adrian777 said:
Continue the fight because they should not charge extra because it's hd.
That's the bottom line.
After D*'s announcement, I didn't want to come down hard pro or con because I wanted to see the overall reaction without putting my particular spin on things. Now that people have made their own determination, I'll throw my $0.02 in.
The whole point is not to pull out HD games as a separate tier (whether or not it is bundled with other stuff). Keep it the same as last year. Even a $5 charge shouldn't be considered a "victory". We've potentially saved a lot of people a decent amount of money and for that, SatGuys deserves a big pat on the back.
However, it's about the HD Tax - not the amount of the tax. Personally, I think it's unfair to us loyal subs, it sends a crappy message to both potential NFLST subs and potential HDers in general. By subscribing, we are funding that message. The only difference now is that we're only contributing $49 each towards sending that message out.
True success will not come strictly via more petitioners or potential lost revenue. Those will never reach a point that D* acts because of financial reasons. Success will come via media exposure (which may be dependent on number of petitioners). This concession should probably be attributed to TV Week's mention of D*'s CSRs telling people that the NFL was requiring this fee. That's the kind of thing that causes potential problems that they don't want to have to deal with.
I'd recommend removing references to "halfway" there - it is misleading considering the real issue here. I believe D* "heard" us, but they aren't "listening" to what we're actually saying. If we don't hear back from DirecTV considering that this is obviously going over like a lead balloon - it will be clear that they aren't looking to satisfy the customers complaining or acknowledging the unfairness of the HD Tax. They are simply diffusing the potentially PITA situations that could arise from bad publicity.
If we cannot appeal to D* as loyal profitable subscribers who have stuck with them during this very lean HD time - then we should play the media game and appeal to the outside forces to which D* will be more willing to respond. The original website was intentionally focused on "undamaging" info and focused exclusively on the issue itself. Any hyperbole and extenuating issues that strengthen our case were ignored because the point was to reason with D* and see if they would listen. Some of these issues would be much more "sexy" to the media. Things like:
"Why are only
American NFL fans subject to the HD Tax?"
"How can 2 Satellite companies and 1 Cable company in Canada deliver NFL ST with HD games for half the cost of DirecTV?"
"If companies intend to gouge those of us supporting this US Government-mandated transition - should we encourage the government to reconsider?"
"DirecTV has reduced the quality of the HD they deliver by a full third in the past few years - is it worth a premium?"
etc., etc., etc.
