The principle law of business is "Compete Or Die!"
That said, it would be foolish of Charlie to let Dish fall by the wayside in terms of keeping up with or surpassing the competition. Customers don't care for setbacks like birds not getting up in the air. They go with whoever has what they are looking for. The big push right now is HD and for the time being, DirecTV is out in front. Charlie doesn't have an option of just sticking it out with the current volume of HD content, he has to put up more or his business dies. The question is, when?
In the absence of getting those satellites up, there are some things he could possibly do to lend a temporary fix to the situation.
- Looking for other birds for which he could lease transponder space.
- Re-focus on quality of field operations. Increase install payments to retailers. Raise the pay and reduce installer churn at the DNSCs. Aggressive handling of service issues. Ramp up QCs.
Wow, didn't read my earlier post huh? Charlie doesn't believe in compensation justifying work ethic. He believes regardless of what he pays his employees that it's acceptable to expect highest quality work as if he sent out a member of DISH's Board of Directors to go complete a trouble call. (At the previously mentioned $11.75/hr rate.)
- Offer some exceptional upgrade offers to current customers. Many customers feel like they have been forgotten about in light of all the "new customer" promotions that don't apply to existing customers.
They don't just feel like it. It's actually true. Existing customers aren't monetarily worth the same as a new customer after twelve months. Contracts take care of most cases. My customer service theory is treat all customers equally, either like crap or like the most important asset you have but pick one. Charlie likes working in the "gray".
- Any existing customer with a dual tuner who is paying the phone line fee, offer them free wireless phone jacks or a homeplug adapter for ViP receivers to get that fee off their account. Save a customer $10 on their bill and then DirecTV or Cable programming ends up being that much more expensive than Dish.
Spend money to do the existing customer base a favor? At $49.00 a piece, roughly the price of the Phonex brand jacks DISH distributes, Charlie would have to spend $666,400,000 to supply them with one jack each. Nevermind those customers with multiple duals. Charlie's too cheap to increase the parking areas at his corporate headquarters, and that wouldn't cost a quarter of that. What makes you think he'll spend that on people he already has his claws in?
- Increase compensation to dealers who have 'GREEN' staus. Those are the ones taking care of your subs. It also helps them resist the temptation to push more DirecTV by making Dish an even more profitable sale for them.
I realize these suggestions can be expensive, but we're talking a year or two at max and in the meantime the customer retention won't be hurt as much.
Okay, you need to go over to the installer forum and read my rant. Your CRP rating is about as important as the rear license plate on my car and has even less uses. As stated, ten people, give or take, know about or care about your CRP rating. Most of them aren't important. But smile, if you're Summit Elite you get a credit for RSVP'ing. 
