Having Charlie personally answer some long time questions really helped us see the Dish network rational behind decisions:
1. YES network. YES only wants in base tier, all Dish RSNs are in AT200, or AT100+ not AT100 as YES demands. Dish felt that they could gain more customers in NY by having the lowest cost AT100 type package than they would gain from having YES available. This is why they made the decision they made. Disagree with it or not, the market will decide (i.e. don't expect YES on Dish).
2. Dish does analyze the viewing habits of receivers that report in (they do it in aggregate not on an individual basis who has time to look through 13 million reports). That leads them to decide which networks are must have and which one can be dropped during negotiations.
3. He was able to explain about NFLST and MLBEI negotiations. Yes Dish would love to have these options, but they can predict (see #2) what % of customers are likely to want either of these products and can easily see what they can bid for the product. Of course it is somewhat of a self fulling prophecy if all the rabid sports fans run to DIRECTV, bidding a ton of money for these and offering them would probably not generate many new customers for Dish since those that wanted it would have already switched.
By having so much time to answer questions and being rushed really changed the atmosphere of the discussion.