Well, Dish doesn't have as much money as Direct TV, so no they really can't afford some of the sky high demands of the channels, or they would go out of business a lot sooner then they otherwise would.
On the other hand Direct TV has always been the "high end" provider. They will happily pay what the channels want because they can always pass those costs along to their affluent subscribers, and they can't yank a channel even though they would LOVE to (the large cable companies have yanked many channels many times over the years) because they have painted themselves into a corner of providing all the channels no matter what. A Direct TV sub would rather pay an increase in their bill and keep the channel than keep some control on the bill and yank the channel.
Overall Direct TV is still more expensive than Dish, more expensive than my local cable company, and even more expensive than FiOS the last I checked. I am still with Dish because they are less expensive. If one has a hard-on for the sports, then Direct TV is where you should be and realize that Dish is not committed to that at any price, as Direct will pay anything, and pass it on to you. Dish was founded on price competitiveness, and the compromise for that is a channel going bye bye here and there. But that's Dish and that is why Dish is still less expensive than the competition. They really are two quite different providers if you really want all that sports you can eat. Direct TV is great for that; Dish is not. That simple. However, Dish has no excuse for its too often poor customer service and its (often misleading, disingenuous or just pain crooked) independent retailers / contractors not installing equipment correctly leading to complaints from the new customer often costing Dish $$$ to clean-up a contractor's crappy install. I've met only one competent and honest contractor. Dish company installers are top-notch all the way. Charlie fix those two things and you will get the quarterly new subs numbers you used to get.
