Retailer Chat Recap - August 7, 2008

[Scott Greczkowski]

Welcome to SatelliteGuys.US and our live recap of the Dish Network Retailer Chat!

As always the info contained in these recaps is information you the consumer could get from your local retailer after they have watched the chat. We do not give any sensitive dealer information here such as costs and profits.

Todays chats could be as interesting as the last chat where "Turbo Dish" was first introduced!

Charlie Ergen announced on the earnings call that More HD was coming and would be in place when the new Echostar 11 satellite was in place. He also said that Echostar 11 will be in place at the end of the month.

In addition this could be the first real look at Dish Networks new Eastern Arc service which is expected to go into service on August 20th in 21 select markets. Our uplink reports lately have shown Dish turning everything on getting ready to launch Eastern Arc.

So will Dish Network talk about any of these things today? We will all find put today together!

(Note this recap is delayed by about 25 minutes as I was stuck on a conference call... thank god for DVR's. )

Here we go with todays SatelliteGuys Dish Network Retailer Chat!

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Tom and Jim Welcome us to todays show... Got lots to talk about today.

Todays agenda includes:

Echostar XI
TurboHD Launched
Tech News with Leslie Harper and more.

The Echostar 11 Launch video is shown. All is going great, it will go into service in the next few weeks. More coming about Echostar 11 later in the broadcast.

Jim says Eastern Arc is going to finally be a reality and we will talk about that later as well. Jim says Eastern Arc is coming August 20th.

Next a video is shown for I Am Legend in 1080p HD PPV.

I am Legend is the first of many 1080p HD movies coming. Jim says customers are very excited about it.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Nex they talk about the Olympics on Dish Network.

They talk about the extra VOD Olympic and the interactive features that Dish will have.

ESPN Gameplan is back this year on Dish Network.

Early bird deal 109 or 4 payments of 36.34 for the ESPN Gameplan.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Now turning to promotions...

Dish'n It Up now allows up to 4 tuners.

DishMOVER has been upgraded includes $50 credit on your bill for using Dish Mover. They also allow you to upgrade receivers at the same time of doing Dish Mover.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

They remind us about the exisiting cusomers promotions match the new customers promotions this includes Cinemax for a year for a penny.

They now recap the TurboHD package for new customers. They are working on making TurboHD available to exiting customers and expect to have announcements in the future. Jim says that existing customers will be able to order the HD Only TurboHD packages on February 1st. Jim says more HD is coming which will make the TurboHD packages a better value to customers.

 

[navychop]

Thank you for posting this. Of course, many of us are no doubt waiting with bated breath for whatever EA info they might see fit to release.

 

[tigerfan33]

I want to hear more about EchoXI

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Now Jim is explaining why Dish is not accepting Debit cards for many new customers. JIm explains how the entire things works... (Wake me up when its over...)

Oh yeah I got a DVR I can FAST FORWARD!

Next Jessica from Dish Marketing is on talking about all the buzz on TurboHD. She talks about all the great Press Coverage but no mention of SatelliteGuys. (DOH!)

Now she is showing us a few of the TurboHD commercials that are airing.. (good thing I got that Fast Forward button again!)

New Frank Caliendo ads are coming. Some outtakes are shown hes doing Bush, Jerry Seinfield, Clinton, Jason Alexander, Jack Nickolson and a bunch more. Funny stuff!

Some other ads are shown including foreign language commercials.

 

[jacmyoung]

Now turning to promotions...

Dish'n It Up now allows up to 4 tuners.

DishMOVER has been upgraded includes $50 credit on your bill for using Dish Mover. They also allow you to upgrade receivers at the same time of doing Dish Mover.

I thought they always had the 4-tuner limitation? Can you tell those idiots they need to eliminate the 4-tuner lease limitation? They are chasing away people who need more than two HDDVRs, and sending them right into D*'s camp, and those housholds are often of higher income.

It is fine to cater to small housholds or value oriented market, but why chase away cash cows?

 

[VinceT3]

basically if you want more than 2 HD-DVR's, they would rather you go to DirecTV or cable.. rather than realize that people with multiple HD tv's will most likely spent MORE money than the avg customer..

 

[VinceT3]

At a minimum they should limit the # of tuners per upgrade/new service based on what's your getting from them.. (250+premiums = 16 tuners).. (100 = 4 tuners).. etc..

 

[jacmyoung]

basically if you want more than 2 HD-DVR's, they would rather you go to DirecTV or cable.. rather than realize that people with multiple HD tv's will most likely spent MORE money than the avg customer..

Cable isn't trying hard either, they want almost $20 for each additional HDDVR per month.

But D* is killing E* with their unlimited HDDVR lease and only one DVR fee and they only charge $99 for upgrading to additional HDDVR, E* can do the same, as it stands now after the first 2, you need to pay $500 to "buy" any additional and still pay the same monthly fee to use them. Did Charlie not see the quarterly reports from E* and D* himself?

 

[mdonnelly]

...
It is fine to cater to small housholds or value oriented market, but why chase away cash cows?

I guess they figure high-end customers can buy more tuners if they want to. The four-tuner limit only applies to leased equipment.

 

[VinceT3]

I guess I'll need to check out my brother's directv and consider switching.. hmmm..

 

[vodad]

Next Jessica from Dish Marketing is on talking about all the buzz on TurboHD. She talks about all the great Press Coverage but no mention of SatelliteGuys. (DOH!)

At least now we know who is responsible for all this marketing crap that they are doing. if she can't even mention SatelliteGuys.US then no wonder Marketing is going down hill fast.

 

[Ray_Clum]

ESPN Gameplan is back this year on Dish Network.

Early bird deal 109 or 4 payments of 36.34 for the ESPN Gameplan.

Any news about GamePlan in HD?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Talking about Dish U online training.. nothing of interest to consumers...

Now onto Eastern Arc! It launches on August 20th in 21 areas. It is an all MPEG4 service. It offers folks on the East Cost better look angles.

Installers can point to either location. (This is GOOD NEWS... now I want an Eastern Arc Dish.. hint hint)

Jim says this might not seem like much, but this news is huge.

Jim says Eastern Arc wont have some programming the internationals which require 118.7.

All 21 markets that Eastern Arc will launch in are shown.

If customers wants Latino Programming, Pre Paid then they will need to use Western Arc.

Those 21 cities are just the start... More coming...

Locals shown, a number of locals were delayed...

Now on to Leslie Harper showing us the new Dish 100.4

Eastern Arc will require a new smartcard to watch... Receivers which have this new smartcard will be marked with a "Circle A" mark on the label on the front of the receiver box. All ViP receivers shipped over the past 3 months have had the new smart card included. The new smartcard is called G3.

When you install a 1004. Dish the check switch will take awhile at the 77 degree satellite is not in place yet. Customers will have to run Check switch in the future to see the 77 degree slot.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Jim says a lot more to come for Eastern Arc, he says Eastern Arc is going to hapen in serveral stages.

That wraps up talk of Eastern Arc...

Now getting ready for Q&A which means no more news from this chat... (DAMN I was hoping for an HD announcement... grr.)

If anything else interesting is said I will report it here.

Thanks for being SatelliteGuys!

 

[dfergie]

The 1000.4 looks a lot like the Slimline...

 

[webbydude]

New smartcard, eh? Looks like I'm going to have to create a RA for my 722 and get me a newer (within the past 3 months) 722 to go along with the new dish I plan on buying.