Great! We hope you are enjoying your HBO. I personally opted to not have HBO long before this whole attempt at extorsion began, so no love lost there for me.
HBO/Cinemax Takedown
- Thread starter DishGuyTX
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I get HBO for FREE, on my Directv employee complementary account.
I get everything for FREE Including all the sports packages. Still pay $125 between the Italian package, Premier protection plan and 11 additional receivers.
I don't even watch HBO, but I did turn it on this weekend just to verify it was working and to remind myself I don't have Dish anymore.
You must have crotch chopping down to an art form.
True, but to be fair, you didn't say you were buying a used copy, just that it was on eBay. Many items on eBay are sold new. Now, if you had said "through Craigslist" one could safely assume that it was not a new item.
I can't afford to be so complete in my shut-out of AT&T as they are pretty much the only game in town for residential phone service. But I can see that this thread has gone so far off the rails as to be in the next state, so I'll abstain from further comments regarding other AT&T services.
As I mentioned originally, I cancelled HBO when Dish discontinued the $10/mo. deal. At $10 monthly it was just below the threshold of too much, but now it's a moot point. If I wanted to re-up with HBO, there are many other avenues than Dish Network without switching from Dish. I'm not afraid of multiple TV inputs and switching to a OTT streaming box to watch specialized media content. AT&T has everything to gain and not much to lose in this disagreement. If Dish sticks to their guns, some people may switch to another pay TV provider like DirecTV if they want an all-in-one solution from the sky. Otherwise, if they have enough bandwidth, they can stream HBO Now and either pay AT&T directly or through Amazon, Google (I assume), or Apple.
We've been watching Last Week Tonight and Real Time clips on YouTube, so this really hasn't affected us. The EPIX free preview freebie allowed us to record some new movies, and we've added Starz since Outlander returned. So, to sum up, we're paying less, and still have pretty much everything we had prior to the HBO going away. We might just drop it until GoT returns if it ever comes back.
Edit: I looked at my account, and it appears that Dish gave me EPIX free for 1 month, not a free preview like I assumed.
Edit: I looked at my account, and it appears that Dish gave me EPIX free for 1 month, not a free preview like I assumed.
He should be happy, but he's not. He's still here, day after day, whining endlessly
That's his prerogative. I find it to be counter-productive to be sitting here going on about his preference, when the discussion is about which party is correct in this dispute. There are fanboys of each company. That's fine. But, I'm not interested in the fanboy perspective. I'm interested in the perspective of those who will view this situation as an independent matter and share their opinions on the matter. If Dish owned Starz or Showtime and was pulling this with DirecTV, then I would be equally appalled with Dish's actions.He should be happy, but he's not. He's still here, day after day, whining endlessly
As I said, its extorsion and an attempt to artificially inflate the value of one provider at the expense of its competition. I have yet to see anyone who can rationally debate that.
Its different than if Comcast was pulling this with NBC or anyone of its basic cable channels.
I'm not so quick to call this extorsion, we have no idea what the terms of the old deal and current offer are. I don't like AT&T as much as the next guy, but Dish has a long, long history of channel disputes.
The amount of people willing to pay for traditional TV service are dwindling and for the amount these services cost we expect them to be able to fairly negotiate new contracts without constantly pulling channels off. Be ready for another quarter of huge subscriber losses.
The amount of people willing to pay for traditional TV service are dwindling and for the amount these services cost we expect them to be able to fairly negotiate new contracts without constantly pulling channels off. Be ready for another quarter of huge subscriber losses.
The way I see it, ultimately HBO wants a guaranteed payday. They want the same payment every month no matter if they have 5 subscribers or 4 million.
So lets say the number is 4 million, if only 3.5 million are subscribing DISH will still pay HBO for 4 million subscribers.
With the pay TV market shrinking HBO might be seeing they need to do something to handle that decline and still have enough money coming in to survive and create new content.
As I have said before HBO is no longer the great channel it once was. I wouldn't pay $15 a month for it, where there are so many more options available and at a lower cost. Could this be the beginning of the end for HBO?
So lets say the number is 4 million, if only 3.5 million are subscribing DISH will still pay HBO for 4 million subscribers.
With the pay TV market shrinking HBO might be seeing they need to do something to handle that decline and still have enough money coming in to survive and create new content.
As I have said before HBO is no longer the great channel it once was. I wouldn't pay $15 a month for it, where there are so many more options available and at a lower cost. Could this be the beginning of the end for HBO?
Here's where I would agree with AT&T. DirecTV starts it's own premium service called Movie Central (I know of the West Coast Canadian premium service of the same name, but this service is independent of that). It launches on DirecTV, and after a few years other providers express interest in this premium service.
This started as a DirecTV exclusive, therefore AT&T had the right name its price. This hypothetical Movie Central was their creation.
This is different than buying HBO's owner, who was an independent content supplier who didn't have any ties with a content provider. HBO was started as a service that simply went out to virtually all providers as a "your subs pay extra and the cost goes directly to us" platform. As Scott pointed out, 30 to 20 years ago the independent provider would request a guaranteed subscriber amount. But, the owners at the time didn't have any stake in any content provider. So, it was a fair game. By this practice, no satellite company was going to benefit off Time Warner having this practice. Yes, Time Warner Cable might have, but Time Warner Cable wasn't a nationally distributed provider. So, it was limited.
Now, AT&T buys HBO after HBO becomes a staple service, expected to be carried on virtually all providers, and AT&T uses this service as leverage to get more money out of its competition. That's with what I am disagreeing. AT&T is using HBO's value to either extort more money from Dish or limit Dish's ability to be an equal player in the game.
No matter what, this tactic will force Dish to take a hit. Either, Dish will need to raise rates to cover AT&T's demands, which will cause customers to leave the service as they are paying for a premium that they don't watch. Or, they will balk on the demands, and subs who wish to have HBO will go somewhere else. For subs in rural areas, the only other logical provider happens to be the owner of HBO. Hence, my finding that this is extortion and a purposeful attempt to artificially inflate DirecTV's value at the cost of its main competitor.
This started as a DirecTV exclusive, therefore AT&T had the right name its price. This hypothetical Movie Central was their creation.
This is different than buying HBO's owner, who was an independent content supplier who didn't have any ties with a content provider. HBO was started as a service that simply went out to virtually all providers as a "your subs pay extra and the cost goes directly to us" platform. As Scott pointed out, 30 to 20 years ago the independent provider would request a guaranteed subscriber amount. But, the owners at the time didn't have any stake in any content provider. So, it was a fair game. By this practice, no satellite company was going to benefit off Time Warner having this practice. Yes, Time Warner Cable might have, but Time Warner Cable wasn't a nationally distributed provider. So, it was limited.
Now, AT&T buys HBO after HBO becomes a staple service, expected to be carried on virtually all providers, and AT&T uses this service as leverage to get more money out of its competition. That's with what I am disagreeing. AT&T is using HBO's value to either extort more money from Dish or limit Dish's ability to be an equal player in the game.
No matter what, this tactic will force Dish to take a hit. Either, Dish will need to raise rates to cover AT&T's demands, which will cause customers to leave the service as they are paying for a premium that they don't watch. Or, they will balk on the demands, and subs who wish to have HBO will go somewhere else. For subs in rural areas, the only other logical provider happens to be the owner of HBO. Hence, my finding that this is extortion and a purposeful attempt to artificially inflate DirecTV's value at the cost of its main competitor.
This is different than other disputes. Other disputes involve channels provided to subs of a basic platform. This isn't TBS or TNT. This is a subscription premium. Therefore, my opinion is that the game changes in this situation. I explain better in my last post as to why I call it extorsion. Its solely because the two parties involved, who owns what, and their status as the only two satellite companies in the United States.
Regarding subscriber losses, I think it unlikely that Dish will ever again have a quarter where they don't have subscriber losses.
Right now they're 2.5 million subs in the hole. Let those losses sink in for awhile and they might change their tune.
Considering that AT&T started to destroy DirecTV immediately after they bought it, it would not be surprising at all if they did the same thing with HBO. They already got rid of Skinemax on MAX and boxing on HBO (neither of which I watched), so they're on their way to ruining it already.
Yeah but how many do they get back from streaming and keep the whole $15
Or get HBO WHEN THR CUSTOMER DUMPS DISH SND SWITCHES (sorry for caps)
Without a doubt they'll gain some streaming customers & Dish will have some churn because of this. Imo in the long run this will hurt Hbo more than Dish.
This is like Directv is negotiating with Dish for rights to HBO. Of course their goal is to hurt Dish as much as possible, see how many subscribers they can get to leave Dish.
True. I wonder if the number of people who switch to another provider will be enough to make up for the ones who decide to just pirate the content they want (GoT), since people seem very willing to do that when it becomes more difficult to source the content legally. GoT is already (or was) the most pirated content out there.
