Charlie said tonight that: "NO one will have more hd channels than DISH." Now I don't know what he considers hd channels, because DIRECTV has more hd channels than DISH does right now. He might be considering hd channels to be FULL time hd all the time and not upconverts or mixture of sd/hd shows like Sci -Fi does now . But I don't know for sure.
I think you are right. Charlie did seem to stress contractual agreements and wanting to much money as reasons why we haven't seen more hd channels up to now. He wants to save us money . OF course he is losing hd subs at a terrific rate so I hope this strategy works out for him.