Not necessarily. Even with one receiver or one DVR, Direct can have an advantage on price for the packages most subscribe to (those in the middle).Depends on what equipment you add; for programming on a single receiver DirecTV can't touch Dish pricing. For many receivers, yes, you can get by a little cheaper with DirecTV.
For example these two comparable packages are the same price. Once you add anything (DVR, HD, locals, or extra receiver), Direct is much cheaper.
D*:
$58 for Total Choice Plus (200+ channels)
$6.00 for DVR service (All DVRs on the account)
$10.00 for HD
$5.00 for HD extra (the HD only channels)
locals included
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According to Dish's website:
$58 Classic Gold (250+ channels)
$5 for locals
$10 for HD access
$10 for Platinum HD (similar to D* HD Extra)
$6 for DVR service (each DVR)
They can't, or they choose not to because they are not going after that demographic, or choose not to because they don't need to? I think it is one of the later two.Exactly -- DirecTV's minimum revenue per subscriber has a higher threshold tolerance than Dish. They can't afford to offer the $9.99/mo Welcome pack, the $19.99 Family pack, or any of the lower-cost reduced channel TurboHD packs that Dish network can.
Direct's revenues are down because they added so many subs; while Dish's are up for the opposite reason. It cost to add new subs and keep them. It has little to do with sports packages.Again, the financial numbers from Q1 says it all when it shows that Dish is driving more net income on almost half the revenue of DirecTV. The agreements that D* has forged to carry all the different sports packs are great from a consumer perspective, but it's weighs them down pretty significantly compared to Dish.