2015 Dish Price Increase
- Thread starter Rolling Joe
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Dish DOES know what their customers are watching. However, they do not know EXACTLY what their customers are watching as you made a point of in your Original Post.
And you stated that the sample was 1000x better than Nielsen's, which has also been proven false.
I see your now from your word choice makes it so that no one should not take your "facts" seriously.
The set-top doesn't have to continually stream data back to Dish 24/7. They can store the data for an hour, a day, a month and dump it at each check-in and it's just as valuable and valid.
Suggest you monitor the "phone call". After a successful connection, the few seconds it takes to transmit the info cannot transmit the granular data the way you suggest at the low baud rates landlines can connect at.
It is primarily used for PPV/VOD billing of what has been watched. I seriously doubt the non-DVRs have much retention at all besides PPV/VOD.
And again, the DVRs do not record that type of data constantly, but only a random snapshot at that moment, even if transmitted later.
Nielsen knows you were channel surfing at that time. Dish does not.
You clearly are very knowledgeable, with an understanding of the industry that far surpasses our own. I greatly respect you and your knowledge.
Now here's the BUT:
You have a very high opinion of Nielson. A Google will show that that opinion is not universal.
Clocking "in and out" of the room, so to speak, for Nielson- yep, we've had posts here that attest to doing that. Not.
Did Nielson ever deploy the IR/optical sensors on their boxes to automatically detect viewers? Would you be comfortable with such in your house? Do you not view that as a source of self selection?You confuse data points with information. BIG difference.
No matter how you cut it, Nielson has a few tens of thousands of pseudo-scientifically selected households for a sample. It really is designed to provide numbers to ad people who concentrate on numbers, not results.
Dish has millions of people reporting in, automatically and for the most part, without them even knowing. Or modifying their behavior. Larger sample size. In this case, IMHO, greater validity.
I'm sure there are more than a few thousand Sling connected Dish receivers and everyone of them will have to be internet connected, and report back to Dish
I think it's more likely the opposite. They moved MNF to ESPN so they could justify charging twice as much as the second most expensive cable channel. The NFL does huge ratings even when two crappy teams are playing. College sports are great and personally that's what I prefer watching. Most of America is all about the NFL though. It's a lot harder for providers to tell ESPN to get lost no matter how much they ask for when they are holding the Monday Night Football rights.
Disney could easily afford to keep MNF on ABC. The big 4 broadcast networks have way more big budget events than any cable channel. NBC seems to be doing fine with their Sunday Night Football rights and CBS and Fox don't appear to be losing money on their NFL deals either.
Not only that but Disney is a big company with lots of subsidiaries. There is no rule that 100% of ABC's expenses have to be paid for with ABC's revenues. I think ABC could probably support MNF on their own but if they couldn't Disney could easily use money from ESPNs contracts to pay part of the bill. Like I said before though, ESPN wouldn't be able to demand as much money without Monday Night Football.
Neilsen is great... To advertisers. They want their product to the most eyes possible. Also, it helps with geographic advertising also. Now to assume that Dish doesn't have a spin on how many of their customers are watching(and I apologize for saying exact, but a hell of a lot closer to exact then Nielsen) each channel and for how long, is ignorance at its finest. I agree with a previous post that you do sound as if you have a fairly advanced knowledge of the industry(higher than the average consumer), however, your data is skewed by the fact that you are looking at large groups, rather then specifics. To clarify, when looking at numbers, such as viewers, Dish will not give a good god damn about DirecTV's customers viewing habits, except for the ones they can move over. same with Comcast, Cox, Charter, ATT, etc. They care about how many of their customers historically view these channels, and what their worth is to DISH customers. That's like trying to compare the sell of Mountain Dew to Mormons. Mountain Dew has its fanbase, knows what its fanbase likes(largely gamers, but there are others here and there), and couldn't give a damn less what Coke and Pepsi are doing, unless they can sway their customers. They will concentrate on selling their product, and making their product better, and not alienating their fanbase. Same concept here.
Disney moved MNF to ESPN before retransmission was paying about what than the average cable channel was getting....mere pennies.
The only reason the others still have them is because of Broadcast TV finally getting the higher re-transmission dollars. Les Moonves recently said he could include NFL Football on their $5.95 CBS All Access Package, but the price would rise CONSIDERABLY.
Since nobody answered this question, I thought I should "bump" it to the front to get it more attention. I also have Welcome Pack, and I would like to know what will be happening to it.
You clearly are very knowledgeable, with an understanding of the industry that far surpasses our own. I greatly respect you and your knowledge.
Now here's the BUT:
You have a very high opinion of Nielson. A Google will show that that opinion is not universal.
Clocking "in and out" of the room, so to speak, for Nielson- yep, we've had posts here that attest to doing that. Not.
You confuse data points with information. BIG difference.
No matter how you cut it, Nielson has a few tens of thousands of pseudo-scientifically selected households for a sample. It really is designed to provide numbers to ad people who concentrate on numbers, not results.
Dish has millions of people reporting in, automatically and for the most part, without them even knowing. Or modifying their behavior. Larger sample size. In this case, IMHO, greater validity.
You are correct that Nielsen has issues - and yes, I even have issues with Nielsen.
Nielsen has other options now with the PPM technology it acquired from Arbitron that will do away with all these issues. It was recently tested for TV in Chicago this past Quarter.
ESPN is already using its data in the Top 48 markets, in addition to Nielsen TV Ratings.
No boxes. A meter that one clips on and can detect what one is listening to (think of Shazam for TV Ratings).
However, as a statistician could explain (which is not for this thread), your "IMHO, greater validity" is correct that it is your opinion, but statistically, you are wrong.
But again, finally (and we are really off thread topic), Dish has an idea what their subs view. That is all they need.
However, they DO NOT have EXACT info as was earlier stated and it is NOT better than Nielsen.
While Nielsen might be a McDonald's Hamburger, Dish's internal numbers are cheap hot dogs with all parts of the pig thrown in (But again, they do not need better visibility than that).
Ok, you want to talk about broad strokes?
Dish customers have lower household income and have less available money than DirecTV customers.
They live in lower priced homes and spend less money on disposable items than DirecTV.
Dish subs also have lower credit scores.
If you want advertisers to look at all parameters, as you indicated, people would funnel ad money away from Dish because of the above.
Likewise, viewing on Dish does not match up with DirecTV - certain programs will Index better with Dish, other with DirecTV. I'll let you draw the conclusions.
But again, DISH KNOWS THEIR CUSTOMER BASE, just as you talk about selling Mt Dew to Mormons.
Charlie knows his audience and loves playing the victim of the big bad Programmers to them....and they eat it up.
When in reality, when one looks at the price they pay for DBS and Internet combined, they really are not saving hardly any money, if any at all.
Never said they did and that wasn't the point, oh intelligent one.
It was that there are hundreds of thousands of connected receivers. The slingbox doesn't do the Dish subs squat without an internet connection to the DISH RECEIVER, which gives Dish plenty of information as to what their subs are viewing. More than enough to know what is an acceptable gamble in negotiations with programmers.
Never said they did and that wasn't the point, oh intelligent one.
It was that there are hundreds of thousands of connected receivers. The slingbox doesn't do the Dish subs squat without an internet connection to the DISH RECEIVER, which gives Dish plenty of information as to what their subs are viewing. More than enough to know what is an acceptable gamble in negotiations with programmers.
And I never said that Dish did not have enough information to make decisions about what their subs wanted.
In fact, I suspect that Dish would create a DOS attack on itself if it had all the internet connected units trying to "call home" at once.
Sony ended up doing the same exact thing on their Playstation Network after the Hacker DOS attack ended this past weekend.
This was exactly what I was saying. The Dish viewing habits are not the same as DTV viewing habits. That is why the broad neilsen ratings are pointless for Dish. Dish's own numbers are what matters to Dish for the negotiations. If Dish knows they have (making this number up) 100k of the Fox News viewers, they are not going to pay Fox for 250k. It would not be fiscally responsible. Now when Charlie says a less popular channel, in regards to their demands... Yes, I beleive him based on the fact that this is the 3rd time Fox has tried this with Dish, for FS1(assuming FS1 is the channel he was referencing.) As far as the savings between companies, Lets ask Tampa, just how much savings there actually is... I beleive he worked out, for the same equipment and similar package, a $180/year savings. For those lower class customers you were talking about, that is significant. So taking all of the talking points, and putting them in perspective is what is going to be what matters. I challenge you to find the savings(factually with resources) on the savings between DTV and Dish. I have done it on another thread, and so have other customers. The average Dish customer pays approx $7 less then the average DTV customer.
I do not disagree that $180 is a year (or $15 a month) is substantial for many - no matter what their income level.
However, on the other site that shall not be mentioned where the ops and mods make stuff up as they go and delete stuff when they are proven wrong, a person worked out the difference to less than $2 a month.
Furthermore, one really needs to bring in the Triple Play (or Double Play Options), which people are failing to take in when figuring out TOTAL price, especially if someone is talking about TOTAL cost.
When internet is added, things get more interesting.
I have DirecTV on my Verizon Fios bill and I get a discount for that. I would not get the same with Dish (which is why i have it on a direct bill).
Besides, It's not my job to take orders from you on what to go find.
Not an order, just a challenge. I can honestly report that when I went to compare DTV to Dish for my own advanced receiver set up and programming package, and the everyday price was I believe $17 difference. That was for my specific setup, from their own website, with all the same fixings. I would have lost a tuner, and PTAT, and sling. I would have picked up Sunday Ticket for a price, but I didnt even calculate that in, nor the RSN fees. That comparison was made prior to the announcement of the increase, but even the increase was right on par with one another. So for me, and many others there is a significant savings. Now the bundle you have with DTV and Verizon, one can make about Dish and Windstream, or Dish and Frontier or Dish and Hughes. There is bundles everywhere, cannot calculate individual savings. Over all savings, which the average Dish customer saves approx $7 over DTV, is still $114/year, and to that same low income consumer that Dish attracts, is significant.
