Direct TV Last year for Sunday Ticket?

[Joe The Dragon]

Will it be MPEG 4 only this year or it be the final year for MPEG 2 users to get NFLST?

 

[slice1900]

Will it be MPEG 4 only this year or it be the final year for MPEG 2 users to get NFLST?

I'd guess it will be HD only this fall, because the season extends to the end of the year when they will have shut down all MPEG2 SD programming. Seems pointless to carry MPEG2 SD for the handful of holdouts who hadn't upgraded yet. They can wield NFLST like a hammer to force the laggards into upgrading before the season.

 

[Claude Greiner]

Will it be MPEG 4 only this year or it be the final year for MPEG 2 users to get NFLST?

Maybe this will be the final year for MPEG2, but they will not remove the MPEG2 feed unless they are 100% certain everyone is using HD equipment that has Sunday ticket.

The last thing they want to do is get into the first week of football season and have people bitching they can’t get the game that weekend.

Because all that means is that they will start to have to issue refunds for week 1, have people cancel over it and rush out to upgrade everyone before week 2.

This is no different than a smart card swap...

You start out by sending letters and getting voluntary compliance by having them call in.

Then you start calling customers and scheduling upgrades.

Believe it or not, a majority of the customers will ignore the letters, phone calls and messages.

Until you start to shut down channels, they won’t call!

Then slowly take away channels, until the customer calls in and schedule the upgrade.

And you know who the biggest problem customers are? The ones in Canada and who do account stacking! Those customers usually cancel, or buy all new equipment at full cost.

 

[NashGuy]

Maybe this will be the final year for MPEG2, but they will not remove the MPEG2 feed unless they are 100% certain everyone is using HD equipment that has Sunday ticket.

The last thing they want to do is get into the first week of football season and have people bitching they can’t get the game that weekend.

Because all that means is that they will start to have to issue refunds for week 1, have people cancel over it and rush out to upgrade everyone before week 2.

This is no different than a smart card swap...

You start out by sending letters and getting voluntary compliance by having them call in.

Then you start calling customers and scheduling upgrades.

Believe it or not, a majority of the customers will ignore the letters, phone calls and messages.

Until you start to shut down channels, they won’t call!

Then slowly take away channels, until the customer calls in and schedule the upgrade.

And you know who the biggest problem customers are? The ones in Canada and who do account stacking! Those customers usually cancel, or buy all new equipment at full cost.

When does DTV begin accepting subscriptions for NFLST for the 2019-20 season? Isn't it possible that when customers call in or go online to add NFLST to their account (starting in July or whenever sign-ups begin), they're automatically alerted that they're not eligible to sign up for it this year until they upgrade to MPEG-4 compatible hardware? And the CSR or webpage would make it easy for the customer to quickly do the upgrade before the NFL season begins?

Of course, prior to that point, you would also expect DTV to send out notifications (emails, targeted video advertisements on MPEG-2 receivers, etc.) but, as you say, a lot of folks would just ignore those.

 

[slice1900]

And you know who the biggest problem customers are? The ones in Canada and who do account stacking! Those customers usually cancel, or buy all new equipment at full cost.

Why should Directv give a damn about customers in Canada having problems? They know exactly what equipment is active on every account, and what they subscribe to. If Directv didn't want to do MPEG2 SD NFLST this year Directv can simply tell any that renew it and have SD equipment "you need to upgrade by September or you won't be able to see NFLST".

If they still haven't upgraded by August contact them again. If the season starts and they still haven't upgraded, they only have themselves to blame when they call in - they can't claim they are unaware unless they are account stacking and are "subletting" equipment from the actual account owner. In which case Directv should be happy to screw them over.

 

[JUCJ85]

Huh? Directv has a LOT of customers who only subscribe because of NFLST. For a big NFL fan (or sports bettor) $20 a week is cheap. No way it would go to $100 if the exclusivity is lost. Directv has already demonstrated people will pay $300 for it, why would they sell it for $100 and need 3x as many buyers to get the same revenue?

What I think will happen if Directv loses the exclusivity and there's a streaming option is that the streamer will introduce a single team option. Maybe you'll be able to get that for $100, though if I were pricing it I'd go for $150 - a lot of NFLST subscribers get it because their team is out of market and they can't watch their games OTA, but don't care much about the rest of the games. So again, if that was made too cheap it would cost them revenue.

In 2006 I got DTV for the NFL ST, now I get it because I want it, and love my DTV, wouldn't switch, even if it went all streaming, I'd still sub, it'll never be on any other 1 provider, as not everyone gets Comcast, or Spectrum, and DISH will never dish out the money for the Ticket.