E* and V* approached the FCC about the sale

[Bruce]

DISH: Rainbow Deal Will Allow for More Capacity

EchoStar and Rainbow DBS, the entity controlled by Cablevision that operates the VOOM satellite TV service, approached the Federal Communications Commission concerning their $200 million agreement, which consists of EchoStar buying certain DBS assets used by VOOM.

Specifically, the companies filed a joint "application for consent to assignment of licenses" concerning Rainbow's DBS assets at 61.5 degrees. The deal involves EchoStar taking over the Rainbow 1 satellite at the orbital location, DBS frequencies at the same slot and earth station facilities in South Dakota.

In the application, EchoStar said gaining the extra DBS capacity will help it deliver additional programming. The company said it's committed to complying with new regulations that require delivery of local TV channels to one dish, instead of its two-dish solution for certain local TV markets, though the acquisition of the Rainbow DBS assets would only provide part of the solution.

"The addition of more channels resulting from the acquisition by EchoStar would increase competition in the relevant market to a much greater extent than a third competitor is likely to have in the foreseeable future," stated the application.

Also, the application stated that VOOM will continue providing service to current customers during a transition period.

http://www.skyreport.com/viewskyreport.cfm?ReleaseID=1593#Story2

 

[Indy]

And the snail starts to crawl. This will take a while to approve and for anything to change for Voom customers.

 

[riffjim4069]

"It all depends on what the definition of is is."

The infamous 'transition period' may be until VOOM gets Rainbow-3 in the air in 2007...or until VOOM goes bust. Does anyone have any details regarding the transition period? It seems to me that if the FCC were to approve this sale then they are, quite possibly, giving E* until 2008 to to square-away the single dish situation.

Comments?

 

[bryan27]

Hey bruce I'm not trying to shoot you, but either this is an additional meeting or SkyReport is reporting the meeting the two had with the FCC about a week and a half ago as it isn't anything already known.

 

[Bruce]

The infamous 'transition period' may be until VOOM gets Rainbow-3 in the air in 2007...or until VOOM goes bust. Does anyone have any details regarding the transition period? It seems to me that if the FCC were to approve this sale then they are, quite possibly, giving E* until 2008 to to square-away the single dish situation.

Comments?

No, E* has to the end of 2005 to have all the locals on one dish, and I read another story that they hope to have this sale none in 60-90 days and I still believe the FCC will say no to Charlie anyways, they seem to like doing that because Charlie seems to keep pissing them ( FCC ) off.

 

[Bruce]

Hey bruce I'm not trying to shoot you, but either this is an additional meeting or SkyReport is reporting the meeting the two had with the FCC about a week and a half ago as it isn't anything already known.

Go to the link, story is from Today, and those other meetings where covered pretty well in those other threads about the FCC and nothing to do with this, if I remember right.

 

[vurbano]

no new news here.

 

[DarrellP]

Ergenspeak: HD viewers are screwed again, we will move HD back to 61.5 and move the locals to 110. Thanks a lot, Charlie.

 

[Walter L.]

So, what are the "news" on this article? Isn't it this just a re-hash of everything that has already been said.
BTW, Charlie says "would increase competition in the relevant market.." but then in the Charlie Chat he announces that he hasn't decided what to do with Rainbow-1 yet

 

[Vreesar]

The NEW news is that previous to this report, Echostar and Voom had not put in a formal petition to the FCC for this sale. Now sense that article we know they have.

 

[Bruce]

Ergenspeak: HD viewers are screwed again, we will move HD back to 61.5 and move the locals to 110. Thanks a lot, Charlie.

I said it before, I do not know how E* has 11 million subs with all their problems, what finally drove me away was their lease plans with the 942 HD DVR, who the h*ll wants to pay $250.00 just for the right to lease it and then pay $10.00 more a month.
Even if the purchase goes through, there is no sure bet he will put HD on it.

 

[rocatman]

No, E* has to the end of 2005 to have all the locals on one dish, and I read another story that they hope to have this sale none in 60-90 days and I still believe the FCC will say no to Charlie anyways, they seem to like doing that because Charlie seems to keep pissing them ( FCC ) off.

Dish (E*) has until May of 2006 (18 months from when the new SHREVA legislation was signed) to have all the locals from a single market receivable using a single dish antenna.

 

[danielle_s]

Sounds like Charlie's getting worried. Sounds like Voom needs to push the envelope with these new satellites. I honestly belive that Voom needs to get the 1st satellite launched no later than June 2006 in order to stay in business. If they wait until September 2007 to launch the first of the new five satellites I believe it'll be too late. Just take a look at dishnetwork. They've been in business just a little over 10 years and have already launched 9 satellites. Now even though Voom doesn't have the intention of launching locals just yet I do believe that they will need a minimum of 3 satellites in order to launch enough channels and services to people that'll make them want to switch. Whether E* has until the end of 2005 or May of 2006 I think that the FCC's decision may be put on hold to see what how echostar hanndles the current rule that dishnet has to put all locals on a single dish. But personally I do believe that they should not allow dish to split the locals into seperate dishes. example the 105 & 121 dishes.

 

[James Long]

no new news here.

News: Something filed with the FCC
The deal is now before the FCC.

JL

 

[Bruce]

Sounds like Charlie's getting worried. Sounds like Voom needs to push the envelope with these new satellites. I honestly belive that Voom needs to get the 1st satellite launched no later than June 2006 in order to stay in business. If they wait until September 2007 to launch the first of the new five satellites I believe it'll be too late. Just take a look at dishnetwork. They've been in business just a little over 10 years and have already launched 9 satellites. Now even though Voom doesn't have the intention of launching locals just yet I do believe that they will need a minimum of 3 satellites in order to launch enough channels and services to people that'll make them want to switch. Whether E* has until the end of 2005 or May of 2006 I think that the FCC's decision may be put on hold to see what how echostar hanndles the current rule that dishnet has to put all locals on a single dish. But personally I do believe that they should not allow dish to split the locals into seperate dishes. example the 105 & 121 dishes.

Charlie is not worried, he has two new Satellites up now in test mode, I believe another going up this year, just bought Rainbow-1 ( well until the FCC says no ) and he has three more new Satellites on order, so no, he is not worried, oblivious yes, they really need to start making some anouncements for the future like D* already did so the stock prices can going back up.

 

[Stargazer]

If Dish gets Raimbow 1 it will be the cherry on top of the pie.

 

[James Long]

The Link

Not sure if that will work ... I got to it through the search engine.
But that's where I found all the FCC has public on the deal.
Including the redacted sale agreement ... which I'm just starting to read.

Enjoy!

Excerpt:

Despite Cablevision' expertise in programming and program distribution, the VOOM service has not been a commercial success. As of September 30th, 2004, Rainbow DBS had approximately 26,000 activated VOOM customers. Since the service was launched through September 2004, appoximately 39 percent of the customers who had activated the VOOM service subsequently terminated the service or were 90 days or more past due in payment.

That's a lot of drop/non-payment!

JL

 

[mike123abc]

The really incredible part of the contract is the mention of 130 spot TPs! Given 13 frequencies that is 10x reuse... More than any satellite currently in operation. I wonder if this including spares or not? It would be interesting to see if they can really get all 130 working at the same time. Of course some of the spots are on the west coast so, probably not really usable.

This could give Dish up to 260 HD LIL channels (assuming 2/TP), or even 360 if they do some mild compression on them (if they get it approved at the FCC).

Of course Rainbow-1 cannot do it alone, this causes a problem at Dish. Some of the larger DMAs (Like NY and LA) would have too many channels for a spot unless they get to do 3 channels/TP. Also adjacent spots (especially in the NE) would be TP starved if they are all used up on NY/LA. Of course if a bunch of space frees up on 61.5 by them moving all the internationals to 121 and all the SD LILs off to E10, then perhaps they could use E3 CONUS for the major stations and put the rest on the spots (like they do now for NY/LA, have the majors on CONUS and the rest on spots).

 

[James Long]

The really incredible part of the contract is the mention of 130 spot TPs! Given 13 frequencies that is 10x reuse... More than any satellite currently in operation. I wonder if this including spares or not?

Not including spares. They will only use all 130 spots if all 12 odd freqencies are allowed. There are 120 spots on the 11 transponders licensed to Rainbow DBS.

I doubt if they will light up all as spots, but it does give them a lot of flexability. The big issue is where the spots are uplinked from. To get all 130 spots down Rainbow DBS would have had to build 11 uplink centers. It's a good question how much they can cross over.

JL

 

[gutter]

Again, this is still old news as V & E both went before the FCC to discuss it about 10 days ago as was reported hear.

Justakurker...have you seen a docket number assigned? If not, then it has not been filed. I am not seeing anything that hasn't been discussed, mentioned or reported 10 days ago. Again if it has been filed, can someone find and report the docket number?