# Dish!



## jameskelly (Feb 16, 2008)

Why do all of the headlines seem to be about Dish? Nothing going on @ DirecTV?


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## sunfire9us (Feb 15, 2009)

May have to due with Dish fighting Tribune. I hope Dish wins this fight after learning Tribune is trying to force bundling with their local channels and the worthless WGN America channel. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## trh (Nov 3, 2007)

jameskelly said:


> Why do all of the headlines seem to be about Dish? Nothing going on @ DirecTV?





sunfire9us said:


> May have to due with Dish fighting Tribune. I hope Dish wins this fight after learning Tribune is trying to force bundling with their local channels and the worthless WGN America channel.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


I think the TS is referring to the News page here at DBSTalk. Every article on the front page is Dish related.


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## ejbvt (Aug 14, 2011)

sunfire9us said:


> May have to due with Dish fighting Tribune. I hope Dish wins this fight after learning Tribune is trying to force bundling with their local channels and the worthless WGN America channel.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Getting rid of the sports and Chicago news was a huge mistake by them, I think. Especially the Cubs games.


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## paranoia (Jun 13, 2014)

trh said:


> I think the TS is referring to the News page here at DBSTalk. Every article on the front page is Dish related.


I agree all the news on the front page is always about dish.Maybe its because there are more dish people who run the forum, and the forum has more dish customers.


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## KyL416 (Nov 11, 2005)

ejbvt said:


> Getting rid of the sports and Chicago news was a huge mistake by them, I think. Especially the Cubs games.


They didn't really have a choice in the matter when it came to sports. Even before they lost the Cubs, the NBA and NHL forced them to stop airing the Bulls and Blackhawks out of market. If they wanted to keep the out of market rights to the Cubs they would have had to get a seperate national MLB contract like what ESPN has. (You know, MLB the same company that forced an RSN to blackout a funeral because it contained MLB footage). Even TBS had to drop the Braves games which was one of the reasons for the TBS/Peachtree TV split, although in TBS's case, they signed a seperate national MLB deal that gave them random regular season games and some of the post season instead of just the Braves.

Sports rights aren't cheap, there's a reason why after ESPN, TNT and TBS are some of the more expensive channel. More and more teams are also reducing how many broadcast games they have a season, while some like the Red Sox don't have any broadcast games anymore besides the ones that Fox selects nationally.


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## CuttySnark (Oct 23, 2015)

ATT purchase = D* removing any interest from this board.


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## slice1900 (Feb 14, 2013)

CuttySnark said:


> ATT purchase = D* removing any interest from this board.


Why? Directv is still the same company they were before, the only difference is that they answer to AT&T CEO and board of directors instead of their own board of directors. They sell pretty much the same packages, same equipment, etc. Most customers probably don't even realize AT&T bought them.


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## lparsons21 (Mar 4, 2006)

trh said:


> I think the TS is referring to the News page here at DBSTalk. Every article on the front page is Dish related.


And that is because Dish is doing things newsworthy. Direct hasn't really done anything since the att buyout. I think the next big thing from Direct will be a completely redesigned receiver and will get some news then.

In the meantime we'll just see some changes in signup deals.

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## Billzebub (Jan 2, 2007)

CuttySnark said:


> ATT purchase = D* removing any interest from this board.


I'm sure I'll be criticized for saying this but I believe it's less about AT&T and more about the cutting edge fight.


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## slice1900 (Feb 14, 2013)

I agree with lparsons21, Directv has probably had a 'pause' in major stuff due to the AT&T deal causing realignment of plans, a new line of equipment, etc. When they do get all those ducks in a row, the Directv news will be coming fast and furious and someone will be asking "why is all the news here about Directv and not Dish?"


As far as Cutting Edge, I'm sure it being moved to its own site had some impact in reducing Directv related visits here. Not sure it was a "fight" rather than a business decision on Directv's part, at least that's how it was explained by those directly involved.


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## trh (Nov 3, 2007)

lparsons21 said:


> And that is because Dish is doing things newsworthy. Direct hasn't really done anything since the att buyout. I think the next big thing from Direct will be a completely redesigned receiver and will get some news then.
> In the meantime we'll just see some changes in signup deals.
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


I don't care. I'm not the TS who was asking the question.


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## trainman (Jan 9, 2008)

Not sure if "DISH Network Places Offering of $2 Billion in Senior Notes" (to quote one of the headlines currently being displayed on the front page here) is more newsworthy than AT&T's most recent DirecTV news release: "Fore (K)! Enhanced viewing experience for the U.S. Open" (which I found on this page, which includes all of AT&T's press releases tagged with "DirecTV").

So it's probably a question for DBSTalk staff/moderators, of why they're putting Dish press releases on the main page but not doing the same for AT&T's releases.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Most of the releases are posted automatically. Perhaps David can adjust the filter to catch more DIRECTV press releases. Occasionally DISH releases are missed as well.


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## jimmie57 (Jun 26, 2010)

*11:58 am Tribune Media says Dish (DISH) 'has been totally unresponsive in negotiating a new contract between the two companies' (TRCO)* :

Co states, "We delivered another proposal to Dish at 11:50 p.m. ET, Sunday evening, and have heard nothing about it from Dish,"
Tribune Broadcasting's 42 owned or operated television stations, which reach more than 50 million households across the United States, were forced off Dish Network's satellite distribution system at 7 p.m. ET, Sunday, when the contract between Tribune Broadcasting and Dish expired.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

We've had slow Dish news cycles as well... and people would ask where the Dish news was. I can't speak to DirecTV since I don't have their service... but it's entirely possible they haven't had as many newsworthy items. Sometimes we post, in my opinion, some non-headline worthy news just to head off the "where's the news" questions I think. I'm not saying that is a bad thing... I'm just saying that when there isn't much major coming from a company, you either have to report on less newsworthy stuff or leave the headlines blank... and either choice is likely to cause people to ask questions.

As always, if anyone knows of news that we haven't posted... please feel free to make a post if there isn't a discussion thread... and then notify a moderator and see if it is an article/title that might be worthy of being promoted to a front page headline. We don't catch everything. I know as a Dish customer, I am subscribed to some email lists where I get some (but apparently not all) Dish press releases... so when I get those, I check and if James or someone else hasn't beaten me to it, I'll post the info. I don't get DirecTV or AT&T emails at the moment, though, since I don't have those services I kind of try to not make decisions on what is news for them unless it is something really obvious like the merger was, for example.


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## ericknolls (Aug 18, 2013)

jameskelly said:


> Why do all of the headlines seem to be about Dish? Nothing going on @ DirecTV?


Dish is the T-Mobile of the satellite industry. They have more promos than DIRECTV. They always have. DTV's offers are not that great. Dish's are a lot better. Look who owns DIRECTV now? AT&T is all about profit and lining the pockets of its shareholders.I am seeing some cracks in their pricing schemes.DIRECTV has called former customers and new ones with offers that eliminate equipment fees. If you add up their fees your bill gets pretty steep. So for those of you asking if those calls are a joke or a scam. No they are not. You should be thankful you got that call. Some of us will not. Some of you guys don't understand that an operating profit of $4.7 billion dollars on $33.3 billion is a lot of money made from DIRECTV customers. It shows you that DIRECTV has had a good time raising their rates and fees over the years that leading up to the AT&T merger. The customers have been their cash cows. AT&T can not continue with this model. DIRECTV customers are getting cranky about the fees and endless rate increases. It has got to stop. AT&T can make better offers if they choose too. All I got from the merger was an increase in fees and a big rate increase to pay for the merger. I didn't benefit from this tie up at all! AT&T will benefit. It remains to be seen if the customer will.


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## ericknolls (Aug 18, 2013)

slice1900 said:


> Why? Directv is still the same company they were before, the only difference is that they answer to AT&T CEO and board of directors instead of their own board of directors. They sell pretty much the same packages, same equipment, etc. Most customers probably don't even realize AT&T bought them.


You will notice a change when DIRECTV's name is dropped and AT&T Entertainment takes over with their new upcoming set top box or whatever they plan to call it. It should be ready in two years. DIRECTV's name is gone after this.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

ericknolls said:


> Dish is the T-Mobile of the satellite industry. They have more promos than DIRECTV. They always have.


The complaint was not about "offers" ... it was about press releases, which are usually about business operations and partnerships than the current deal. Occasionally we will get a new product press release that offers some programming package ... but not as often as the "debt offering" and other messages.

As far as your complaint about DIRECTV's prices and profit margin, I expect it will stay high as long as people pay their bills. So far DIRECTV has managed to keep their customers while lower priced (average revenue per subscriber) DISH seems to be on a plateau. DISH makes about 1/4 of the profit per customer per month that DIRECTV makes, yet people still pay for DIRECTV because they are getting the service they want. People can "vote with their wallet" ... but so far there are still enough voting for AT&T|DIRECTV that no action is needed.


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## jimmie57 (Jun 26, 2010)

*7:26 am DISH Network responds to Tribune Broadcasting's (TRCO) proposal rejection to restore blacked-out channels to DISH subscribers (DISH)* :
Tribune (*TRCO*) blacked out DISH customer access to 42 local channels in 33 markets Sunday evening.

"Regrettably, we can only interpret Tribune's unwillingness to participate in binding arbitration as an indication that it actually is angling for rates that are above fair market and that it wants to keep the Tribune channels off DISH as long as possible in order to continue to use innocent consumers as pawns to gain negotiating leverage against DISH."


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## trh (Nov 3, 2007)

Interesting to note today there is a posting about Dish's coverage of the Summer Olympics, while a very similar press release by DIRECTV yesterday wasn't considered 'noteworthy' enough to be also posted in the News.


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## KyL416 (Nov 11, 2005)

Again, it's been stated several times by the admins and mods, posts by "News Feed" are automated, likely via the rss feeds.

There is no more DirecTV only RSS feed, ever since the sale to AT&T, DirecTV related releases are bundled with releases from all of AT&T's other businesses and divisions (i.e. Wireless, U-Verse TV, DSL, landline, Corporate, their international divisions, etc) So if someone thought a Dish release about Senior Notes was bad, with AT&T's feed every few weeks there would be a flood of state and city specific releases about wireless and landline network upgrades. You can search by tags on AT&T's media relations section and see the DirecTV related press releases, but that's useless when you need to automatically import the headline and text of a press release to create a forum post. (It also doesn't help that half the releases on their site aren't tagged properly)

I had to jump through hoops with the filters on PR Newswire for Journalists and I still get tons of non-DirecTV releated releases in my inbox, even the keyword search is useless since AT&T lists DirecTV as one of their businesses in the About Us section on the bottom of each release. (It also doesn't help that PR Newswire's filters are horrible, it has problems recognizing the & in AT&T, and the stock filter can't handle one letter symbols so if I try filtering by stock symbol "T", it includes releases for any company that has a "T" in their symbol)


There used to be someone who manually posted the news, but he's no longer here, they did ask if anyone wanted to volunteer but no one came forward. Since you had no problem finding yesterday's release, why not post it yourself or volunteer to handle the news for them?


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## trh (Nov 3, 2007)

KyL416 said:


> I had to jump through hoops with the filters on PR Newswire


....

Jump through hoops? I went to the PR Newswire site and typed in DIRECTV in the Search block at the top.

Granted you still get everything related to AT&T, but there was nothing difficult about it.


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## KyL416 (Nov 11, 2005)

trh said:


> Granted you still get everything related to AT&T, but there was nothing difficult about it.


Which is my entire point. With DirecTV as a keyword, not only do you get those other AT&T releases, but anytime another company mentions DirecTV in their release you get that too. (i.e. if some random company hires a new exec who used to work for DirecTV 15 years ago, it's mentioned as part of their bio in the release, if some company was previously a client of DirecTV for a creative campaign, it's mentioned as part of a release for some non-satellite releated project they were hired to do, when it's the weeks surrounding quarterly earnings you have analyists issueing their own statements that PR Newswire picks up, and some channels like Sony Movie Channel mention DirecTV at the bottom of all their releases since they list which major providers carry their channel) Having all those extra releases isn't really practical if you want it to be automated.

PR Newswire is the website that displays releases, to actually receive those releases in real time you need to go through PR Newswire for Journalists. (You also get the ability to customize how the releases are formatted, which would make it sligthly easier to design a custom importer when the release is formatted as plain text instead of HTML code) You really need to get creative with the filters to try to filter out the other things so your inbox doesn't get slammed with 50+ non-DirecTV releated releases a day, along with not being too specific to the point where you miss things. (i.e. if you try to filter it to El Segundo only, you miss out on anything announced in another city if the announcement is related to a sporting event, a trade show like CES, or involving another company based in another city)


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

While we moderators do from time to time post news items ourselves... some of us subscribe to press releases, others of us have been in attendance at a trade show, etc.... we aren't the primary news-generators for the site. The whole point, if I may say so, of a social network is for all community members to participate in discussion and bring new ideas and information to the table.

So... IF you are aware of a news item that you don't see posted in an appropriate forum, please start a thread to discuss it! If your thread, or another thread is something you feel like should have been a headline, call that to the attention of a forum moderator. We are going to miss stuff. It happens.


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## fudpucker (Jul 23, 2007)

OK. It just seems odd to see Directv announcements on, say, their Olympic coverage posted in the Directv forums, but the only thing you see in the News pages is the Dish announcement on the Olympics. You see a number of announcements/news in the Directv sub forums but none of those show up on the news page. Literally everything there is a Dish announcement. I truly thought that somehow my account had been flagged as a "Dish" account and thus I was only being given Dish news on the news page.

For that reason I've just decided the News page isn't really worth visiting.


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## trh (Nov 3, 2007)

fudpucker said:


> OK. It just seems odd to see Directv announcements on, say, their Olympic coverage posted in the Directv forums, but the only thing you see in the News pages is the Dish announcement on the Olympics. You see a number of announcements/news in the Directv sub forums but none of those show up on the news page. Literally everything there is a Dish announcement. I truly thought that somehow my account had been flagged as a "Dish" account and thus I was only being given Dish news on the news page.
> 
> For that reason I've just decided the News page isn't really worth visiting.


I guess you haven't read this entire thread as to why it is this way.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

If anyone comes up with a good, DirecTV only RSS feed for press releases/news, please let us know. I've yet to find one and I know I'm not the only one looking. Meanwhile, I see other sites not having nearly as many DirecTV headlines on the main page as they used to either. It's not unique to this site.

It would help, though, if you know of a newsworthy item... start a thread on it and point it out to a moderator for inclusion on the main page so you can be sure it has our attention. OR if you see an existing thread, point that out too. IF you wait until a day or two passes, it isn't "news" anymore and then we have what we have now, a lot of good discussions for topics that could have been news items if anyone had found them on the day they happened.

For my part, I'm a Dish customer... I have very little familiarity with DirecTV equipment. Something like the AT&T merger caught my eye as bigger news... but the day-to-day DirecTV stuff is going to fly way under my radar... and with the RSS feed we have for Dish, that helps us keep on top of most Dish stories. James and others also do a lot of work there. But we can't catch everything that happens.


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## David Bott (Jul 12, 2005)

Yes, seeing out system is automated for news RRS feeds, we can not pull in what is not provided and DurecTV is not providing any news on there feeds. As mentioned above, if you find an RSS DirecTV related feed, we would be happy to have it picked up so it is automatically added to the home page.


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