This is true (mostly), and shows the down-side of the HD Only package. HD Essentials and HD Ultimate work differently than HD Only, and eventually they are going to be limited by it.
Lets say you have a channel that costs 50 cents a month per subscriber. That channel launches an HD feed. In most cases, the HD Feed does NOT cost an extra 50 cents. It's maybe 55 cents for the two of them together. In some cases such as Starz, the HD feeds are FREE to SD subscribers.
So, for HD Essentials and HD Ultimate, it costs an extra 5 cents to add this channel. But it costs 50 cents (or maybe 55) to add it to HD Only.
Right now, there are 30 or so basic channels with HD feeds that could be added to HD Ultimate and HD Essentials for a very low cost. (Oh wait, they don't have ROOM to add 30 feeds...gee that means bandwidth is limited, doesn't it? And that doesn't count all the premiums.)
BUT, to add 30 channels to HD Only might make it unprofitable. I'm sure they built in some extra room for growth. But they're not going to jack up the price $10 a few months after they start offering it. So even when they solve the bandwidth problem, there will be other issues due to this pricing structure.
I bet next winter, we see yet another tier added. Or, they start to add things to Essentials that don't go to HD Only. (Which then people will cry because they don't understand economics and they thing HD Only means HD ALL)
I actually do agree with this. Note that I didn't start this thread. I support the spirit of it, but not the specifics. I just think they should have waited until either the HD feed was available, or they got the new birds lit.
You guys say there's plenty of room, but they could add 20 HD channels at any times, and if the one YOU wanted was 21st on the list...
