Charlie Chat Summary
- Thread starter Neutron
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Sad thing, Viacom must not realize that E did the "legal" thing and honored the "rulling" and dropped the channels 
because not a single E* customer is seeing the Viacom propagada anymore (they are still running the crawls on their feeds though)
because not a single E* customer is seeing the Viacom propagada anymore (they are still running the crawls on their feeds though)
Let me get this straight-
We lose all the Viacom channels and CBS-HD channel, all O&O channels and receive a $1 credit on the bill. The alternative is that CE agrees to the price increase, offers one more NIcktoons channel and we pay an additional $3-5 increase? While I agree with CE that he hold his ground on the negotiations, I don't agree with his math. If it is a 40% increase, then we should receive a $.40 increase in our rates to cover the Viacom extortion! MY math says 40% of $1.00 (CE's value of the Viacom loss) is only 40 cents more, not his projected $3-5 more per subscriber.
We lose all the Viacom channels and CBS-HD channel, all O&O channels and receive a $1 credit on the bill. The alternative is that CE agrees to the price increase, offers one more NIcktoons channel and we pay an additional $3-5 increase? While I agree with CE that he hold his ground on the negotiations, I don't agree with his math. If it is a 40% increase, then we should receive a $.40 increase in our rates to cover the Viacom extortion! MY math says 40% of $1.00 (CE's value of the Viacom loss) is only 40 cents more, not his projected $3-5 more per subscriber.
AndyMon said:
Sorry Andy, I've got to say Voom. I couldn't believe Charlie's evasive, dishonest approach to the question of more HD content. What about HBO West, Showtime West, Starz!, Cinemax, The Movie Channel, Bravo, InHD, InHD2, Fox Sports and other regional sports networks? What about TNT and the EDTV versions of USA and SciFi? What about national feeds of NBC, ABC, PBS, Fox, UPN and the WB to go with CBS HD? There's plenty of HD content out there. Heck, we could fill up much of our "40 to 50 HD channel Superdishes" if that scheme hadn't backfired so horrifically.
I've had enough with E*'s lack of new HD programming and I've had enough of Charlie's unwillingness to run the damn company!
I've now dropped my E* subscription to just the HD Pak and the $5 access fee. I still get my local HD channels over the air. I've scheduled a Voom install for Saturday morning.When I move to Washington, DC next month I may well switch to Comcast. Commie-cast in DC has almost as many HD channels as Voom plus they're allegedly releasing an HD DVR next month. $10 per month for an HD DVR is a hell of a lot cheaper than a grand for a 921. Heck, it would take over eight years for the 921 to reach break-even with a rented cable DVR. If Voom offers DVR rental for the same price a Comcast, I may stay with Voom.
I've had E* for the last 3 1/2 years and had D* before that. Who would have thought that E* could hose up so badly that I'm seriously considering going back to cable? Charlie, get your act together! I want to hand you money for HD every month, but you've just turned a $95 customer into a $15 ESPN/HDnet viewer.
DirecTV, Voom, and cable have the same a**holes too, so you'd still be dealing with them. So unless you are going strictly OTA or with a BUD w/ a la carte programming, you're still going to be stuck with them.DirtyMack said:
Oh wait...you did mean Viacom didn't you?
You receive a $2 credit if you lose CBS in addition to the other Viacom channels.
As for the $1.00, I assume Charlie rounded down on the cost to refund the six channels that most customers will be losing.
When a nearly break-even $25 package ($40 on cable) includes a bit more than $10 worth of programming, it's obvious that programming cost and package price do not correlate 1:1. Nor can a content distributer afford to simply increase their package cost by the same amount as the channel increase, for the simple reason that there is much more to the cost of carrying a channel than its programming price.
For every channel Echostar is forced to carry, that's one less slot available for profitable program content on their satellite. It's one more channel their infrastructure and encoders must support. And if Charlie gives in, don't you think other content providers are going to want a similar increase? Dish may have several programming contracts up for renewal in the next year.
Does everyone recall the debate over ESPN increases? Viacom is asking for as much of an increase on some channels as ESPN, which recently settled on 40% over the next five years with Charter and COX.
Scott Greczkowski said:
Same thing on WCCO.com (thats posted in another thread..too many to keep tabs on
Turned to WCCO and saw Charlie and his "why you cant see CBS" speech. He says to call the VP of this CBS (which shows the name of the VP of WCCO) and to call the advertisers, and a screen comes up with Cub & Rainbow (the big grocery chains), Target, Best Buy (which is HQ is Mpls) and HOM furniture.
There will be a special chat at 7 eastern to discuss this "on this channel"..so its not going to be on 101..It will be on the CBS channel that is missing.
So the only people who can see the special chat are people who lost their CBS (I'm assuming)..
cdru said:
No, I'm talking about Dish. Within the last 3 months I've had numerous problems with them, starting with an 811 i ordered on 12/19 but didn't receive until the end of January. Then their installer botched up the installation, failing to add the second dish required to receive CBSHD.
They also cancelled TWICE to have the second dish installed, causing me to lose two days of vacation time (not including the one i took off to have the 811 installed on it's original date of 12/28).
I've spend far too much time dealing with their incompetence, but they never miss beat when it's time to receive their $78 each month.
Right now I'm paying nearly $80 a month for a service that's more trouble than it's worth....
DirtyMack said:
At least they called and cancelled. They cancelled twice and I didn't find out until it was 4pm when I called and asked where they H*LL they were. I would have missed a third time, but luckily they told me they changed it when I happened to call them to complain about my Tivo not working with their 322.
I got lucky and forced them to give me a second 522 in the place of the 322. However, owning a 522 is like being a Beta tester, so I'm not sure how lucky I really am. Even if this gets resolved, I'm off to Directv when my contract is up. They pissed me off big time and I will vote with my wallet. I can't think of any way they could make the headache I call DISH up to me... Well maybe a 921 for free and I'll shut up for a while, but my kid will be beating me over the head with his spongebob doll asking why he can only watch the 12 he's recorded on the 522.
-Frank
Was anyone else embarassed for Charlie and the other guy last night for the horrible promos they were showing for upcoming "entertainment". Man it even made me uncomfortable how lame it was. BingoTV? Cricket? Pakistani programming? Seriously, they are touting this? Reminded me of some station run out a a guy's basement. I like Dish, but come on...
Most definitely if the situation looked like they would offer me more of what I want. Besides, they have the YES Network!Neutron said:
Thanks for reiterating what Mainstreet wrote in an earlier post which I then replyed to, acknowledging his correction.Bobby said:
Good to know that people are watching out for my interests
Hey, no argument from me. That's not what I was saying. I was just mentioning that Charlie doesn't believe that HD is a big enough deal to enough people at this point in time to make it a priority for him, bandwidth issues notwithstanding.JimboG said:
Unfortunately, voom is not yet a viable option for ME because of issues with their equipment which are much more annoying than E*'s issues and would make watching TV an annoyance rather than a joy. Also, as things stand now, although more and more HD content is rolling out every day, it seems, the quality and actual quantity of it, at present, is less than advertised. So, with that said, I'm prepared to ride it out for a few more months and reevalute the situation then and make a decision. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to warming weather, more fun in the sun and getting my new boat fitted out!!
