Both sat , sat radio, telecom & cell phone companies depend on adding new subs to keep their companies in existence . Without a healthy amount of new subs the churn starts to really hurt their chance of staying both profitable and in business. Since the dvr fee per receiver is a made up fee that DISH came up in the first place , they can surely eliminate it or make it go away if you have the dvr advantage pack. HD channels cost no more than the sd versions and are negotiated at the same time. Since they cost no more DISH could do something really revolutionary to attract new subs and make the AEP the best value for your money. ALL hd channels are included with AEP along with all dvr fees. Doing this would help sell dvrs for Echostar and make existing subs and new subs move to this pack to save money. It would also help get your average revenue per sub up . THat looks good to the channel providers since more people would take premiums and top 250 , and it looks good to stock holders as well. It would also slaughter the competition if they did this. DIRECTV charges you a dvr fee for their version of AEP . DISH would not be losing any money to do this sinc HD versions are already included when they negotiate the sd versions from the providers. This is what you need to gain new subs and keep existing ones as well. IN bad economic times it makes sense to eliminate made up fees like the dvr fee , the no phone connection fee , etc to show that you are truly trying to be the low cost , best priced, best equipment and value for your money. Imagine the advertising campaign that DISH could run with FREE HD included and NO dvr fees . DISH is the first company to provide true FREE hd channels with AEP. This is the way to go if you want to attract new and retain existing subs. Other wise DISH will keep on losing subs as DIRECTV keeps on gaining them.