Lifetime Ala Carte?

[Stargazer]

If advertisement revenues are based upon viewership then the amount of money these channels get paid should be based upon the same thing in which is what Charlie is trying to do. That is important in the view of the company. In the view of the customer they are having to pay the same amount on Dish as they are DirecTv without the Lifetime channels. This is a bad deal for some customers while others could care less if they do not like the channel. Some may choose one provider over another for this reason even if they do not watch the channel much as they see some type of advantage if they have a hard time figuring out which provider to go with.

If they try to bundle it with ESPN then I wonder if Charlie will try to drop ESPN. It is an expensive channel and I wonder what the viewership for that channel is. If Charlie drops ESPN then this should actually allow him to at least prevent the rates from going up for a year or two if not go down. Either that or he could keep the rates the same to make up for the loss in subscribers. If he loses ESPN he loses Disney and others as well so this would have a bad impact on Dish Network and will put Charlie in a rut.

 

[samatha6]

If they try to bundle it with ESPN then I wonder if Charlie will try to drop ESPN. It is an expensive channel and I wonder what the viewership for that channel is. If Charlie drops ESPN then this should actually allow him to at least prevent the rates from going up for a year or two if not go down.

In the short run... dropping ESPN would hurt Dish bad. But the more I think about this.. I think in the long run it could actually put Dish in a position to offer packages that nobody could touch. If you take greedy Disney out of the bundle.. one could put together a package that would draw subs from cable companies as well as DTV. I think alot less people watch ESPN and disney then those that do. If you take out the high carriage fee channels.. you might be able to put together a pretty decent package that comes in 10 dollars under the competition.. That would be well below DTV costs and you throw in dual tuner receivers that also save another 6 bucks a month and you may have a sweet spot in price point.. But it would be a real risky move.. Charlie would never do it. But this is something that could break loose the bundle model.

 

[Dave1997]

Here's what Lifetime had to say.


January 24, 2006

Eric Sahl
Senior Vice President of Programming
EchoStar Communications Corporation
9601 S. Meridian Blvd.
Englewood, CO 80112

Dear Eric

Thank you for your letter of yesterday.

We stand by our position that Lifetime, the #1 women's network, should be available to all DISH subscribers, without an extra a la carte charge.

Should EchoStar wish at any time in the future to restore Lifetime to its previous package at reasonable rates, please be assured that Lifetime remains open to your offers.

— Louise

 

[Mr Tony]

We stand by our position that Lifetime, the #1 women's network, should be available to all DISH subscribers, without an extra a la carte charge.

extra charge?? Its FREEEEEE people

Lifetime is smoking some really good stuff now

 

[BFG]

lol

 

[CPanther95]

Maybe if they say "extra a la carte" charge enough, their mindless minions will start to believe it.

How about it, Mitch - are you believing it yet?

 

[Mr Tony]

Man take a look at my first post which I posted last night at 6PM, then take a look at this...

http://www.dbstalk.com/showpost.php?p=510177&postcount=6 which was posted today at 10:35.

and somebody posted a reply asking to at least state your source (which that post got deleted right away)...huh imagine that

 

[Stargazer]

What all does Disney own? We know that they own the ESPN channels and the Disney channels. What other ones would be impacted? I do not watch ESPN or Disney. If they could drop the rates $10 per month or add new channels and still be $5 cheaper then this could be really appealing to DirecTv and cable subscribers. Or how about AT180 being offered for the AT120 price and AT120 being offer for the AT60 price and AT60 being offered for the Family Pack price and the Family Pack being offered for even cheaper.

They could advertise that all AT60 subs would get upgraded to AT120 and all AT120 subs would be upgraded to AT180 for no additional fee without having to call in. This would prevent people from calling in to downgrade their service or having to call in to upgrade.

 

[Carl B]

Charlie has opposed Ala Carte programming packages in testimony before Congress (he also opposes bundling by providers, but in that case his ox isn't being gored). Providing Lifetime Ala Carte would have shown that E* can do it, so why don't they do it for the other stuff?

I'd love to just pay for the channels I care to receive and not pay for all the others. While content provider bundling is one factor in this mix, service provider resistance is the other. Come on Charlie, how about offering the VOOM channels as Ala Carte. Then watch them wither and die a natural death like their former network.

As to E* withholding ESPN, that would be DBS suicide. It might fly until about September when Collage and NFL (MNF) start. At that point, the male subscribers, whom I'm sure constitute the bulk of DBS subscriber decision makers, will be leaving E* in droves. Bye bye E*. ESPN is just exercising the Supply-Demand model. E*s lack of Ala Carte is just inhibiting the free exercise of that model.

 

[samatha6]

What all does Disney own?

After a quick google... quite a bit.
Cable Television

The Disney Channel
Toon Disney
ESPN Inc. (80% - Hearst Corporation owns the remaining 20%) includes ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN News, ESPN Now, ESPN Extreme
Classic Sports Network (with Liberty)
A&E Television (37.5%, with Hearst and GE)
The History Channel (with Hearst and GE)
Lifetime Television (50%, with Hearst)
Lifetime Movie Network (50% with Hearst)
E! Entertainment (34.4%) - Comcast, MediaOne and Liberty Media each have 10.4% stakes
Fox Family (from News in July 2001)
TVA (20% with Hearst) - Brazilian group controlled by Abril
Worse yet they own a bunch of ABC affliliates and they have been known to use these as well when negotiating carriages.. I think if dish wants to take on Disney they better not wait any longer.. these guys are getting too big.
ABC/Capital Cities Television Network
Owned-&-operated terrestrial broadcast television stations in the US include -
WLS - Chicago
WJRT - Flint
KFSN - Fresno
KTRK - Houston
KABC - Los Angeles
WABC - New York City
WPVI - Philadelphia
WTVD - Raleigh - Durham
KGO - San Francisco
WTVG - Toledo
But there is nothing here that I could not live without.. my abc is not on the list either.. I vote to drop them all!!!

 

[samatha6]

withholding ESPN, that would be DBS suicide. It might fly until about September when Collage and NFL (MNF) start. At that point, the male subscribers, whom I'm sure constitute the bulk of DBS subscriber decision makers, will be leaving E* in droves.

Really? I wonder if there are any figures to that. I would like to know the percentage of DBS homes that watch ESPN. This is purely hypothetical, but if dish dropped ALL Disney channels, and were able to significantly undercut both DTV and Cable in there price points... what would happen? Sure a ton would leave Dish.. But Dish would be sitting with some great prices. Would the ones leaving be ofset by the ones adding dish services? I mean, i know allot of folks here in albuquerque that are near the pain threshold of comcast analog basic at 54 dollars a month. I know I would support such a move.. but it will never happen.

 

[CPanther95]

1 in 7 are "occasional" viewers of ESPN. They average 2.9 million primetime viewers.

 

[Stargazer]

Would Dish Network be able to make up for the churn with additional subscribers to their service as a result of cheaper prices and make up for the losses by saving the money that Dish Network has to pay those providers?

OK, so 1 in 7 watch ESPN. What about those that watch Disney and those other channels? If lets say 1 in 4 watch Disney it could be 1 in 4 seperate from those 1 in 7 that watch ESPN. This is where it becomes difficult to figure up the possible loss. Not everyone that watches them will drop the service especially if cheaper rates entice them but you would have to figure out 1 in X watch either ESPN, Disney, History, etc.

 

[JPointerWI]

We stand by our position that Lifetime, the #1 women's network, should be available to all DISH subscribers, without an extra a la carte charge.
Should EchoStar wish at any time in the future to restore Lifetime to its previous package at reasonable rates, please be assured that Lifetime remains open to your offers.
— Louise

I think what they are taking issue with is that it wouldnt be available to ALL subscribers, only the ones that wanted it.

It's also interesting that Lifetime expected E* to absorb the price increase, not pass it along to the subscribers.

 

[JPointerWI]

Would Dish Network be able to make up for the churn with additional subscribers to their service as a result of cheaper prices and make up for the losses by saving the money that Dish Network has to pay those providers?
OK, so 1 in 7 watch ESPN. What about those that watch Disney and those other channels? If lets say 1 in 4 watch Disney it could be 1 in 4 seperate from those 1 in 7 that watch ESPN. This is where it becomes difficult to figure up the possible loss. Not everyone that watches them will drop the service especially if cheaper rates entice them but you would have to figure out 1 in X watch either ESPN, Disney, History, etc.

I never watch EPSN, or any of the Disney channels. Having said that, I would NOT want them removed. With any package, there needs to be a balance of different networks, some movies, some sports, some educational, some kids, some news, etc etc.

I would be very surprised if there is any network that more the 50% of subscribers watch regularly.

 

[Curtis0620]

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

No, they get those 1 millions subs to switch to Directv or cable. I think Charlie would care about that.

 

[CPanther95]

Would Dish Network be able to make up for the churn with additional subscribers to their service as a result of cheaper prices and make up for the losses by saving the money that Dish Network has to pay those providers?
OK, so 1 in 7 watch ESPN. What about those that watch Disney and those other channels?

Disney would definitely cause less churn only because there are acceptable "replacement" networks available. But I think the answer to your question can be assumed to be "NO" - since every provider is carrying ESPN. If Charlie thought he could offset churn with the lower price he could offer with no Disney properties, he would have likely jumped all over it.

 

[samatha6]

1 in 7 are "occasional" viewers of ESPN. They average 2.9 million primetime viewers.

Now I can see the real logic to ESPN getting MNF rights away from ABC. ESPN seems to be the glue for Hearst/Disney in their leverage for current and future carriages. By adding MNF to ESPN.. that makes it harder to negotiate carriages with Disney/Hearst stations. It just seems that Disney keeps getting stronger in all this and that is a bad thing for the consumer.

Anyway.. has anyone heard any news from Dishes last offer for free a la carte to anyone that wants lifetime? Heck the more I think about this.... the more I think alot of people would jump on it.. if its free.. I am sure lifetime would advertise "just call dish to add" I think that sounds like a good thing.. Lifetime should really think about this before they just throw it back at Charlie.

 

[CPanther95]

With any package, there needs to be a balance of different networks, some movies, some sports, some educational, some kids, some news, etc etc.

Well the current system is even better - instead of "some", for the most part we get "ALL" movies, all sports, all educational, all kids, all news, etc. etc.

What's even better, in 10 years there will be twice as many channels to choose from - probably for something less than twice what we are paying now!

 

[CPanther95]

Now I can see the real logic to ESPN getting MNF rights away from ABC. ESPN seems to be the glue for Hearst/Disney in their leverage for current and future carriages. By adding MNF to ESPN.. that makes it harder to negotiate carriages with Disney/Hearst stations. It just seems that Disney keeps getting stronger in all this and that is a bad thing for the consumer.
Anyway.. has anyone heard any news from Dishes last offer for free a la carte to anyone that wants lifetime? Heck the more I think about this.... the more I think alot of people would jump on it.. if its free.. I am sure lifetime would advertise "just call dish to add" I think that sounds like a good thing.. Lifetime should really think about this before they just throw it back at Charlie.

There's a reason ESPN will get less ad revenue, but projects a $200 million profit from MNF despite "outbidding" ABC by $500 million dollars a year. Considering ABC showed a $150 million loss for MNF - that's a $850 million a year swing despite fewer viewers.

Don't worry, we'll get the bill shortly - not just in the cost for ESPN, but also in all the additional channels we'll be forced to buy with the increased leverage.