Should Dish try to Buy Voom?

[briani]

I've heard talk that Cablevision(Rainbow dbs) plans on spinning-off voom in
the future. Could this be an opportunity for Dish network to consolidate its
HD programming and gain the needed bandwidth to be a real "Leader" in HD?
Is it even possible......could it get goverment approval?

 

[rtt2]

The only thing of value to Echostar would be the 11 transponder licenses & the Satellite. E* has no use for the Rainbow media assets, uplink facility, RNC Network and a myriad of other things.
It would be like buying a brand new pair of shoes just to get the shoelaces.

 

[GaryPen]

Nice shoelaces, though.

 

[Bruce]

The only shoelace I would want from Voom would be the Monsters Channel,a true original channel.

 

[bcshields]

The uplink facility could always come in handy in the future.. if not only for equity.

I'd say plans, if there are any, are on hold until this second dish local thing gets cleared up.

 

[CKNA]

No! They would just screw it up and remove all HD. According to E* there is no valuable HD content out there to add.

 

[TennVolFan]

It seems to me that if E* were to buy VOOM, they could put 30 or 40 or 50 HD channels at 61.5, and anybody who wants national HD channels (beyond the 6 or so that are at 110 today) could simply put up the second dish. My guess is that the HD devotees--the ones who want more than just the broadcast networks + HBO and ESPN...they want any channel that is in HD...you know who you are!--would have no problem with a 2nd dish because they tend to be intensely rabid about their beloved HD. I don't believe HD will become a mass market product for at least the next 10-15 years. One day we'll look back at the adoption rate of HD, and it will look nothing like that of the Internet, DVD and other, more recent new technologies. For most Americans, HD is not substantially better than SD. Or at least its not so much better that they'll go out and replace their TV's and pay more for HD packages.

 

[GB42]

TennVolFan: IMHO you are WAY OFF the mark. 10 to 15 years??? The two hottest selling consumer items for the home are DVD players & Wide Screen HD TV's.
People will DEMAND HD content for those tv's.
The ONLY way HD is not substantially better than SD is if you do not have a HD capable tv. True HD is MILES ahead of SD. NO CONTEST!

 

[JasonX]

The only shoelace I would want from Voom would be the Monsters Channel,a true original channel.

I have both Voom and Dish. At first I wasn't much interested in the 10 HD Movies channels on Voom. However, I now am finding myself watching them more and more. Even though most of these movies are old (70's, 80's and 90's), I have never seen them before...and some are very good. They're like the AMC channel, except in HD. And, of course, EncoreHD on Voom is similar.

Bravo HD is excellent! Especially if your into the "arts". Excellent concerts from symphony to rock to jazz. HDNews is good, too, for about 20 minutes a day. Then there's the other extreme: Playboy Hot in HD. This is not your typical "soft" core Playboy Channel. This is extremely hard core stuff in HD. It's like XTEN on Dish but in HD (too much detail?). Make sure you have the blocker on if you have kids. I really enjoy soccer, so World Sports in HD is excellent. And speaking of sports, I'll be watching the Heavy Weight Boxing Title tonight. Not on Dish, though, for $40 through HBO..but through Voom for $1.00 and in HD!! Same broadcast, but in HD on Voom for $1.00!

I don't watch all 30 plus High Definintion channels on Voom, just like I don't watch all 150+ plus channels on Dish. Some good, some moderate, some junk. But each person has their own taste. For example, my wife enjoys watching Voom's Treasure channel in HD. I don't like watching about auctions and overpaid junk. And, speaking of overpaid, we subscribe also to StarZHD, Movie Channel HD, etc.

Dish claims to be the HD leader. What a joke that is. The only HD channel that I watch in Dish now is ESPN. But Voom will be adding ESPN in the next few weeks. Why keep Dish? Because my kids like Discovery Kids. My wife likes the Food channel. I'm happy with just Voom (plus I get CBS, NBC and ABC in High Definition OTA!!).

 

[snathanb]

I wouldn't doubt if Voom was owned by Dish or Newscorp by the end of this year.