Lifetime Ala Carte?

[Sean Mota]

If you ran Lifetime, would you take this offer?

Lets say that the fee paid to Lifetime is $1 per sub and of the 12 million Dish subs 1 million will take Life time ala carte.

So you would take $1 x 1 million subs vs $1 x 12 million subs?

The math does not lie... If you or I were running the company, we will refuse this deal and rather cut our losses and leave dish or come to a compromise. Programmers are not stupid and will find ways to get back in the ballgame.

for everyone (and not curtis): do not dream of a la carte model ****it does not work*** and no one in their right mind will accept this. It will be the end of the Network if it's accepted.

 

[Sean Mota]

$1 x 1 million subs is better then $0 x 0 subs.

Scott, either way it will be the end of the network. The advertising will go down the drain and of course this will limit of the type of programming the network can create for its viewer. This will create much worse programming of what lifetime is offering since the revenue will not be there to support it and eventually if they cannot survive, it will be off the air.

 

[jrbdmb]

Lifetime has already responded and said "no way":

http://www.skyreport.com/viewskyreport.cfm?ReleaseID=1834#Story1

 

[CPanther95]

for everyone (and not curtis): do not dream of a la carte model ****it does not work*** and no one in their right mind will accept this.

It ***WILL WORK*** for us (subscribers) however. No one in their right mind outside of the major media conglomerates would oppose the push towards an a la carte model.

 

[NightRyder]

Lifetime has already responded and said "no way":

http://www.skyreport.com/viewskyreport.cfm?ReleaseID=1834#Story1

Their response must have been crafted before the E* clarification, because there is no additional cost to subscribers.

In response, Lifetime said in a statement, "We stand by our position that Lifetime and Lifetime Movie Network, the No. 1 and No. 2 women's networks, should be available to all DISH subscribers without an extra cost. DISH has already announced they are increasing their rates by $2 to $3 per month on Feb. 1. Why should women pay even more for their favorite programs?"


NightRyder

 

[CPanther95]

Yet they will respond to any follow-up, after clarifying E*'s "free" offer - that "We have already issued a response to that ridiculous offer"

 

[boogerbear]

Lifetime can't take this offer

If Lifetime takes this offer, and lets be real generous here, and 1million people sign up for it. The advertisers will then cut their payments to Lifetime accordingly, because instead of having 12 million subscribers, they have 1 million viewers/subscribers. The advertisers start thinking about how much they are paying for advertising for Direct and Cable and how many people are actually watching the channel. They will lose so much ad revenue. Granted they are losing the Dish revenue now, but imagine how more they would lose if they took the offer? Of course they cannot discuss that part of it. or they would look as if they cared more for money than women. I just can't imagine how the lifetime board, which only has one woman on it, could ever look like it's main concern is not women.

 

[twinrocks]

Yeah, it's gone!

The article is gone.
NightRyder

Someone just brought that to my attention! It is gone, I wonder why?

What does it mean? The saga continues...LOL!!

 

[samatha6]

If you ran Lifetime, would you take this offer?
Lets say that the fee paid to Lifetime is $1 per sub and of the 12 million Dish subs 1 million will take Life time ala carte.
So you would take $1 x 1 million subs vs $1 x 12 million subs?

There is no way that lifetime will abandon the bundle model. Most likely what Hearst/Disney will do is lock lifetime/LMN and that third Lifetime women to ESPN or one of their other channels.. For example, next time Charlie renews ESPN contract he may have to take Lifetime's channels.. or no ESPN.. Whats he going to do then? Lifetime was not locked into those other channels but that will change.
It may not happen quite like that.. but Hearst/Disney will use some kind of extortion/blackmail tactics next time around.. How else do you think your cable/dbs bill keeps rocketing in price hikes? Bundling is clearly in the advantage of content providers and they are difinitely not going to abandon that model now. They never will.. Only an act of congress/fcc will they ever do a la carte.

A la carte across the board would really turn things around. For the first time it would make content providers competitive in both price and in development new and good content.. With bundling they don't have to be competitive.. they don't have to be good.. and they don't have to develop new content either.. I view bundling as some kind of bad racket. Its funny that Charlie says that lifetime is not being fair.. Well I am saying that with bundling its never been fair.. We have all been paying too much for eveything for a long time.

 

[TNGTony]

If Lifetime takes this offer, and lets be real generous here, and 1million people sign up for it. The advertisers will then cut their payments to Lifetime accordingly, because instead of having 12 million subscribers, they have 1 million viewers/subscribers. .

The advertisers pay on ACTUAL viewership, not on potential viewership. This is why Nielsen is in business. That is what Ratings systems are all about. What lifetime wants is more potential eyeballs. They want some one to be able to stumble across their channel and start watching their programming even if they didn't know the channel existed.

See ya
Tony

 

[CPanther95]

Lifetime will lose over 13% of their $900 million revenue by losing E* (between carriage fees and advertising) - that's a given if things stay as they are. Any additional subs they can pick up will only increase their revenue.

The meesage it sends to other providers is a potential risk, and you'd have no chance of making it back into the Top 60 - but as far as raw revenue, this deal would only help.

 

[NightRyder]

Only an act of congress/fcc will they ever do a la carte.

I believe that is exactly what Charlie is trying to accomplish. By pushing this issue into the public realm, and exposing the extortion like tactics of the program providers, he hopes to create a public outcry, get the government involved, and put an end this practice.


NightRyder

 

[mitchflorida]

The original letter from Dish to Lifetime makes no mention of it being provided free of charge to Dish customers. It is implied that Dish will pass on the charges to Dish customers, on top of $2- $4 price increase already in the works for February.


Charlie is clearly being deceptive here. Playing PR games. We are tired of it.


It is interesting that he is still negotiating with Lifetime after he announced that he would no longer negotiate with them.

If you care about the Lifetime Channels you should at least call up Dish Network and get into a long conversation with the reps about all the different options regarding Lifetime, LMC, a la carte, rebates, etc.

 

[samatha6]

If you care about the Lifetime Channels you should at least call up Dish Network and get into a long conversation with the reps about all the different options regarding Lifetime, LMC, a la carte, rebates, etc.

CSR's don't have any power over any of this. They did give me 5 dollars off.. I think anyone can get that but other then that.. its fruitless to call and waist your time.
I will say one thing for Dish.. their customer care has taken a drop. Last several times I called it appears I am connected to someone in India.. connection is bad.. which was never good to begin with. Like most outsourced CSR's.. they rely heavy on scripts.
The only reason I stay with Dish is because I like their dual tuner receivers and it saves me 6 bucks a month.. My PQ is better then the crap 435 DTV rca irds I had and the UHF radio controlled remotes are far better the DTV IR crap ones I had. I also like the software with Dish... but god if you have to call Dish for anything.. good luck.. on getting through... and good luck getting anyone that knows what your talking about.

 

[CPanther95]

It's just some lame attempt to cost E* money by talking to CSRs on the phone for as long as possible. Apparently he assumes all E* subs are as whipped as he is and we have nothing better to do than to chat up some CSR.

 

[PATONENOW]

Here's my 2 cents. CHARLIE and LIFETIME are BOTH saving face by accepting the latest offer. They both can claim tough bargaining in the end. And what it amounts to is accepting the original offer because most subs would call E* to get it free. CHARLIE is losing customers and LIFETIME is losing revenue right now.
But what I find interesting is IF persons would really call congress and tell them you want choices as to programming at fair cost. How many do you think will really call?

 

[CPanther95]

How much you want to bet most subs would not call E* to get Lifetime for free?

 

[jeffwtux]

Charlie should put it back on has MPEG4 Ala Carte also.

Ok, I've read this word for word like 10 times. I don't get it. I guess I can't find a joke through the trees.

 

[jeffwtux]

Ok, here's my idea. Take the top 3 executives from Dish(Charlie, Jim, and Schwimmer) and Lifetime and put them on Celebrity poker. If Dish wins, no LRW and Dish gets Liftime and LMN at Dish's offer rate. If Lifetime wins, Dish must take all three channels and pay what Lifetime wants, DEAL?

 

[BFG]

I take it the update means, that if dish will be making lifetime ala carte available for free, then dish will be paying the costs but only have to pay for the # of subs that take the time to request the channel, and if a bunch of people request it for the heck of it, not much gain for dish