# E* Continues to Lose Subs in 3Q



## Hound (Mar 20, 2005)

In the spring I predicted that E* would suffer a net loss of subs for at least two quarters if Voom was
dropped. Well with today's earnings release, E* has lost net subs for two quarters. Is it Voom?
TurboHD not working?

Here are the 3rd and 2nd quarter net sub additions
for the big 8 MVPs (Cox does not publish)

In Thousands (000)
3rdQ 2ndQ

1. Verizon 233 176
2. Uverse 232 170
3. D* 156 129
4. E* (10) (25)
5. Cablevision (19) 7
6. Charter (26) (45)
7. Time Warner (31) (9) 
8. Comcast (147) (138) 

So why is E* losing market
share? D* has gained net 310,000 subs on E* the last 2 quarters. 

Where I live, there are four providers, E*, D*, Verizon and Comcast. My opinion is the loss of Voom and E* was just too slow to offer a competitive HD lineup. Still no HD RSNs offered by E*. D* offers four HD RSNs, Comcast 5 HD RSNs and Verizon 3 HD 
RSNs in my town. But heck even if E* offered HD RSNs, if you are a sports fan, you would go with D*. D*, Verizon and Comcast all offer MY and CW HD. E* does not in my area (E is slowly adding CW in major markets). Verizon and Comcast both offer two PBS HD channels and free HD on Demand in addition to PPV 
HD on Demand. Verizon offers over 100 HD channels not including HD PPV and HD RSNs. 
E has just fallen very far behind in providing a complete balanced HD lineup that attracts new subs. Will E* catch up?
Only future net sub additions will tell us.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

VOOM again??? Today it's a non-issue with regard to new subscribers and retention of old ones.

If and when Ciel-2 gets in place at 129° Dish could, but probably won't, give most of us both The CW and PBS in HD, plus virtually all the major players in HD. If not, Dish won't have very impressive numbers in the future.

And given Charlie's apparent belief that being the toughest negotiator is more important than getting an edge on your competition....


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## kariato (Dec 16, 2002)

Hound said:


> E has just fallen very far behind in providing a complete balanced HD lineup that attracts new subs. Will E* catch up?
> Only future net sub additions will tell us.


Dish network focused on price sensitive buyers. Given the sub prime melt down they may have been more significantly effected than others.

Dish network has had a bad year:
The DVR paitent loss.
The Voom bad feeling.
The loss of the AMC bird.
Sub prime melt down+the economy in general
Significant Pirating of their signal

I hope they have a better quarter + year:
100+ HD channels
Significant new locals
Elimination of pirating.
Bringing on line all the new launched capacity


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## paja (Oct 23, 2006)

phrelin said:


> VOOM again??? Today it's a non-issue with regard to new subscribers and retention of old ones.
> 
> If and when Ciel-2 gets in place at 129° Dish could, but probably won't, give most of us both The CW and PBS in HD, plus virtually all the major players in HD. If not, Dish won't have very impressive numbers in the future.
> 
> And given Charlie's apparent belief that being the toughest negotiator is more important than getting an edge on your competition....


Wrong, at least somewhat. The loss of VOOM was one of several reasons I dumped DISH. When VOOM was originally dropped I considered leaving but had no viable alternative. It was either D(which I dumped for E) or Comcrap. Several months later U-verse shows up and I'm gone. Now besides losing VOOM , lousy(amongst the worst ever) CSR's, and DISH's attempt to get me to committ to 24 months to get a second hd dvr are other reasons. With U-verse - ZERO committment.


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## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

kariato said:


> Bringing on line all the new launched capacity


There's not a huge amount of new capacity coming in the near future; Ciel-2 will have 4 additional working transponders (4 are dead on E5), but is otherwise a replacement. And the other "new" stuff is really just mirrors of existing programming for Eastern Arc customers.

Despite having more birds at more locations than DirecTV, having to duplicate programming on 2 or more satellites results in less effective capacity, and fewer spotbeams mean less efficient use of that capacity.

I agree that new customers don't care about Voom, but they do care about locals and RSNs, as well as popular national networks like fx and Spike.

It's going to be a rough year.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

IIP said:


> There's not a huge amount of new capacity coming in the near future; Ciel-2 will have 4 additional working transponders (4 are dead on E5), but is otherwise a replacement.


You're forgetting the gazzilion spot beams on Ciel-2 for local markets ... plus higher power on the ConUS transponders.

As far as the overall topic of this thread and as noted in the main thread, DirecTV lost 10k more customers than DISH last quarter. It isn't a good time for keeping customers.


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## jpl (Jul 9, 2006)

James Long said:


> As far as the overall topic of this thread and as noted in the main thread, DirecTV lost 10k more customers than DISH last quarter. It isn't a good time for keeping customers.


You're making it sound like this is a problem across the industry. It's not. Take a look at the numbers that Hound provided:

In Thousands (000)
3rdQ 2ndQ

1. Verizon 233 176
2. Uverse 232 170
3. D* 156 129
4. E* (10) (25)
5. Cablevision (19) 7
6. Charter (26) (45)
7. Time Warner (31) (9) 
8. Comcast (147) (138)

Just take the 3rd quarter results and add them up. You have a net GAIN of 388,000 subscribers across those TV providers. The notion that the economy is doing this just doesn't match up to the numbers. A few years ago I read an analysis that basically said that DBS is 'dead'. I totally disagree with that premise - DBS isn't going anywhere for the forseeable future. However, part of that piece appears to be correct. They asserted that the telcos were going to take the biggest bite out of the DBS providers mainly because the deals between the telcos and the DBS providers would start to vanish as these telcos pushed out their own video services. Apparently D* and E* get quite a few new subscribers through the phone companies. As those phone companies move out their own services, many of those new customers end up going with the telco instead of the DBS provider.

I can tell you the impact of FiOS around here has been monstrous. The number of people who detest Comcast around here defies description (especially damning considering Philly is Comcast's base of operations), but if you want to watch the Flyers or the Sixers, you really had no choice - which is why the DBS penetration in this area wasn't never stellar. Verizon comes along, carries CSN Philly, and takes over a large number of cable and DBS subscribers.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

jpl said:


> You're making it sound like this is a problem across the industry. It's not. Take a look at the numbers that Hound provided:


Perhaps you missed the point. Hound's numbers were net gains. I'm talking about gross losses. The #1 pay TV provider in the nation lost 846k customers. DISH lost 835k customers. Dig through the reports where Hound got those numbers and you'll find hundreds of thousands of lost customers.

Everyone is losing customers. DISH is just having more trouble replacing them than the past 10 years.


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## TechnoCat (Sep 4, 2005)

Hound said:


> In the spring I predicted that E* would suffer a net loss of subs for at least two quarters if Voom was
> dropped. Well with today's earnings release, E* has lost net subs for two quarters. Is it Voom?


Nah... your prediction was sour grapes at the time. Are you going to blame the huge decline in sales at Starbucks recently on the Dish removal of Voom? The stock market meltdown on Voom? DirectTV's subscriber loss on it?

We haven't had any terrorist attacks on American soil since Dish dumped Voom; I bet that's why!


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## jpl (Jul 9, 2006)

James Long said:


> Perhaps you missed the point. Hound's numbers were net gains. I'm talking about gross losses. The #1 pay TV provider in the nation lost 846k customers. DISH lost 835k customers. Dig through the reports where Hound got those numbers and you'll find hundreds of thousands of lost customers.
> 
> Everyone is losing customers. DISH is just having more trouble replacing them than the past 10 years.


No, I got your point. I get that they were net gains, and I got your point that DirecTV lost alot but just added more than they lost. Which is why in one my posts I talked about the cost associated with churn rate. That's what's going on here - the churn rate for these providers is really high. But that's not true across the board. Granted they're pretty new, but both U-Verse and FiOS have remarkably low churn rates. While it's better to keep existing customers and add a handful rather for the sake of growth, rahter than losing a whole bunch and having to replace them with even more, there are some services that aren't bleeding customers like that.

That's my point. I don't buy the notion that it's the economy that's the driver here - people aren't dropping service, they're switching providers. People are switching because there is incentive to do so (the deals that these providers give to new customers is remarkable). The thing is, that's not going to get any better - it's going to get worse. There are new providers coming on line competing for essentially the same slate of customers. As more services come on line, it'll become even harder for Dish to compete. You're making it sound like this is just a hiccup, and that things will revert to normal in time. It won't. Unless Dish figures out a way to staunch this bleeding it'll continue to get worse. If it could be attributed to the economy you would have a point on this - but like I said, the data tells me that it's not the economy that's causing this drop-off. That's why I made a point of adding up the net gains/losses across those providers. If the reason for Dish's drop-off were due to a bad economy, you wouldn't have seen a net GAIN of over 380,000 customers across those providers for that period. The number would have, at best, remained flat, or more likely dropped.


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## ImBack234 (Aug 26, 2008)

TechnoCat said:


> We haven't had any terrorist attacks on American soil since Dish dumped Voom; I bet that's why!


LOL.


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## paja (Oct 23, 2006)

On top of the numerous incentives I got by switching to U-verse, the savings alone on bundling tv,internet & phone were already an incentive. And AT&T is very aggressive in improving their product. Added 30 hd stations on 3 Nov and now I'm finding out they are going to add more in Dec. In 2009, 3 hd streams are coming , although for me 2 is enough. Yesterday they upped their top internet speed(see article):

http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=4800&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=26286


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## DodgerKing (Apr 28, 2008)

James Long said:


> Perhaps you missed the point. Hound's numbers were net gains. I'm talking about gross losses. The #1 pay TV provider in the nation lost 846k customers. DISH lost 835k customers. Dig through the reports where Hound got those numbers and you'll find hundreds of thousands of lost customers.
> 
> Everyone is losing customers. DISH is just having more trouble replacing them than the past 10 years.


So Direct had a gross loss of 4.9% and Dish had a gross loss of 6%. Yet, they lost a smaller percentage of what they had compared to Dish. If one provider has more customers to begin with, one would expect them to lose more total subs.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

I think some folks are missing a point here.

DirecTV did do a much better job at acquiring new customers than Dish. Absolutely true!

But DirecTV did NOT do a better job at keeping customers than Dish. Also true!

So... if customers were running screaming from Dish because they are not doing things more like DirecTV, then why did that same amount (and more) run screaming from DirecTV at the same time?

IF DirecTV was truly doing a better job at customer retention, then it should have been evident in their numbers... and it simply is not.

Economy is as good a reason as any, lacking any proof otherwise.

As for churn on U-Verse or FIOS... I think someone already stumbled onto their low churn rate... As a startup/new company you'd better have a very low churn rate. When you add your first 100 customers, losing 50 of them would be 50% churn! You can't afford to lose any customer when you are just starting out... so I would expect FIOS/U-Verse to have close to zero churn rate OR I would expect them to already be going out of business.


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## Hound (Mar 20, 2005)

TechnoCat said:


> Nah... your prediction was sour grapes at the time.
> 
> At the time, I had no idea Voom was leaving.


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## jpl (Jul 9, 2006)

HDMe said:


> Economy is as good a reason as any, lacking any proof otherwise.


No, I don't buy that. If that were true, customers would be leaving pay TV service. That's NOT what this data shows. This data shows people changing providers - not dropping service. There's nothing in that data to prove otherwise. Also consider the HD wars going on right now. You really mean to tell me, if people are worried enough about their economic situation for it to affect their TV subscription choice that these providers would be falling all over themselves to maximize their HD offerings like that? Odd behavior for companies hit with a crunch due to economic down-pressure. In fact, subscribers to advanced TV services (e.g. HD, DVRs) has increased appreciably. It hasn't taken a hit. You really mean to tell me that people who are worried about where their next paycheck is coming from are going to just glom onto that newest technology? Sorry, that just makes no sense. I see nothing in the data to suggest that the economy is to blame for this.

Why am I pounding on this? Because I think blaming the economy is a red herring. It's alot easier to blame outside forces than to face your own demons. If it IS the economy that's to blame, well then there's nothing wrong with Dish's approach! Why change?! Assuming that it's not the economy means that you have work to do - you have to figure out why you're losing customers, and figure out a way to correct it. It's MUCH easier just to blame the economy.

One final point - you're right that new services should have very low churn rates, but you're missing a vital piece. If the new services sucked, no one would sign up. For a long time U-Verse lagged badly in signing up new customers, and it looked like they would tank. They improved their service, and now they're adding more customers than anyone save Verizon. One other final point with this - look at all the customer satisfaction ratings out there. For all the crowing DirecTV does about how they smoke cable on these ratings, they're ignoring the fact that the telcos are eating their lunch on the customer satisfaction surveys. Regardless of which survey you look at, fiber (aka the telcos) are smoking everyone. That's not an accident. Of course, I'm sure, part of that is probably the newness factor. People who jump to new services (aka the 'early adopters') are more enamoured with the latest and greatest stuff. But both companies have passed that point - they've both gotten large enough where they're no longer pulling in the early adopters.


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## Rainbird (Aug 22, 2002)

Interesting quote on the home improvement "Mike Holmes Forum" website: 

"We called DirecTV to cancel part of our programming and they made a deal with us. They dropped our bill by about $43.00 for one year and let us keep all of the same programming. They must be losing a lot of customers if they're willing to cut our bill that much to keep our business".

Maybe this is why they have less turnover than E*


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Similar to what I posted in the other thread...

I'm not saying Dish doesn't have work to do... but the people comparing Dish and DirecTV and saying DirecTV is doing well but Dish is tanking are smoking something.

Fair to say Dish needs to do better at getting new customers and keeping old ones... but DirecTV needs to do more to keep old ones too, per the numbers.

The argument that Dish needs to do more like DirecTV doesn't hold water when DirecTV doing like itself isn't keeping customers either!

Also... Is the data really showing customers changing providers? Or are some of those subscribers dropping pay TV altogether and going OTA, while new customers are entering the market? From those numbers I see no way to prove that a customer who left Dish went to DirecTV, vice-versa, or to FIOS or Cable or U-Verse. There's way more people in this country than the number you get adding all those PAY TV companies together...

So here's a hypothetical... Maybe Dish and DirecTV BOTH lost long-time customers who decided to save money and go OTA only because they get good digital OTA and are happy with that. Meanwhile, maybe the digital transition "scare" has resulted in Dish and DirecTV bringing in entirely new customers that weren't DBS ever before.

Nothing in the data refutes my hypothetical... and there isn't enough info to really know where one customer went to after he left OR where the new ones came from.

That's all I'm saying. IF it is bad, then it is bad for DirecTV pretty much the same as it is for Dish as their numbers aren't really that much better upon further inspection.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

I don't want to throw cold water on Dish Network enthusiasts, but here was the situation as of September 30, 2008:

----------------------------Dish Network----------DirecTV--------------Echostar---------
Current Assets---------------$2.86 billlion--------$5.02 billion-----------$1.58 billion
Current Liabilities-------------$4.18 billion---------$3.39 billion-----------$0.55 billion
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stockholders Equity 12/07----$0.64 billion---------$6.30 billion------------$1.21 billion
Stockholders Equity 9/08----($2.13 billion)---------$5.93 billion------------$2.92 billion
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The problem for Dish Network on September 30 was not churn or net subscriber loss. The problem is that Dish Network has no liquid assets, a negative net worth, and credit isn't available.

Guess which of these three companies have the best chance of surviving an 18 month recession when credit isn't available. Guess which of these three companies might find it possible to market debt instruments or a new stock offering to me. Not my TV service provider, Dish Network, that's for certain.:nono2:


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## davethestalker (Sep 17, 2006)

UVerse does not have the draw that I was hoping for in regard to internet speeds. The premium package has a cap of 768k up, which is what I have now on ATT's DSL. Veriozon's FIOS has significantly faster internet speeds from what I understand.

UVerse is closer to being up and running in my area. If I can pay less and get more channels when UVerse does come, ATT Dish will have to give me strong reasons to stick around. I'm sick of whatever the excuses are that we are not even hearing as to why the competition has channels that we don't.

Locals in HD for my area are available on UVerse and D* already.

I've been pissed off for a year now just knowing that our competition has key channels that we don't. I'm not seeing too many signs that Charlie wants to hold onto his customer base.

I inquired about splitting the 625 and getting 1 HD DVR and 1 SD DVR and now they want me to roll up my sleeves for a *2 year* blood sucking agreement.....AND I would actually have to pay out of pocket for this "upgrade". Funny, because of this "lease" environment we have going on, I can only have 4 tuners in my household. That's BS. If I want dual tuner DVR's in every room, I should be able to have that.

I don't know, it just makes sense that when you are losing customers, you change your game plan and take the steps to bring them back and also secure those remaining. Instead, this turkey is putting more burden upon us. Not a good incentive.


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## jpl (Jul 9, 2006)

davethestalker said:


> UVerse does not have the draw that I was hoping for in regard to internet speeds. The premium package has a cap of 768k up, which is what I have now on ATT's DSL. Veriozon's FIOS has significantly faster internet speeds from what I understand.


Not to turn this into a U-Verse/FiOS thread, but yes, FiOS internet is really impressive. I just upgraded to their 20/5 tier - which is the minimum speed required for their latest Extreme HD TV bundle. There are zero download caps (at least for now - although Verizon has admitted that they've looked at caps, there's no decision for now to impose any), and there are no slow periods. One speed test I ran gave me 20.7Meg down and 4.7Meg up, e.g.

Also, with U-Verse, since everything is IP, when you watch TV, your internet speed will take a hit. FiOS runs a QAM/IP hybrid for TV service - all live programs come in via QAM (separate frequency than internet feed), but their VOD comes in via IP. But, and here's the cool thing, they'll bump up your internet speeds to compensate for when you watch VOD. When I had their 5/2 tier, my internet speed would actually go UP when my kids watched VOD. Of course there is an upper limit on that (watch 2 HD VOD feeds at the same time, and you will still see some degredation in speed).


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## jpl (Jul 9, 2006)

HDMe said:


> Similar to what I posted in the other thread...
> 
> I'm not saying Dish doesn't have work to do... but the people comparing Dish and DirecTV and saying DirecTV is doing well but Dish is tanking are smoking something.
> 
> ...


Look, there was an overall net GAIN of 388,000 subscribers in the 3rd quarter across those providers. How do you come to the conclusion that people are dropping pay TV service when you have a net gain like that? Granted this data is far from complete - I have no idea how other smaller providers did, e.g. but there is nothing in that piece of data that says that people are dropping service. The fact that there are more subscribers at the end of the 3rd quarter, overall, than there were at the beginning gives me reason to believe that people are NOT dropping pay TV service.

Next point - I know some are making a big deal out of the fact that directv lost more subscribers than Dish. Yes, that's true. But there's an axiom that says 'it doesn't matter how much you make, it matters how much you spend.' If you LOSE more subscribers than you GAIN over a period of time you're losing money. Period. Granted, DirecTV's approach of losing a whole bunch but gaining a handful more in the process is far from ideal. That shows a very high churn rate, and that's an expensive way to do business. But at the end of the day, they've increased their subscriber base. Glomming onto the fact that DirecTV lost more customers than Dish, to me, is a non-starter. The net results don't change - DirecTV gained subscribers and Dish lost subscribers.

And as phrelin pointed out, Dish's negative net worth means that they can't do any real expansion to try to reverse that trend. Even if the economy is to blame (which I don't think it is) Dish's capitalization, coupled with the fact that there is no credit to be had out there, means that they could very well go under as a result of all this. It doesn't matter that they lost fewer customers than DirecTV.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

From my perspective, both Dish and DirecTV are running on the treadmill just to stay in the same place.

They can try to run faster, or slow down the treadmill.

DirecTV seems to be running faster.

They could both do themselves a favor by turning down the treadmill a notch (keeping existing customers) but with things being the way they are, running in place may be the best either can do.

IF we want to focus on net gain vs net loss... then yes, DirecTV has a net gain, Dish has a net loss... but Dish only lost 10,000 net. That is peanuts compared to almost 14 million subscribers. While they do not want to lose 10,000 customers that probably isn't noticable on their financials.

Similarly, DirecTV having a net gain of even 500,000 is not a big deal compared to their overall subscriber base. It would be noticable on their books, but that amount would depend upon what package these people subscribe to... so it could still be a drop in the bucket to DirecTV.

When you consider Dish losing 10,000 represents a loss of income, that's bad. DirecTV's gain isn't all gain either, since both companies subsidize new customers quite a bit at the beginning... so a half million gain by DirecTV might not show up much for the first year in terms of a "win" for their financials.

Meanwhile, the fact still remains that both subscribers lost over 1,500,000 subscribers. Where did they go? Did they swap providers? If so, then how can you make the argument one provider needs to be more like the other? Clearly about the same amount of people were dissatisfied with BOTH of them to leave.

Did they go to cable or FIOS or U-verse? Not sure. Nothing says where people went when they left. Since there are lots of people who haven't had any pay TV service, it is entirely possible some people left the market while others entered. It happens all the time in technology. Some people drop out for a while, and others "discover" it.

Just looking at these numbers tells us nothing about why people left, if they switched, or where the new additions came from.

I'm saying the numbers look equally bad for Dish and DirecTV. I can't see how some manage to spin it as good for one but bad for the other. Looks about the same from my chair.


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## jpl (Jul 9, 2006)

HDMe said:


> I'm saying the numbers look equally bad for Dish and DirecTV. I can't see how some manage to spin it as good for one but bad for the other. Looks about the same from my chair.


I don't mean to be argumentative, but how can you say that given this from phrelin's post:

----------------------------Dish Network----------DirecTV--------------Echostar---------
Current Assets---------------$2.86 billlion--------$5.02 billion-----------$1.58 billion
Current Liabilities-------------$4.18 billion---------$3.39 billion-----------$0.55 billion
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stockholders Equity 12/07----$0.64 billion---------$6.30 billion------------$1.21 billion
Stockholders Equity 9/08----($2.13 billion)---------$5.93 billion------------$2.92 billion
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Look at the bottom line of both companies. Only one of the two has a positive net worth, and guess what? It ain't Dish. DirecTV is GROWING - not just in terms of subscribers, but in terms of profitability. Dish is not. To say that both are on equal footing because the numbers of gains/losses for one quarter are sorta, kinda close (sorry) just makes no sense. Besides, as someone pointed out in another thread, as a percentage of their respective subscriber bases, Dish actually lost MORE subscribers than DirecTV did last quarter. Point is, I don't know how this gets spun that this ain't so bad for Dish. Yes, it is.


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## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

:shrug:


Hound said:


> In the spring I predicted that E* would suffer a net loss of subs for at least two quarters if Voom was
> dropped. Well with today's earnings release, E* has lost net subs for two quarters. Is it Voom?
> TurboHD not working?
> 
> ...


Im getting U-verse Monday. It seems to me that Dish gave up on getting new subs. Maybe it's the economy


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## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

paja said:


> On top of the numerous incentives I got by switching to U-verse, the savings alone on bundling tv,internet & phone were already an incentive. And AT&T is very aggressive in improving their product. Added 30 hd stations on 3 Nov and now I'm finding out they are going to add more in Dec. In 2009, 3 hd streams are coming , although for me 2 is enough. Yesterday they upped their top internet speed(see article):
> 
> http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=4800&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=26286


What do you mean by 3 HD streams?


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## Kheldar (Sep 5, 2004)

Paul Secic said:


> It seems to me that Dish gave up on getting new subs. Maybe it's the economy


MultiChannel News says:


> After a second consecutive quarter of subscriber losses, Dish Network CEO Charles Ergen Monday said it might make sense for the company to "tread water" rather than spend to drum up new customers.
> 
> "In today's environment, the question is how much are you going to spend to go get customers and what kind of customers can you get," Ergen said during a third-quarter conference call. "Obviously, people are shopping for deals and customers are flipping around. They have a variety of choices. So you have to be a little bit careful about that."
> 
> ...


not a good sign to hear these kind of things from the CEO and analysts.


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## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

Paul Secic said:


> What do you mean by 3 HD streams?


With Uverse, channels are "streamed" to the 4 "tuners" in the whole-home DVR. Originally only 1 of the 4 streams was available in HD, with the other 3 being limited to SD. With the high demand for HD, AT&T increased the compression across the board to allow a second HD stream to fit, so you can currently do 2 HD and 2 SD streams. In 2009, AT&T plans to allow for 3 HD/1 SD, further trading overall picture quality for more simultaneous HD.

When AT&T was faced with the decision to run fiber all the way to the house, so they could offer a lot more bandwidth (like Verizon's FiOS), they decided it was too expensive, and elected to just get the fiber to the neighborhood, and use the existing copper phone lines to the house. This meant accepting significant bandwidth limitations, as you can only push so much data through 60+ year old phone lines. The decision was apparently made assuming 4 SD TV channels per house would be "enough." Somehow, the importance of HD was overlooked.

Since then, AT&T has had to keep racheting up the (lossy) compression in order to cram more and more simulteneous HD streams into the fixed TV bandwidth they allocated. Subscribers want more simultaneous HD, but to get it, more compression has to be used, which means fewer colors (more color banding and flatter, duller pictures) and more compression artifacts (macroblocking). Time will tell if AT&T made a good money-saving move or a huge blunder that makes Uverse rapidly obsolete. As fast as things are moving to HD, I tend to go with the latter argument.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

jpl said:


> I don't mean to be argumentative, but how can you say that given this from phrelin's post:
> 
> ----------------------------Dish Network----------DirecTV--------------Echostar---------
> Current Assets---------------$2.86 billlion--------$5.02 billion-----------$1.58 billion
> ...


Ok... let's look at this particular data.

DirecTV's Stockholder equity went DOWN 0.37 billion, while Echostar went up 1.71 billion. Dish lost 2.77 billion. So, looking at those numbers I'd say Echostar did great, DirecTV merely stood pat, and Dish lost badly.

One thing I would not conclude is that "DirecTV is growing".

Now, considering that until this year Dish/Echostar was one company... one might add those figures and say Dish/Echostar went from 1.85 billion to 0.79 billion in Stockholder equity... which is a drop of 1.06 billion and that is bad when compared to DirecTV... so one would say both companies took a dive, but Dish/Echostar was much worse.

Depends on how you spin the numbers. We also don't see Liberty or FOX in those DirecTV numbers... and DirecTV changed hands in the past year... so it would be interesting to see if FOX and/or Liberty absorbed any DirecTV losses on their books.

Just like Echostar spinning off Dish Network allowed them to put the bad stuff on Dish's books to make Echostar look good... how do we know FOX didn't absorb some negative cashflow to make DirecTV look better for the Liberty purchase... and maybe next year we will see how that works out without FOX deep pockets?

Similar spinning can be done to the assets vs liabilities portion. Treating Dish/Echostar individually looks much worse because Dish is taking most of the liabilities... but if you add Dish/Echostar together their numbers are closer to DirecTV (although DirecTV still looks better financially, just not as glaringly so).

Note, I didn't say at any time that things are coming up roses for Dish. They are not. But some folks seem to think DirecTV is in way better shape than is evident from their proportionally similar numbers. Dish is bad, DirecTV is bad... DirecTV is just less bad than Dish, by the numbers... but I wouldn't be cheering if I were on the DirecTV board either.


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## texaswolf (Oct 18, 2007)

Rainbird said:


> Interesting quote on the home improvement "Mike Holmes Forum" website:
> 
> "We called DirecTV to cancel part of our programming and they made a deal with us. They dropped our bill by about $43.00 for one year and let us keep all of the same programming. They must be losing a lot of customers if they're willing to cut our bill that much to keep our business".
> 
> Maybe this is why they have less turnover than E*


Customer retention is not something high on the Dish CSR training.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

jpl said:


> If that were true, customers would be leaving pay TV service. That's NOT what this data shows.


The data YOU choose to use does not show customers leaving pay TV ... and I believe that is why you choose to use that data. Instead of adding up the net gain try adding up the gross losses ... that is where you will find MILLIONS of people leaving their pay TV provider.


> This data shows people changing providers - not dropping service. There's nothing in that data to prove otherwise.


Drop one, pick up another. That is how many people choose to save money on their service. DirecTV has had some excellent "first year" offers ... other carriers have some decent offers too. So good that providers have had to step up their retention offers (where DISH was hurt last quarter).

It is hard to give up pay service completely ... which is why you will find people doing what they can to keep some provider and relying on introductory offers or lower priced packages to end up paying less next month than they paid last month. Or perhaps saying a $15 per month movie package is better use of the family "entertainment" budget than going out to the movies.

That is where HD comes in ... better quality TV for a price. DirecTV customers dumping their mixed packages to get TurboHD from DISH and customers from both services adding $10-$20 per month to their bills to get a clearer picture.

HD wars are ongoing because there isn't much else to fight about other than low price ... and the loudest parties in the war don't have the lowest prices.


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## jpl (Jul 9, 2006)

I chose to use that data because it was posted here by someone else. I used it because I kept reading people saying that 'people are dropping pay TV service.' While that data that I posted doesn't prove that people aren't dropping pay TV service, it does provide actual evidence that that statement isn't true. Is it conclusive? No. I said as much. I said I have no idea how the smaller providers are doing. But to look at that data and say that both DirecTV and Dish are on roughly equal footing just makes no sense.

Besides, the burden for all this is on the ones saying 'it's the economy.' Really? Prove it. Provide data that backs that up. I haven't seen any. I've only seen data that backs up the other side of the argument. So, you can slam the data that I'm providing (actually, data that someone else provided, but I'm perpetuating forward), but I'm seeing zero data to counter that. For the record, you're misreading part of what I said. I NEVER said that people weren't dropping THEIR TV provider. I said people weren't dropping pay TV altogether. I fully acknowledged that people were dropping THEIR providers and moving elsewhere (just look at the numbers for fios and uverse - those customers had to come from somewhere). I kept reading arguments that said that the economy is to blame. I simply made the assertion that, if that were true, you'd likely see people dropping pay TV service altogether, and that data doesn't show that. I was talking about the service in total - not about one individual provider.

One final point - yes, I think people are provider-jumping to get the best deals. However, that also kinda runs counter to the whole 'it's the economy' argument. Why? Because DirecTV, e.g., doesn't run a one-year contract - they have a 2 year contract with a very hefty ETF ($20/month left on contract). All those people that signed on in late 2007 to get all that cool HD are still under contract. To leave early would be to incur a hefty ETF.

My point in all this is that you can't just chalk Dish's numbers up to the economy. To do so involves ignoring a problem that they have. Yeah, DirecTV lost alot of people too, and you kept saying that they lost more than Dish. That's only true in absolute numbers - not in terms of percentage of subscriber base (you can say that I'm only providing numbers that I wanted to see, but you're doing the same thing - you provided absolute numbers while ignoring the percentage). When measured that way, Dish has a higher churn rate. And at the end of the day DirecTV grew while Dish contracted. Their balance sheet looks anemic.

Just for the record, I'm not a DirecTV customer. Nor am I a Dish customer. I'm one of those guys who left DirecTV for FiOS - granted I did that in 2007, but I also am one of those guys who took a hit on the ETF to do so.


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## festivus (Nov 10, 2008)

E*'s not providing HD locals to cities with over 1 million people (like here in Columbus Ohio) with no explanation for it could be a reason for folks switching. I'm seriously considering a switch to Directv after my commitment is up with Dish. To make matters worse, I'm hearing about this 722k that doesn't come with an OTA tuner, one must be purchased separately.

I love the vip622s but I'm going to have to check out competitors if I can't record/watch 2 HD local shows at the same time.


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## DodgerKing (Apr 28, 2008)

jpl said:


> Besides, the burden for all this is on the ones saying 'it's the economy.' Really? Prove it. Provide data that backs that up. I haven't seen any. I've only seen data that backs up the other side of the argument. So, you can slam the data that I'm providing (actually, data that someone else provided, but I'm perpetuating forward), but I'm seeing zero data to counter that. For the record, you're misreading part of what I said. I NEVER said that people weren't dropping THEIR TV provider. I said people weren't dropping pay TV altogether. I fully acknowledged that people were dropping THEIR providers and moving elsewhere (just look at the numbers for fios and uverse - those customers had to come from somewhere). I kept reading arguments that said that the economy is to blame. I simply made the assertion that, if that were true, you'd likely see people dropping pay TV service altogether, and that data doesn't show that. I was talking about the service in total - not about one individual provider.


More evidence to the fact that it probably has little to do with the economy "now" is the fact that Dish also had two bad previous quarters as well; before the economy started going down.
The previous quarter, Charlie blamed it on piracy....please!


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## DodgerKing (Apr 28, 2008)

festivus said:


> E*'s not providing HD locals to cities with over 1 million people (like here in Columbus Ohio) with no explanation for it could be a reason for folks switching. I'm seriously considering a switch to Directv after my commitment is up with Dish. To make matters worse, I'm hearing about this 722k that doesn't come with an OTA tuner, one must be purchased separately.
> 
> I love the vip622s but I'm going to have to check out competitors if I can't record/watch 2 HD local shows at the same time.


Keep in mind that the HR21 with Direct does not have an internal OTA tuner either, but you can get an external OTA to go with it. The external OTA tuner still places the OTA channels in the guide and functions exactly the same, the only difference is the fact that it is external.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

DodgerKing said:


> More evidence to the fact that it probably has little to do with the economy "now" is the fact that Dish also had two bad previous quarters as well; before the economy started going down.
> The previous quarter, Charlie blamed it on piracy....please!


DISH was doing quite well before the economy began to slide. It all depends on where you draw the line of when the economy started to go down. If you choose last Tuesday you're not being honest.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

DodgerKing said:


> Keep in mind that the HR21 with Direct does not have an internal OTA tuner either, but you can get an external OTA to go with it. The external OTA tuner still places the OTA channels in the guide and functions exactly the same, the only difference is the fact that it is external.


The 722k/222k add on tuner is an internal module ... a very cheap ($29.99 or less) add on compared to the AM21.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

That's the thing about the economy... some folks want to look at it and say it suddenly tanked last month, but was great prior to that. To put it simply, economics doesn't work that way. The economy couldn't have been great one day and then in the toilet the next day.

Generally speaking, the economy has likely been propped-up by unnatural forces for a few years, such that the reality is it was never as good as it seemed to be for a while now... and then something came along and kicked out all the right support structures and the house of cards came tumbling down.

I equate this to deodorant... I can take a shower, I can then use deodorant, OR I can just pile on the deodorant without taking a shower. To the casual observer, and especially from a small distance, skipping the shower and just caking on the deodorant can make me appear clean... but I'm really not... and all that needs to happen is one person get close enough for a good inspection to then tell the world about it! 

In part that is what has recently happened to our economy. Most people were sniffing the Old Spice from a distance... but a handful actually got a close look at it recently and saw the coverup.


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## nataraj (Feb 25, 2006)

Looks like Dish is for sale. 

Looking at the terrible B/S of Dish and the fact that Dish was spun off from E* - looks like E* is ready to sell Dish.

And the economy .... I don't think the net gain across the industry says anything about economy being the reason why Dish lost so many customers. Infact the opposite.

But economy being what it is dish is in some serious trouble. I doubt the congress will bail out dish, though ;-)

BTW, Qwest is also putting fiber to the node and increasing internet bandwidths. A Uverse replica on Qwest is not far away, I guess.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

At the time of the split, looking at the two balance sheets I thought Echostar was creating a Dish Network to sell but with minimal current assets keeping the valuable part of the company in Echostar and offering little to buy. If that was true, AT&T didn't like what it saw. At this point no one in their right mind would buy it unless they could get it at 10% of its current market share price (or at 80% in a share swap only deal) IMHO and that would have to be someone in a related business who has cash to infuse.


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## archer75 (Oct 13, 2006)

I cancelled dish due to the economy. We just needed to make cuts in our budget. 

If I signed up again as things stand now i'd pick Dish. The reason being is their DVR receiver is far better. It's more stable and can record 3 programs at once (2 sat, 1 OTA) and Dish's programming is cheaper. 
Direct TV looks cheaper until that promotion is over after 12 months. Besides I ONLY watch HD and those Dish HD only packages save me money. And Direct doesn't have any HD that I care about over Dish.

However a new Tivo for Direct next year does excite me.


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## archer75 (Oct 13, 2006)

DodgerKing said:


> Keep in mind that the HR21 with Direct does not have an internal OTA tuner either, but you can get an external OTA to go with it. The external OTA tuner still places the OTA channels in the guide and functions exactly the same, the only difference is the fact that it is external.


But with this external OTA tuner you can't record from both the OTA and the sat tuner at the same time. It's only 2 tuners at once.

All I know is Dish had all my local HD channels LONG before Direct did. Which is one of the reasons I cancelled direct back then.


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## Ryan415689 (Oct 7, 2008)

tank


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