My wife has a bachelors degree in education. She is very book smart, not so much common sense smart. I still love her anyway. In every business and industry I have worked at , I have run into these type of people. In college it was the same way and I found a lot of what I learned in the classes ,didn't actually apply once I hit the real world. These book smart people know little about making the actual business run correctly in real life,only on paper in books. Yes, I am sure that Charlie has these type of people working in his company ,but I am also sure that Charlie doesn't ultimately depend on them when he makes all his decisions.
Charlie is a gambler who likes to win ,but more than not , he loses. Look at all those multi year lawsuits DISH has had going . Tivo lawsuit that went on for years and he ultimately lost and he paid a lot of money to license the software ,they claimed he stole in the first place. The buyout of Blockbuster was an ultimate failure because he shuddered the entire business and all he got was the Blockbuster name to add to his DISH company to use for streaming. NuTv is an idea that he hopes will attract the younger millenials ,that have never subbed to pay tv and will most likely never do so in the future. If it works , he might attract some of these people and give his new venture a new demographic to pull from for revenue. But like all pay tv, NuTv is dependent on the same greedy infrastructure as the regular pay tv. So the $30.00 price point he charges now , will ultimately go up over time,making people who want to save money drop them over ever increasing costs as well.
One thing I have learned over the years ,is that you must listen to the little guys who work under you as well as your customers. IF you don't, you miss out on some good ideas that help streamline your work,increase your production for better sales and even build your business for years to come with customers whose ideas you take and incorporate into your business. Charlie is smart in one way that I respect. He has people from DISH who read these web boards and uses them to pull ideas and suggestions for his company, promos, etc. The HD for life promo years back was an idea that I and other floated on this board. Shortly after ward DISH ran this promo as their new campaign. Charlie also uses many of our members on this site to test his software and new equipment for DISH as well.
Charlie is very smart ,sometimes reckless, a gambler ,but always he is on the cusp of some cutting edge new trend or technology. It is for that last reason that I have always kept DISH and look forward to the newest stuff from DISH. So when I say the prices of his FEES are way too high, I am sure that he and others from DISH read this . What they choose to do with this is their decision ,but it comes from a real customer for almost 18 years who has a lot of money and time invested in their company. They can continue to ignore this idea if they want ,but I will continue to suggest it ,because it is the right thing to do for the long run for their company. IF they want to continue to grow as a company they need to get back to the idea of DISH being the low priced leader and that also means in equipment and dvr fees as well.
IF you look at this last quarter DISH lost 12,000 subs. This was after the decisions to charge $12.00 for the 2nd hopper from the original $7.00 they originally charged. Also the decision to once again charge the $10.00 hd access fee after the 24 month commitment was up ,was a factor, because it encouraged churn with a capital C. Now since they came out with these wonderful ideas to make extra money they have hurt their total subscriber numbers. These short term decisions to make quick money sound good to the bean counters at companies but they don't always help build a customer base. IF anything it helps to decrease it. It takes both low priced programming and low priced equipment and dvr fees to make it work for most regular customers as well as potential customers.
