial free on DVD like you might do with a TV series -- the games have a value that is greatest in real time and decays exponentially with every hour that passes after the game.
But would all the RSN's Fit on every spotbeam on the 119. These spotbeams carry locals already.
That's not what is being suggested. The argument is that you would get your local RSN on a spot beam, and the CONUS RSNs would go away. (except the Big Ten Network) So each spot beam would carry 1-2 RSNs max.
Pro: You get your RSN in HD full time.
Con: You would lose CONUS RSN coverage, so Center Ice / Full Court / the multisport pack would be broken.
See, the thing is, I don't think every sports fan (or even most sports fans, for that matter) are interested in getting the out of market packs. If they were such huge moneymakers, why would Dish not keep MLB Extra Innings? I think most sports fans are most interested in following their local teams, not all teams across the country. And they could still do that on Spotbeam.
And Amazon and Hulu are not the competitors you make them out to be. Please point out where I can get all AMC, IFC, TCM, E!, and Outdoor programming in HD?
I'm not disputing the "most" part -- I agree, most sports fans do not subscribe to the out of market packages.
The dollars for that small percentage of subscribers that do, however, are huge:
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/20/sports/baseball/20base.html
Obviously things changed later in the year in 2007, and InDemand reached a 7 year agreement with MLB to carry EI as well. (Presumably lowering D*'s bid because the agreement was no longer exclusive)
So D* was willing to pay $100 million per year for 7 years to go after a share of 750k MLB:EI subscribers. Clearly they thought they could make that money back.
The Sunday Ticket numbers have also bumped since 2007, as D* just signed a contract worth $1 billion per season for 4 seasons to keep Sunday Ticket exclusive.
Based on one or two things I've seen about HD coverage on those channels, renting the SD version and hitting "zoom" on your TV remote is a pretty close approximation to what the HD channel will bring.
That helps make my point. Sports packs are expensive, and aren't always a per sub cost that could at least guarantee some popularity. Think of all the money Dish could save.
That will change with time. Two years ago when we first got TBS, it sucked. There is still room to go, but there is a lot more HD there. In 2 years, AMC and IFC might just have a ton of HD. But if Dish has no room for it, they won't have it.
Your right , But last I checked it was replacing E*3 which is in the 61.5 orbital location.
Nope. I think that might be Echostar 15. E14 is headed for 119.
AMC-14 was supposed to replace E3.
Yea AMC 14 was going to, Untill the Mishap.
E*3 is getting replaced ,But maybe your right,after 119, But I thought September was the launch for the 61.5.
There is a Sept. launch of a sat called Nimiq-5, but it is headed for 72.7 to replace E6, which MAY, in turn, replace E3. But Nimiq-5 will not have spotbeams. Quetzsat -1, headed to 77, and E15 are likely to have spots, but those likely will not launch until 2011.
RSNs
Could they not run the HD RSN on a spot and standard version on conus?
That would give the sports pack at least a feed so as not to diminish from the pack. As long as I get my local team on HD I'm good. If I want to see another team play especially near seasons end toward playoff time, standard version is ok. That would allow more space for national HD.
Could they not run the HD RSN on a spot and standard version on conus?
That would give the sports pack at least a feed so as not to diminish from the pack. As long as I get my local team on HD I'm good. If I want to see another team play especially near seasons end toward playoff time, standard version is ok. That would allow more space for national HD.
This is what they do today.
- 100% of the SD RSNs are up and available full time.
- The HD RSNs are sharing 1 full TP (good for 8 channels) and a fraction of another TP. These shared feeds are used both for your local RSN, and mapped into the Center Ice / NBA League Pass / ESPN Full Court channels.
So on evenings when multiple teams from multiple sports are playing, once they run out of HD space all other RSNs get the standard def feed only.
The real problem is on heavy nights when the sports alts are in play, they compress the hell out of everything until it gets to the point where it is sub-YouTube quality when displayed on a HD monitor.
In the past it really didn't matter because most of the RSNs were part-time HD themselves due to uplink satellite capacity (ie, FOX Sports feeds) and lack of availability of HD production trucks to cover all events. Now that the networks are gearing up to go full-time HD, it doesn't make sense that Dish is still trying to manage the feeds as part-time channels.
So why not wait to add those channels in a couple years when they get a couple more birds launched and the capacity is readily available? Dish has launched "HD" channels like BET-J and LOGO that have never aired a single program in HD, and yet you have RSNs that are producing new HD content nearly every single night of the week and they don't get channel space?
I'm pretty sure Dish gives RSNs 2 full TPs on each arc.
As I said before, simply launching more sats is not a magic way to more space. There will have the same transponder allotments as they had before.
95% of the people who care about an RSN live in an isolated area. Putting them on spot would enable those to get all the HD on the RSN, while not stopping the national channels. I'm not proposing they don't go full time, but rather go full time in a way that doesn't take up as much national channel capacity.
Check the channel maps again. 61.5 has all of TP30 and they were using TP20 which now has had MAV and FTV added to it. 129 has all of TP25, TP27 has Cinemax, Bravo, Logo, Disney XD added. They were using TP8 on 129 for a while, but that TP frequency appears to have been assigned into spotbeams now.
Yes, and on the Eastern Arc in particular they could gain more spectrum if they replaced the dinged up sats that aren't able to power all of their licensed TPs. EA should be brimming with capacity as an all MPEG4 feed of content on 2 of the 3 sats (61.5 still has some MPEG2 content)
Which is great for the 95% who were going to remain subscribers no matter what. For the other 5%, I'm pretty sure that it won't take long for them to take their base subscription and over-the-top sports package dollars to another provider like D*. Killing national HD RSNs will absolutely have that effect.
