I'll tell you, from where I'm sitting, I can't swallow much of a price increase, and I won't swallow the lose of a major sports channel like ESPN either if they decide to play that game, too. My contract will be up in 2013, and if I bundle my cable Internet with a cable TV package, I'll not only get the promotional intro rate, but also a bundling discount. Dish raises their rates dramatically at their own peril with customers like me. I hate the cable company, but with a rough financial situation, I don't hate the cable company enough to burn a big monetary differential. I also hate the hassle of switching, but, same deal, I'll do it if the financial incentive is big enough, or Dish stops delivering an acceptable range of channels.
I already deal with a situation with Dish where MSNBC is my most watched news channel and I can't always afford to have a package that has it. NBC Sportschannel is important during hockey season, too, and that's an even higher tier. I try to move up, can't handle it financially, and wind up moving back down. With cable, they're both channels in the regular tier. Cable refuses to carry CSN+ in my area, which is some Caps games, so Dish has the fact that they do carry it going for them, but I'm not so sure it'll be enough if Dish stops being competitive financially, unless they were to drop MSNBC and NBCSN into 120+ or something.
