# DIRECTV Churn (from "I've been with DIRECTV 7 years")



## Upstream (Jul 4, 2006)

HDTVfan -- I have no problem with the original poster's point that there are lots of happy DirecTV customers. I think it is pretty obvious that most DirecTV customers think DirecTV is a better option than the alternatives, otherwise most would switch when their programming commitments expire.

But even if the issues represent only 1% of DirecTV's 16 million customers, that is still 160,000 customers, and that is widespread. I might be unlucky to be caught in that 1%, but at least I am not alone.


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

Upstream said:


> But even if the issues represent only 1% of DirecTV's 16 million customers, that is still 160,000 customers, and that is widespread. I might be unlucky to be caught in that 1%, but at least I am not alone.


It's more like 0.1 % or less...but yes, it is unfortunate, and we all hope these can be resolved to your satisfaction.

The fact that DirecTV has one of the lowest churn rates (departed customers) in the industry seems to reinforce they both care and want to do what they can to keep everyone happy. It's impossible to be at 100%, but those with issues should be addressed as they occur, which is their SOP.


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## Upstream (Jul 4, 2006)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> It's more like 0.1 % or less


I have no idea if it is 0.1% or not (actually I do have an idea, since the empirical evidence seems to suggest that dissatisfaction with DirecTV's customer service is much higher than 0.1% of the customer base), but I selected the 1% example because you previously said that the issues represent 1-2%.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> It's more like 0.1 % or less...but yes, it is unfortunate, and we all hope these can be resolved to your satisfaction.
> 
> The fact that DirecTV has one of the lowest churn rates (departed customers) in the industry seems to reinforce they both care and want to do what they can to keep everyone happy. It's impossible to be at 100%, but those with issues should be addressed as they occur, which is their SOP.


Their churn rate still is close to 18% per year. That's about 3,000,000 customers a year leaving. Want to tell me how you come to this .1% figure?

The customer satisfaction ratings for DirecTV as well as the whole cable/satellite industry in the US are dismal.


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

Ken S said:


> Their churn rate still is close to 18% per year. That's about 3,000,000 customers a year leaving. Want to tell me how you come to this .1% figure?
> 
> The customer satisfaction ratings for DirecTV as well as the whole cable/satellite industry in the US are dismal.


I don't know where you are getting your numbers from, but your 18% rate is plain totally wrong.

You might want to check the investor pages on the DirecTV site to get the real numbers.

By the way, if they were actually 18%, they'd be out of business in less than 8 1/2 years...factoring in the growth rate.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

Ken S is correct about the churn rate. It has been 1.6% per month (more or less) for some time. It had been higher, DIRECTV has taken steps to reduce it.

The reason DIRECTV doesn't run out of customers is that the whole industry has a huge churn rate, people are "churning in" DIRECTV faster than they are "churning out". Many people will repeatedly chase the latest special deals as soon as their commitments are up.

Cheers,
Tom


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## skierbri10 (Sep 18, 2006)

Tom Robertson said:


> Ken S is correct about the churn rate. It has been 1.6% per month (more or less) for some time. It had been higher, DIRECTV has taken steps to reduce it.
> 
> The reason DIRECTV doesn't run out of customers is that the whole industry has a huge churn rate, people are "churning in" DIRECTV faster than they are "churning out". Many people will repeatedly chase the latest special deals as soon as their commitments are up.
> 
> ...


Does anyone know why the people who leave, actually leave? Better "deals"** or unhappy with the service? I understand that some of it will be defaults and people who have to disconnect. But, what are the other reasons?

** I say deals because they might look good for 1-2 years but after that you will end up paying double at the normal rates.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> I don't know where you are getting your numbers from, but your 18% rate is plain totally wrong.
> 
> You might want to check the investor pages on the DirecTV site to get the real numbers.
> 
> By the way, if they were actually 18%, they'd be out of business in less than 8 1/2 years...factoring in the growth rate.


Is that 8 1/2 years from now or from when they started? I guess we should all start shopping for a new provider.


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## Upstream (Jul 4, 2006)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> By the way, if they were actually 18%, they'd be out of business in less than 8 1/2 years...factoring in the growth rate.


How did you come up with that number?

:scratchin


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

Tom Robertson said:


> Ken S is correct about the churn rate. It has been 1.6% per month (more or less) for some time. It had been higher, DIRECTV has taken steps to reduce it.


Uh....Ken said 18%, not 1.8%...

You don't add the monthly (quarterly) numbers to get an annual rate, you determine an average of the numbers and the 1.6 or 1.8 % rate is the same year-round. Otherwise you are comparing apples to refrigerators.

Contrast that with the new customers added each month, and you get a net customer number. Since they overall number of DirecTV customers has grown by quarter now for numerous years, the churn clearly cannot be 18%, rather, it is 1.6 or 1.8, depending on which quarter your reference. Otherwise, the math doesn't add up.

If you took 18% per year X 8.5 years = 153%... minus the new customer rate of "x" per year (assuming 5.75 per year)... you'd end up with over 100% of the customers lost, which doesn't meld well with reality.


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## mikewolf13 (Jan 31, 2006)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> Uh....Ken said 18%, not 1.8%...
> 
> You don't add the monthly (quarterly) numbers to get an annual rate, you determine an average of the numbers and the 1.6 or 1.8 % rate is the same year-round. Otherwise you are comparing apples to refrigerators.
> 
> ...


IN 2005 DTV started 15.1 MM customers, Gross additions were 4.1MM but Net Additions were just 1.2 MM..so 2.9NN of the 15.1 left (assumes none of the difference in gross and Net left in the same year)..this is a annual churn of *19%*

2006 had starting point of 16MM, Gross add 3.8MM (less than 2005 despite HR20), and Net adds of just 820K..this is an annual churn of about *19%* as well....

*Even if you calculate all the gross adds as possible churn in same year..you have 15% annual churn....*

This indicates they lose 30% of subscribers every two years.... and that 2006 net adds dropped by 31% from 2005.....

2004 had what at the time was a record Gross addtions of 4.2MM and net gain of 1.7MM...again 2.5MM left but after a starting point of 13.9 MM that was only 14% churn....

So gross additions and net additions are dropping, churn remains close to constant despite the "overwhelming" demand and success of the DVR+ line....

wonder what the 2007 numbers will look like......

source: DTV annual reports....and yes I rounded the numebrs


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## Upstream (Jul 4, 2006)

HDTVfan -- No. You add the churn rates, you don't average them.

If DirecTV has 1 million customers, and 16,000 leave in January (even if they are replaced by 17,000 new customers) the churn rate is 16,000 / 1,000,000 or 1.6%

If DirecTV has 1 million customers, and 16,000 leave every month, then in the course of the year they lose 16,000 x 12 = 192,000 customers and have an annual churn rate of 192,000 / 1,000,000 or 19.2%.

Even taking growth into account, you add the numbers. So if they lose 16,000 every month and sign 17,000 new customers, their annual churn rate is as follows:


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Yes, Ken did say 18% a year...which is actually a bit low.

DirecTV is churning 1.6% of their customers every month. That 1.6% number is labeled as AVERAGE MONTHLY SUBSCRIBER CHURN by DirecTV.

In the last quarter's numbers DirecTV reported (This is the text of their headline):
_"DIRECTV U.S. Net Subscriber Additions up 45% to 240,000 Driven by Higher Gross Additions of 1,032,000 and Lower Monthly Churn of 1.61%"_

Let's break that down for the quarter:

Net Additions of 240,000 subscribers
Gross Additions of 1,032,000 subscribers
So, if you do a little math you can determine that during that same period they LOST 792,000 subscribers.

That was for One QUARTER or Three Months.

Let's average that per month for that quarter...

On a monthly basis they added 80,000 net subscribers 
They had gross additions of 344,000 subscribers
meaning that during an average month for that quarter they LOST 264,000 subscribers.

And finally, let's go the other way using those same quarterly numbers to determine annual rates.

A quarter is three months a year is 12 months. So, we're going to multiply those figures by four.

Gross Additions would be 4,128,000
Net Additions would be 960,000
Gross Losses: 3,168,000
Total Subscribers (roughly) 16,500,000
3,168,000 is 19.2%
Divide that by 12 to get a monthly churn rate...1.6%

Those are the numbers. Go read their quarterly reports. Do the math yourself. The churn rate IS CLEARLY over 18% as I stated and Tom concurred. They lose MILLIONS of customers each year and spent over TWO BILLION DOLLARS on Customer Acquisition last year alone.

Read the statements for yourself if you don't understand something feel free to ask.

=============================



hdtvfan0001 said:


> Uh....Ken said 18%, not 1.8%...
> 
> You don't add the monthly (quarterly) numbers to get an annual rate, you determine an average of the numbers and the 1.6 or 1.8 % rate is the same year-round. Otherwise you are comparing apples to refrigerators.
> 
> ...


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## mikewolf13 (Jan 31, 2006)

nothing like cold hard numbers to stop a thread dead in it's tracks


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## Upstream (Jul 4, 2006)

mikewolf13 said:


> nothing like cold hard numbers to stop a thread dead in it's tracks


Actually I find it surprising that almost 1 in 5 DirecTV subscribers quit each year. Or to look at it a different way, if I pull three DirecTV subscribers at random, by the time a new 2-year commitment has expired, one of those three will have likely left DirecTV.

Especially since each new subscriber incurs a programming commitment of at least a year, it is unlikely that there is double counting in those numbers (i.e., someone who leaves in January, comes back in July, and leaves again in December).

Also, because DirecTV has upfront equipment fees and a movers program, the churn numbers would not include people who move and retain DirecTV. There may be some people who switch account names to a spouse when moving to take advantage of new customer promos, but they would lose the investment they made in their existing receivers that have to be returned to DirecTV. The only uncontrollable moving churn would be those moving to places where they have LOS or other signal issues. (Contrast this to cable, which because it is so localized, has uncontrollable moving churn as people move from a town served by one cable company to a town served by a different cable company.)

I wonder what is causing such high churn with DirecTV. DirecTV should treat customers who have been with them for more than 5 years like gold.


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

mikewolf13 said:


> nothing like cold hard numbers to stop a thread dead in it's tracks


Unless they are wrong or misleading numbers...


Ken S said:


> Read the statements for yourself if you don't understand something feel free to ask.
> 
> =============================


I understand them just fine, thank you.

Its just that your original post is grossly misleading, as it represents comparisons between gross customer churn loss and not net customer churn (which is no churn at all, because they add new customers in greater numbers than those they lose. So your 18% number doesn't tell it like it really is..

My point was that if you took *YOUR* numbers on their face value, there would be *NO* customers is less than 9 years.

That's plain misleading.


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## Upstream (Jul 4, 2006)

HDTV -- there is gross gain, net gain, gross loss, and net loss. But there is no gross or net churn. There is just churn. The whole purpose of looking at churn is it eliminates the confusion of gross and net.


When I said that one-in-five DirecTV customers leave each year, that is potentially misleading because I don't indicate if it is gross or net. Therefore you don't know if the statement takes customer additions into account and could falsly assume that DirecTV is losing one-fifth of its subscriber volume every year. But when I say that DirecTV's churn rate is almost 20%, that is not misleading, because it only means one thing. It is what it is.


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## mikewolf13 (Jan 31, 2006)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> Unless they are wrong or misleading numbers...


If there is anything false or misleading in my numbers, please let me know.

Based on the fairly consistent trends one year from now, roughly 1 in 5 current DTV customers will no longer be customers, and....

.. slightly more than 1 in five DTV customers next Feb 11th are not customers right now.

One has to wonder why they have lost probably 35% of the customers they had on Feb 11th 2006.

I also wonder what E* churn looks like for the same period, better or worse, I have no idea...hard to compare to cable due to moving in and out of markets, but I'd love to see a comparison to comcast to TWC on a national scale in terms of Net/Gross adds/losses.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

HDTV,

I didn't mislead anyone. The churn is what it is. Sorry if the facts don't agree with your theories. By the way, they're not my numbers. They are DirecTV's reported numbers. Perhaps you should call up DirecTV Investor Relations and tell them how they are misleading people.

Gross churn vs. net churn? Are you now making up terms? No such thing. Once again, read their reports, use their terms. If you don't understand something it's okay to ask.

You should really stop this line of attack.



hdtvfan0001 said:


> Unless they are wrong or misleading numbers...
> 
> I understand them just fine, thank you.
> 
> ...


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

mikewolf13 said:


> If there is anything false or misleading in my numbers, please let me know.
> 
> Based on the fairly consistent trends one year from now, roughly 1 in 5 current DTV customers will no longer be customers, and....
> 
> ...


If I remember correctly, Dish churn numbers are very similar (if not a bit higher) than DirecTV's.


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## Upstream (Jul 4, 2006)

Mike -- I found an article which says Dish reported 3Q07 monthly churn at a rate of 1.94% versus 1.76% in 2006. Wow!

I also found a 2004 article which says that average cable industry monthly churn drops from 1.5% for tv-only customers to 1.1% for TV/Data customers.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

Churn is a standard industry number--how many people left in the time period reported, as far as I can tell. It doesn't imply net inflow (or outflow) of subscribers, only "of the people here last time period, this many left for and reason." 

On a monthly basis, double counting is possible but likely very rare.

On a yearly basis, double counting is more possible, tho with yearly commitments and 12 month deals, less likely these days.

Cheers,
Tom


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## lparsons21 (Mar 4, 2006)

skierbri10 said:


> Does anyone know why the people who leave, actually leave? Better "deals"** or unhappy with the service? I understand that some of it will be defaults and people who have to disconnect. But, what are the other reasons?
> 
> ** I say deals because they might look good for 1-2 years but after that you will end up paying double at the normal rates.


People leave for a variety of reasons. I left Dish last week because I wanted the many new HD channels. Then Direct added my locals in HD 2 days later. What I left behind was the Voom channels, and the best HDDVR on the market today, imo.

I wasn't PO'd at Dish or anything else, I just wanted more HD and I wanted it now. I went with Dish a bit over 2 years ago for the same reason. I wanted more HD and Dish had more then.

As to the deals. Yep, they are only good for one or two years, but so what? I'll save a net of about $15/month for the 2 years I am committed to Direct. At the end of that time, I will make an informed business decision as to whether to keep Direct or move to something else. It won't be for some phony 'loyalty' reason either. This is a service and the decision is a business decision. If Direct makes a better deal overall in 2 years, I'll stay with them, but if not... Well, then I'll move on.

Today Direct's grass is greener for me, tomorrow it may not be....


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## mikhu (Oct 10, 2006)

Upstream said:


> I also found a 2004 article which says that average cable industry monthly churn drops from 1.5% for tv-only customers to 1.1% for TV/Data customers.


I suspect that is solely due to the incumbent advantage. I have a large number of friends with cable who are completely disgusted with what they have, yet they don't leave because they are too lazy to call D* or E*. It's just "easier" for them to keep cable, even though they hate it. :nono2:


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

Are multiple dwelling unit connects/disconnects counted in churn?

Are move accounts (disconnects) counted in churn?

Are terminated equipment renewals to new agreements counted in churn?

Those alone could account for a major portion of the counts.

In simple terms, numbers can be used in many ways, including to distort reality. They do it in politics all the time. :eek2: 

Gross churn numbers mean little - even the investment community blows by those numbers (except to see big changes/trends). NET numbers are the only ones that mean anything. I've listened to dozens of investor presentations, and never one time - not once - did I hear a peep about churn, except that it was trending downward or staying about the same.

But numbers are as numbers do...


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## mikewolf13 (Jan 31, 2006)

Mike Huss said:


> I suspect that is solely due to the incumbent advantage. I have a large number of friends with cable who are completely disgusted with what they have, yet they don't leave because they are too lazy to call D* or E*. It's just "easier" for them to keep cable, even though they hate it. :nono2:


Wouldn't that apply to the satellite customers as well...are we not to lazy to switch?

I would think having the satellite and possibly mailing back boxes instead of dropping at a local office would make it easier to stay with satellite as an incumbent.


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## Upstream (Jul 4, 2006)

Keep fishing HDTVfan. The numbers are what the numbers are. And they're reported by DirecTV. If you don't like the numbers, or don't know how to interpret them, you can always blame "statistics".


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## Upstream (Jul 4, 2006)

mikewolf13 said:


> Wouldn't that apply to the satellite customers as well...are we not to lazy to switch?
> 
> I would think having the satellite and possibly mailing back boxes instead of dropping at a local office would make it easier to stay with satellite as an incumbent.


Mike -- I think his point is that there are houses that have had cable for over 25 years. The big push for DBS satellite is only about 10 years old. So most people probably alreay have a house wired for cable.

If I already have satellite, my inertia is to stay with satellite, just like cable customers have inertia to stay with cable. But if I am a satellite customer who wants to switch to cable, since my house is probably already wired, switching is no more complicated than flipping a switch. But a cable customer who wants to switch to satellite probably needs to have a dish and external wiring installed.


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

Upstream said:


> Keep fishing HDTVfan. The numbers are what the numbers are. And they're reported by DirecTV. If you don't like the numbers, or don't know how to interpret them, you can always blame "statistics".


Using numbers in a manipulative way is like painting a portrait using only 1 color of paint. :nono2:

I'd love to see the answers to my questions to get what Paul Harvey would call the "Rest of the Story".


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## Upstream (Jul 4, 2006)

Is that gross 1 color of paint, or net 1 color of paint?


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

Upstream said:


> Is that gross 1 color of paint, or net 1 color of paint?


Depends on the color.


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## mikewolf13 (Jan 31, 2006)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> Using numbers in a manipulative way is like painting a portrait using only 1 color of paint. :nono2:
> 
> I'd love to see the answers to my questions to get what Paul Harvey would call the "Rest of the Story".


I have sent those questions to DTV Investor Relations...but unless 90 % of the churn is due to mover's reconnecting and multi-unit dwellings, .....which I doubt I think the numbers are closer to being leading and not misleading.....

Yes Net growth is most important (adds outpacing churn)...and net growth slowed greatly in 2006 and althought the first 3Q of 2007 improved on 2006, it still was less than 2005.

Given how they couldn't keep the DVR+ in stock and all those 100 HD Channel commercials...that 's somewhat surprising if not dissapointing....

I guess it could be misleading if you insist on believeing the opposite though.


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

mikewolf13 said:


> Wouldn't that apply to the satellite customers as well...are we not to lazy to switch?
> 
> I would think having the satellite and possibly mailing back boxes instead of dropping at a local office would make it easier to stay with satellite as an incumbent.





Upstream said:


> Mike -- I think his point is that there are houses that have had cable for over 25 years. The big push for DBS satellite is only about 10 years old. So most people probably alreay have a house wired for cable.
> 
> If I already have satellite, my inertia is to stay with satellite, just like cable customers have inertia to stay with cable. But if I am a satellite customer who wants to switch to cable, since my house is probably already wired, switching is no more complicated than flipping a switch. But a cable customer who wants to switch to satellite probably needs to have a dish and external wiring installed.


Well, two things.

First, talk to a realtor, and they'll tell you almost to a person that a home with either an OTA antenna or a dish 'devalues' the property, and makes it harder to sell. When I retired and moved some 4+ years ago, and told the realtor I wanted a home with NO restrictions (the community I was in, I had to 'hide' my DirecTV and Echostar dishes in the back yard, on my back deck, surrounded by a high 'privacy' fence), I got looks you wouldn't believe.

The companies I do consulting for locally, tell me that fully HALF of the potential customers for DBS won't pay (or tolerate) the huge amount (and cost) of plumbing in the coaxials. But virtually all homes are 'wired' for 'cable'. We know that as soon as the SWM is available in 'mass quantities', that the dam will burst on that front.

People are... lazy buggers. They'll sit there and pay through the nose for service they will barely tolerate, simply because it's easier than... well, thinking. It's just like that car insurance commercial (and indeed, just like that very example!). It's easier simply to write that check, and be done with it. But when your income gets tight, or it's fixed (uh... like retirement?), you get off your rear and do something about it. Maybe.

My mom lives in a retirement community, and although I've given a number of seminars in their 'community center' (on the changeover to digital and etc), the number of folks who've unstrangled themselves from cable is less than 10%. AND, a goodly number of them have RV's, which are perfect for satellite. But it's simply easier to 'write that check' just as they have for over 30 years (or whatever).

Entropy is a hard trend to buck.


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## mdernst (Dec 24, 2005)

mikewolf13 said:


> I have sent those questions to DTV Investor Relations...but unless 90 % of the churn is due to mover's reconnecting and multi-unit dwellings, .....which I doubt I think the numbers are closer to being leading and not misleading.....
> 
> Yes Net growth is most important (adds outpacing churn)...and net growth slowed greatly in 2006 and althought the first 3Q of 2007 improved on 2006, it still was less than 2005.
> 
> ...


I doubt seriously that churn numbers include any "movers" or "movers connections" since when you move you don't cancel your account, you don't get a new account number, your account stays the same except for a new service address.

In fact, I seem to recall some time ago that one of the reasons DirecTV allowed for "suspended" accounts was to keep the account technically open until such time as the account holder was ready to reactivate and reduce the reported churn numbers.

Mike


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## mikewolf13 (Jan 31, 2006)

mdernst said:


> I doubt seriously that churn numbers include any "movers" or "movers connections" since when you move you don't cancel your account, you don't get a new account number, your account stays the same except for a new service address.
> 
> Mike


Oh, I don' t think so either...however, I would hate to be accused of being misleading or trying to inflate the numbers of those leaving DTV, so thought I'd do some due dilligence, to disprove any theories as to the inaccuracy of the numebrs presented in DTV's annual report.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> Are multiple dwelling unit connects/disconnects counted in churn?
> 
> Are move accounts (disconnects) counted in churn?
> 
> ...


Churn includes ANY account closure (no suspension or change of address). This could be for a variety of reasons. DirecTV has never broken that number down. My guess is because it's very difficult to do. Most customers don't tell you why they're leaving.

They have cited a couple of reasons for the decrease in churn. The first being tighter credit checks and requiring a credit card. The second being the institution and increase of the customer commitments and the increase in the early termination fees. With those two items in place churn did drop....and at their size every .1% means saving millions of dollars.

If you listen to any conference call for DirecTV you will hear churn cited many times throughout. It is a KEY metric in that industry? Why because the cost of customer acquisition is very high. It costs almost $800 to get a new customer. That means to gain a new customer (net customer growth) costs DirecTV about $1,600. As I said earlier they spent just over two billion dollars on customer acquisition in 2007.

You stated that only .1% of the DirecTV customer base was unhappy or roughly 16,500 people. You have no basis whatsoever for that figure and the reality is with over 3,000,000 people discontinuing service each year the number you quoted is a fairy tale.

While it may be hard for you to believe there are many, many more people that are dissatisfied with DirecTV's service and leave. There are more still that are dissatisfied and don't leave because they don't want to breach their agreement and pay an early termination fee. What is that number? Well, with a customer satisfaction ratings that have been published I'd venture a large bet that it's a LOT more than 16,500 you stated. No, I don't believe it's 3,000,000 either...but if it's even 33% of that figure it's an indication that DirecTV has a lot of work to do in the realm of customer satisfaction.

I think they're actually trying to improve in those areas. Just a few months ago they dumped the guy in charge of that area.

Throughout this entire discussion you have made accusations of incorrect numbers being given. When it turned out that you were wrong, you then called the numbers misleading. How about just manning up and saying you made a mistake.

It's great that you're so happy with DirecTV. I hope that your experience continues to be good. I also hope that DirecTV improves their service and equipment to the point where your .1% assertion is much, much closer to correct. Once again, DirecTV is not alone the entire industry ranks horribly in customer satisfaction polls.


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## gregjones (Sep 20, 2007)

You cannot add monthly rates to arrive at an annual churn rate. Multiplying 1.6% per month by 12 months is equivalent to saying that a car travelling at 60 mph for 5 hours is now going 300 mph.

Again, if you want to look at the total number of people that left in a month, you have to compare it to the total number of people that subscribe. This will provide monthly churn.

If you want to look at annual churn, you have two calculation methods. The first option is to average the monthly churn for year. The second is to take the number of people that left all year divided by the total number of different subscribers that had the service during any portion of the year. Nobody has mentioned that second number, the total number of distinct subscribers that had service during any portion of the year. That number will be considerably higher than number of subscribers at any point in time and is probably never mentioned by DirecTV in press releases.

This leaves you with one valid way to determine annual churn: averaging.


EDIT: And no, I'm not arguing that they're perfect. I am merely explaining the math needed to calculate it properly.


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

mikewolf13 said:


> I have sent those questions to DTV Investor Relations...I guess it could be misleading if you insist on believeing the opposite though.


Thank you for attempting to see if we can get some more details.

It will indeed be interesting to see their response.

In any case, while there is actually *a lot more math *and potential more math folly behind how you interpret these numbers...but here is just one parting thought... 

*16,000,000 January 2008 customers - 1.6% churn (256,000) + (280,000 new customers) = 16,024,000 net customers

16,024,000 February 2008 customers - 1.6% churn (256,384) + (280,000 new customers = 16,047,616 net customers

..and so on....meaning....if the churn remains the same, and the new customers added remain the same, they grow their customer base (NET).

They actually added several hundred thousand new customers in the last quarter alone, so these new customer estimates are probably too low if the churn is 1.6%.*


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## gregjones (Sep 20, 2007)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> In any case, while there is actually *a lot more math *and potential more math folly behind how you interpret these numbers...but here is just one parting thought...


There is a lot more math. See above.


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

gregjones said:


> You cannot add monthly rates to arrive at an annual churn rate. Multiplying 1.6% per month by 12 months is equivalent to saying that a car travelling at 60 mph for 5 hours is now going 300 mph.
> 
> Again, if you want to look at the total number of people that left in a month, you have to compare it to the total number of people that subscribe. This will provide monthly churn.
> 
> ...


Yes....which is what I originally was trying to point out.

You did a better job of explaining it than I did, but my last post was another valiant attempt. :lol:


----------



## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> Unless they are wrong or misleading numbers...
> 
> I understand them just fine, thank you.
> 
> ...


Unfortunately you *don't* understand what the churn numbers mean.

The person who said that churn was about 18% annually was closer to the right figure than all the wrong figures that you have stated. Your one claim of a 0.1% churn rate wasn't even remotely close to correct, even if you meant that 0.1% was the monthly churn.

Contrary to your incorrect "understanding" of churn, you don't average the monthly churn rate to get the annual churn rate. That fact comes from simple grade school mathematics.

Your talk about "gross churn" and "net churn" is nonsense. There is no such thing as "gross churn" or "net churn". Churn is simply the number of existing customers that drop the service expressed as a percentage of the total customer base. You may be confusing churn with gross additions and net additions. Net additions equal gross additions minus the number of customers lost to churn

There is nothing misleading about the churn numbers posted by the people who were correcting your wrong churn numbers. Despite your apparent misunderstand of what churn means, those numbers taken at "face value" don't imply that DirecTV will have no customers in less than 9 years, but they do show how many million customers they have to sign up each year just to sustain current subscriber levels, and since they have routinely signed up more subscribers each year than the millions who were lost to churn, one would expect that even with an annual 18% churn rate that they will still have more customers in 9 years than they do now&#8230; not "no customers in less than 9 years".


----------



## mikewolf13 (Jan 31, 2006)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> Thank you for attempting to see if we can get some more details.
> 
> It will indeed be interesting to see their response.
> 
> ...


No one has said that that the overall customer base is not increasing.

But if 3MM leave each year or close to 20% than dissatissfaction whether it be from service, content, hardware or anything else, is a lot more than .1%

Churn is a much greater indication of satisfaction than subscriber growth.

As I type...........

Quick response form Mr. Sheehan at DTV Investor SErvices

I wrote(and plagarized the questions form the previous post):

I have a few questions regarding churn:

Are multiple dwelling unit connects/disconnects counted in churn?

Are move accounts (disconnects) counted in churn?

Are terminated equipment renewals to new agreements counted in churn?​
The Response:

Mr. Wolf,

The answers to your questions are:

1) yes

2) Yes if they truly disconnect, no if they take advantage of our movers program and we reinstall them at the other end of their move

3) I'm not sure I understand this question. If you cancel service, than you are counted in churn no matter when you cancel. If you simply cut off one box in a room, but continue to receive and pay for service from us, then no - that is not counted as churn.

Hope that helps,

Martin Sheehan

Sr. Director Investor Relations​


----------



## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

Here is what it boils down to as far as I'm concerned:
1) DIRECTV has a lot of subscribers (This is good, keeps the fixed costs spread out among a lot of people.) 
2) DIRECTV loses very large number of people every month. This is not so good.
3) DIRECTV gains more than they lose. This is better. 

The math is all interesting but the result is "A LOT". 

Cheers,
Tom


----------



## Upstream (Jul 4, 2006)

gregjones said:


> You cannot add monthly rates to ......


Greg, please see post 12 in this thread (as well as posts 11 and 13).


----------



## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

mikewolf13 said:


> Quick response form Mr. Sheehan at DTV Investor SErvices
> 
> I wrote(and plagarized the questions form the previous post):
> 
> ...



Thanks.

Then every time a renter with DirecTV service leaves their apartment and moves, it is counted as churn. Hmmm....I wonder if that happens alot? 

Numbers, numbers, numbers......they say what we want to hear.... :eek2:

At the end of the day, its all about how many customers at the end of the day. ​


----------



## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

cartrivision said:


> Unfortunately you *don't* understand what the churn numbers mean.
> 
> The person who said that churn was about 18% annually was closer to the right figure than all the wrong figures that you have stated.


Me thinks you need to read Mr. Jones' post. He has it right....and its not the 18% number.


----------



## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

gregjones said:


> You cannot add monthly rates to arrive at an annual churn rate. Multiplying 1.6% per month by 12 months is equivalent to saying that a car travelling at 60 mph for 5 hours is now going 300 mph. .


No it's equivalent to saying that that car is going 300 miles for every five hours&#8230;. Which is correct, and which is why you multiply to get annual churn from monthly churn&#8230;. You don't average it.



 gregjones said:


> Again, if you want to look at the total number of people that left in a month, you have to compare it to the total number of people that subscribe. This will provide monthly churn.


Wrong again. The number of people who subscribed doesn't change the number that left (the churn), it changes the number of net additions (or subtractions) to the subscriber base.



gregjones said:


> If you want to look at annual churn, you have two calculation methods. The first option is to average the monthly churn for year.


As was most of your other math, your first option for calculating annual churn is wrong. Extrapolating annual churn from monthly churn has nothing to do with "averaging". It has to do with multiplying an assumed monthly rate times 12 to get an estimated annual churn rate.


----------



## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> Me thinks you need to read Mr. Jones' post. He has it right....and its not the 18% number.


No, Mr. Jones is just as confused and wrong about what churn means as you are.... and yes the churn is approximately 18% annually.... and no it's not anywhere close to the 0.1% that you stated.... not even monthly.... not even weekly.


----------



## ehilbert1 (Jan 23, 2007)

Upstream said:


> Actually I find it surprising that almost 1 in 5 DirecTV subscribers quit each year. Or to look at it a different way, if I pull three DirecTV subscribers at random, by the time a new 2-year commitment has expired, one of those three will have likely left DirecTV.
> 
> Especially since each new subscriber incurs a programming commitment of at least a year, it is unlikely that there is double counting in those numbers (i.e., someone who leaves in January, comes back in July, and leaves again in December).
> 
> ...


I don't find it suprising at all. My parents(Mom and Step Dad) had Directv for 2 and a half years. They bought a HD TV and wanted to upgrade to the HR20 OR HR21. They called in and were told it would be $199 up front and it was a lease. They were also offered the protection plan. Now here is where it got real fishy. The CSR told them if they don't get the protection plan and the HDDVR went bad they would have to pay $199 again. Now we all know that is not true. I told them they have a 90 day waranty and all that good stuff and they won't hqve to pay $199 again. They decided to leave because Wide Open West Cable did not have any upfront costs and no 2 year commitment. I tried to explain to them that after their 2 year deal was up the prices would probably skyrocket. My step dad says to me "I don't want to pay $199 upfront and then have a 2 year commitment." That was the deal breaker for them. Alot of people do not want to pay $199 upfront when cable gives it for free. Granted the box costs and DVR costs make up for that. They just saw the upfront cost and commitment and they decided to switch.


----------



## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Greg,

I believe you to be an intelligent person. I don't think your post was based on any bias, but with all due respect your comparison of a car's speed to churn rates is incorrect as is your theory on figuring churn. You can add the averages and get relatively close to the total over the course of a year.

A car that travels 60 MILES a day is going to average roughly 1800 miles a month or 21,600 a year.

Let's use Real Numbers from 2006 since 2007 isn't available yet.

2006 beginning subs: 15,133,000
2006 end subs: 15,953,000
Gross subscriber adds: 3,809,000
NET subscriber gain: 820,000
During 2006 2,989,000 subscriber accounts closed

Let's use the ending total sub number rather than the average (which benefits DirecTV).

2,989,000/15,953,00 = .187 or 18.7% That's basically the annual churn rate for DirecTV.

But...let's do some math to come up with the absolute BEST figure based on what you stated.

DirecTV Subs on 1/1/2006: 15,133,000
DirecTV Subs on 1/2/2006: 18,942,000 (all 3.8 million sub adds come in 1 day)

We'll use that warped number as that's the highest possible total subscriber number they could have had at any time during 2006 (beginning subs plus total new subs)
2,989,000/18,942,000 = .157 or 15.7% Annual Churn Rate.

Here's how DirecTV calculates monthly churn:

DIRECTV U.S. calculates average monthly subscriber churn by dividing the average monthly number of disconnected DIRECTV subscribers for the period (total subscribers disconnected during the period divided by the number of months in the period) by average DIRECTV subscribers for the period.

Please, if you still disagree use the actual numbers and show the calculations that would come up with something substantially different.



gregjones said:


> You cannot add monthly rates to arrive at an annual churn rate. Multiplying 1.6% per month by 12 months is equivalent to saying that a car travelling at 60 mph for 5 hours is now going 300 mph.
> 
> Again, if you want to look at the total number of people that left in a month, you have to compare it to the total number of people that subscribe. This will provide monthly churn.
> 
> ...


----------



## mikewolf13 (Jan 31, 2006)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> Yes....which is what I originally was trying to point out.
> 
> You did a better job of explaining it than I did, but my last post was another valiant attempt. :lol:


Not really...Emphasis addded mine)(

Average Monthly Subscriber Churn. Average monthly subscriber churn represents the number of subscribers whose service is disconnected, expressed as a percentage of the average total number of subscribers. We calculate average monthly subscriber churn by *dividing the average monthly number of
disconnected subscribers for the period (total subscribers disconnected, net of reconnects, during the period divided by the number of months in the period) by average subscribers for the period. *Average monthly churn includes the results from the former NRTC and Pegasus subscribers subsequent to the
purchase of those subscribers in 2004.​
There is no doubt ( from the above and posts outlining specific numbers from Annual reports that annual churn is _about_ 18-20% Multiplying the monthly churn number by 12, is not exact...unless the monthly average cited was for a 12 month period...but it is pretty damn close.


----------



## Upstream (Jul 4, 2006)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> Thanks.
> 
> Then every time a renter with DirecTV service leaves their apartment and moves, it is counted as churn.


Unless they reinstall their DirecTV account at the other end of their move.

But if they cancel their DirecTV service, and don't reactivate their account at their new home, they are a lost subscriber and count as churn.

Some lost subscribers are desirable, like those who don't pay their bill.

Some lost subscribers are unavoidable, like those who move and can't reconnect due to LOS or other location-related issues.

The rest are economic losses.


----------



## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> Me thinks you need to read Mr. Jones' post. He has it right....and its not the 18% number.


Please tell us the correct number then. Is it the .1% you stated? Don't forget a little attribution this time around.


----------



## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

Anyway, the point is that cable is churning *more* then what DirecTV or Dish is churning. Thus why DirecTV is still adding hundreds of thousands every quarter as is Dish.

Churn at 1.6% is quite good. Of course they want it lower, who doesn't. But this is very good for the industry as a whole and you see cable companies lose customers to churn at a faster rate and don't add as many new which is why they keep losing market share to the sat companies. Now DirecTV and Dish are growing at a slower rate then they used to but they are still growing. 

So it doesn't matter if it is 18% a year or whatever number you come up with. What really matters is the net adds/losses and DirecTV is on the positive side of that equation and has been getting better the last few quarters.


----------



## HarbingerGA (Sep 29, 2005)

gregjones said:


> You cannot add monthly rates to arrive at an annual churn rate. Multiplying 1.6% per month by 12 months is equivalent to saying that a car travelling at 60 mph for 5 hours is now going 300 mph.


I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry when I read this - it looks like the reasoning of many of my remedial math students. Let's pay attention to unit cancellation.

mi 
--- x hr = mi
hr

% . 12 mo .. %
-- x ----- = ---
mo . 1 yr . . yr

(Ignore the dots as they are needed for typesetting purposes only.)

It is correct that you cannot really multiply the monthly percentages here but that is only because the subscriber based is not a static value. Multiplying the percentages by 12 will give you a reasonably accurate estimate because the net increase per month is relatively small.

Think about how you're going to calculate a monthly and an annual churn: its the number of customers lost over that time period out of the total number of customers you have. For the year, you have to add the number from each of the 12 months and divide by the total of number of customers yuo have. If the number of customers lost is pretty similar each month, then the churn should be similar for each month, but the churn for the year is going to be almost 12 times that just because you've got roughly 12 times as many losses.


----------



## mikewolf13 (Jan 31, 2006)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> Me thinks you need to read Mr. Jones' post. He has it right....and its not the 18% number.


Even if you take *everyone *who had service at any point..those at the start of the year (16MM)and all Gross additions (4MM)..and use that as the denominator, the 3MM losses ends making annual churn of 15%....

Of, course most of the 3MM losses won't come from that year's adds, due to committments....but even playing your game 15% is a lot closer to 18% than .1%

Regardless of churn % we have claim only 16K existing customers are upset and evidence that 3MM existing customers will leave this year.

Which is scary for DTV becasue every one unhappy customer results in 187 cancellations.


----------



## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

HarbingerGA said:


> I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry when I read this - it looks like the reasoning of many of my remedial math students. Let's pay attention to unit cancellation.
> 
> mi
> --- x hr = mi
> ...


That's it....I'm getting out my sliderule.....


----------



## mikewolf13 (Jan 31, 2006)

Upstream said:


> I also found a 2004 article which says that average cable industry monthly churn drops from 1.5% for tv-only customers to 1.1% for TV/Data customers.





bonscott87 said:


> Anyway, the point is that cable is churning *more* then what DirecTV or Dish is churning. Thus why DirecTV is still adding hundreds of thousands every quarter as is Dish..


Is it?

Only data cited so far has about equal churn for DTV and Cable (TV Only)...if you have more recent data. I'd love to see it.

Note I am not disagreeing, only saying I haven't seen data to support an assertion in either direction.

Yes Net adds is most important...but 2007 and 2006 are well behind 2005...that is not disputable...how far behind 2007 finished comapred to 2005 will be seen but it is better than 2006 and not as good as 2005....

I find that interesting....


----------



## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Bon,

It does matter...and it effects every single DirecTV customer; DirecTV spent over two billion dollars on Subscriber Acquisition costs last year. This is the single largest expense (more than their satellites). If they could reduce churn there's a chance we wouldn't see nearly as many cost increases, package changes, etc.

They can continue to have net gains but when each additional customer ends up costing more than the total revenue you receive throughout that customer's account life you wind up in a mess of trouble.

Certainly they understand it's a problem and have started some programs to reduce the churn rate...unfortunately the programs they mentioned as being most effective to date are:

1. Increased commitment time.
2. Credit checks and mandatory credit card payments for new customers.

I know they have put new people in charge of the customer service/install area and hopefully they will make customer-centric changes that help.

Additionally, it seems that Mr. Carey believes that the change from News Corp to Liberty Media will allow DirecTV to do more in the way of improving the service (from a question during the Citicorp presentation).

Don't fall into the trap of comparison to the rest of the crud in the Satellite/Cable Industry or Wireless Phone Service. Cable companies were basically granted territorial monopolies and acted accordingly. DirecTV can do much, much better. There's no reason they can't be very profitable and gain much, much higher customer satisfaction rates.

The only place where churn rates this high are considered "good" is in casket sales/funeral services.

_Oh, and because I got accused of this in a PM. At the present time I have no stock position in DirecTV (I am a customer). I have owned the stock in the past. I have never shorted the stock. If it made sense I would buy it or short it._



bonscott87 said:


> Anyway, the point is that cable is churning *more* then what DirecTV or Dish is churning. Thus why DirecTV is still adding hundreds of thousands every quarter as is Dish.
> 
> Churn at 1.6% is quite good. Of course they want it lower, who doesn't. But this is very good for the industry as a whole and you see cable companies lose customers to churn at a faster rate and don't add as many new which is why they keep losing market share to the sat companies. Now DirecTV and Dish are growing at a slower rate then they used to but they are still growing.
> 
> So it doesn't matter if it is 18% a year or whatever number you come up with. What really matters is the net adds/losses and DirecTV is on the positive side of that equation and has been getting better the last few quarters.


----------



## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

mikewolf13 said:


> Is it?
> 
> Only data cited so far has about equal churn for DTV and Cable (TV Only)...if you have more recent data. I'd love to see it.
> 
> ...


Mike,

The numbers are all over the place. The problem in figuring churn with cable companies now is the "Triple Play" stuff. Once they get a customer signed up for "Triple Play" the churn rates seem to drop significantly. If it's basic cable (analog basic tier) that stays relatively stable. It's the digital tier of cable where the churn rates are high. Dish also has churn rates similar if not a bit higher than DirecTVs.


----------



## gregjones (Sep 20, 2007)

HarbingerGA said:


> I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry when I read this - it looks like the reasoning of many of my remedial math students. Let's pay attention to unit cancellation.
> 
> mi
> --- x hr = mi
> hr


The mph calculation was obviously wrong to prove a point. The math in almost all of these is wrong.


----------



## lparsons21 (Mar 4, 2006)

Ken S said:


> Certainly they understand it's a problem and have started some programs to reduce the churn rate...unfortunately the programs they mentioned as being most effective to date are:
> 
> 1. Increased commitment time.
> 2. Credit checks and mandatory credit card payments for new customers.


#1 is certainly true, but #2 is not completely true. Credit card payments are not a requirement, except for the signup fees if any, but only if you sign up online with Direct. No credit card payment is required if you deal with a local dealer.


----------



## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

lparsons21 said:


> #1 is certainly true, but #2 is not completely true. Credit card payments are not a requirement, except for the signup fees if any, but only if you sign up online with Direct. No credit card payment is required if you deal with a local dealer.


According to a statement by Chase Carey they are requiring a credit card be on record for any new account that is opened. Maybe there are exceptions. Maybe they keep the credit card number and allow other payments and just use the CC as backup?


----------



## gregjones (Sep 20, 2007)

cartrivision said:


> Unfortunately you *don't* understand what the churn numbers mean.


That depends entirely on the question you ask. If you want to know the percentage of people that left in the last year versus the current subscriber base, adding the averages will work as a close estimate.

Churn is generally given as a monthly rate because people are billed monthly. That means each person decides each month to stay or go. If you want to know the probability of someone to leave, look at the monthly churn.


----------



## gregjones (Sep 20, 2007)

mikewolf13 said:


> Not really...Emphasis addded mine)(
> 
> Average Monthly Subscriber Churn. Average monthly subscriber churn represents the number of subscribers whose service is disconnected, expressed as a percentage of the average total number of subscribers. We calculate average monthly subscriber churn by *dividing the average monthly number of
> disconnected subscribers for the period (total subscribers disconnected, net of reconnects, during the period divided by the number of months in the period) by average subscribers for the period. *Average monthly churn includes the results from the former NRTC and Pegasus subscribers subsequent to the
> ...


Again, it all depends on the question you hope to answer. The most relevant question is how likely is someone to leave. They are presented with that decision each time they are presented a bill (monthly). Therefore, the probability of them leaving should be shown in terms of their likelihood to leave in any given month.

Adding the monthly churn answers exactly one question: how many of our current subscribers will be former subscribers in one year. That answer is only valuable as a count of subscribers, not a percentage.


----------



## lparsons21 (Mar 4, 2006)

Ken S said:


> According to a statement by Chase Carey they are requiring a credit card be on record for any new account that is opened. Maybe there are exceptions. Maybe they keep the credit card number and allow other payments and just use the CC as backup?


Yes, they are requiring a credit card to open the account, but it is a backup. You still have the option of paying the bill when it comes with a check or whatever. In fact, that's how you'll have to pay because even though they want the number on file, and you are required to keep it current, they don't charge anything to it unless you tell them to. Either by a single payment or autopay.

I think that they also have a deposit deal for those without a cc or debit card.


----------



## gregjones (Sep 20, 2007)

cartrivision said:


> Contrary to your incorrect "understanding" of churn, you don't average the monthly churn rate to get the annual churn rate. That fact comes from simple grade school mathematics.


Rates are averaged. If you would like to talk about annual churn (not churn rate), add the monthly churn numbers (not the monthly churn rates). This is a very valid answer to the question of how many people left in the last year. Since you are not dividing, it is not a rate.


----------



## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

With all this churning...I now have a craving for a slice of buttered toast. :eek2:


----------



## gregjones (Sep 20, 2007)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> With all this churning...I now have a craving for a slice of buttered toast. :eek2:


I can't believe it's not butter.


----------



## PicaKing (Oct 8, 2006)

mikewolf13 said:


> Oh, I don' t think so either...however, I would hate to be accused of being misleading or trying to inflate the numbers of those leaving DTV, so thought I'd do some due dilligence, to disprove any theories as to the inaccuracy of the numebrs presented in DTV's annual report.


I know what thread I'm gonna read if I have trouble falling asleep some night.....


----------



## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

PicaKing said:


> I know what thread I'm gonna read if I have trouble falling asleep some night.....


!rolling !rolling !rolling


----------



## dreadlk (Sep 18, 2007)

Ken you Devil  Why do you keep messing with these people heads, a select few on this forum have almost developed a religion around Directv and you keep coming in and talking like a false profit (Ahem,, Prophet) 

LOL I wish some of these people would realize that everything is not great in Directv land, if it was the company would not have changed hands 3 or 4 times already.



Ken S said:


> Bon,
> It does matter...and it effects every single DirecTV customer; DirecTV spent over two billion dollars on Subscriber Acquisition costs last year. This is the single largest expense (more than their satellites). If they could reduce churn there's a chance we wouldn't see nearly as many cost increases, package changes, etc.
> .[/I]


----------



## Jhon69 (Mar 28, 2006)

ehilbert1 said:


> I don't find it suprising at all. My parents(Mom and Step Dad) had Directv for 2 and a half years. They bought a HD TV and wanted to upgrade to the HR20 OR HR21. They called in and were told it would be $199 up front and it was a lease. They were also offered the protection plan. Now here is where it got real fishy. The CSR told them if they don't get the protection plan and the HDDVR went bad they would have to pay $199 again. Now we all know that is not true. I told them they have a 90 day waranty and all that good stuff and they won't hqve to pay $199 again. They decided to leave because Wide Open West Cable did not have any upfront costs and no 2 year commitment. I tried to explain to them that after their 2 year deal was up the prices would probably skyrocket. My step dad says to me "I don't want to pay $199 upfront and then have a 2 year commitment." That was the deal breaker for them. Alot of people do not want to pay $199 upfront when cable gives it for free. Granted the box costs and DVR costs make up for that. They just saw the upfront cost and commitment and they decided to switch.


See this post if you want to know why is there churn.I think it says it all.

And that is also why Dish started offering their HD DVR free.

That is also why I got my R15 cause at the time with the "code" it was free.


----------



## mdernst (Dec 24, 2005)

As an aside:

Not everyone is in a set time period commitment with DirecTV. I have never been in 12 month, 18 month, 24 month or any other required time commitment with DirecTV.

When I started with DirecTV in the mid 1990s I bought all of my equipment (Sony Dish, RCA receiver, etc.) and installed it myself. My recollection is that was about $500 worth of start up costs. No commitment. I suspended my account in early 2002 and did not restart until late 2003 at which time my suspension had been more than a year and I had to restart a new account - still no commitment.

Every subsequent receiver and dish I have purchased myself and installed myself - Phase III dish (Best Buy), 5 LNB Slimline (Solid Signal), Philips TIVO DVR, Sony HD receiver, Hughes HD TIVO (HR10-250). Even the leased equipment (HR20s, H20s) has all been acquired from the local Best Buy with $199 - $299 advance lease fees paid. Since I have never taken any of the promotional offers from DirecTV nor ever had any installs done by DirecTV I have never been bound to any time commitments to DirecTV.

And yes, I have paid dearly ($$$) by going this route. I went this way not so much to avoid the time commitments but because (1) I wanted to do the installs myself to make sure they were done to my standards and satisfaction and (2) to satisfy my need for "instant gratification" and not have to wait for an install appointment.


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## Bushwacr (Oct 31, 2007)

gregjones said:


> Rates are averaged. If you would like to talk about annual churn (not churn rate), add the monthly churn numbers (not the monthly churn rates). This is a very valid answer to the question of how many people left in the last year. Since you are not dividing, it is not a rate.


Since the reported rate is a function of the reported churn to avg subscribers in the SEC filings I'd hope the results are the same within a very few .01's of a percent or there's a reporting analyst in D* wandering around about to be unemployed. There are rules to be followed after all.

Both numbers are useful. If the subscriber base grows and the rate is steady then you can predict next period's churn. This then can be used to determine the number of new subscribers needed to sustain a constant growth rate and a bunch of other stuff.

Why does any one really care unless you are an investor or wannabe investor? Even then you'd have to measure the competition results.


----------



## Upstream (Jul 4, 2006)

Bushwacr said:


> Why does any one really care unless you are an investor or wannabe investor?


Because, as Ken noted, it impacts rates and service.


----------



## Upstream (Jul 4, 2006)

dreadlk said:


> a select few on this forum have almost developed a religion around Directv


Is a requirement of this religion that you need to be bad at math?


----------



## EMoMoney (Dec 19, 2005)

Damn. I should have listened to my math teacher when he told me I'd actually use match after I graduated.


----------



## Jhon69 (Mar 28, 2006)

mdernst said:


> As an aside:
> 
> Not everyone is in a set time period commitment with DirecTV. I have never been in 12 month, 18 month, 24 month or any other required time commitment with DirecTV.
> 
> ...


You are now.


----------



## dreadlk (Sep 18, 2007)

No, but it helps when dealing with heathens like Ken 



Upstream said:


> Is a requirement of this religion that you need to be bad at math?


----------



## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

mdernst said:


> As an aside:
> 
> Not everyone is in a set time period commitment with DirecTV. I have never been in 12 month, 18 month, 24 month or any other required time commitment with DirecTV.
> 
> ...


mdernst,

When you activated those receivers you purchased from BestBuy you agreed to a programming commitment of 24 months. They will tell you that the price you paid at Best Buy was in fact a promotional offer.

If you believe otherwise that's fine...but don't be surprised if DirecTV has you on a 24-month commitment.


----------



## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

dreadlk said:


> Ken you Devil  Why do you keep messing with these people heads, a select few on this forum have almost developed a religion around Directv and you keep coming in and talking like a false profit (Ahem,, Prophet)
> 
> LOL I wish some of these people would realize that everything is not great in Directv land, if it was the company would not have changed hands 3 or 4 times already.


It's amazing...you would think the HR20 was a Mac or something. I was talking to a friend of mine that is a short term trader. He told me that they are actually tracking things like the Mac-lover bounce. Then have seen that if Apple gets some bad financial press and the stock drops that the zealots will actually buy in. Unfortunately, for holders of DTV the DirecTV KoolAid isn't quite that strong yet.
I guess if we see Chase Carey in a jeans and a black turtleneck....


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## Bushwacr (Oct 31, 2007)

Upstream said:


> Because, as Ken noted, it impacts rates and service.


And he is correct to certain point. It's hard to grow revenue if your churn is high and net new is the same. Rate is a forward look number that predicts revenue; the amount is historical that explains how you sunk costs.

The only option is rate increases and cost cuts. You pick which costs get cut and the impact.

Rate increases seem obvious based on reported numbers.

Service quality is less churn related; it's more training and commitment related.

Given competition how could rates not increase significantly to new customers and old customers to sustain growth and increase stock value? If D* quit giving freebies to whiners and testers maybe, and I mean maybe, they could stabilize.


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## Bushwacr (Oct 31, 2007)

Ken S said:


> It's amazing...you would think the HR20 was a Mac or something. I was talking to a friend of mine that is a short term trader. He told me that they are actually tracking things like the Mac-lover bounce. Then have seen that if Apple gets some bad financial press and the stock drops that the zealots will actually buy in. Unfortunately, for holders of DTV the DirecTV KoolAid isn't quite that strong yet.
> I guess if we see Chase Carey in a jeans and a black turtleneck....


I doubt this group is into the financial aspects of trading D* just the thrill of HDTV. Although you make me think about the idea of trading D* based on this board?
Apple trades on fanboys, not numbers.


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## gregjones (Sep 20, 2007)

I'm abandoning ship on this thread.


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## jpl (Jul 9, 2006)

skierbri10 said:


> Does anyone know why the people who leave, actually leave? Better "deals"** or unhappy with the service? I understand that some of it will be defaults and people who have to disconnect. But, what are the other reasons?
> 
> ** I say deals because they might look good for 1-2 years but after that you will end up paying double at the normal rates.


I left last April, after 5 years as a customer. I wasn't unhappy with the service. On the contrary, I liked DirecTV alot - and I still think it's a great service. I also didn't go chasing a deal. FiOS TV became available in this area - I'd been considering it for a while. I got an HDTV last March, and I wanted an HD DVR. DirecTV wanted $300 + $20s&h for the HR20. Also I would have needed an antenna to get all my locals in HD, plus all my digital subchannels. All in all I would have shelled out $400 just to start, and that was more than I was willing to swallow. I tried to get them to negotiate, and they wouldn't so I signed up for FiOS. Actually, first I researched the heck out of FiOS, and the more I looked the more I liked - it turned out to be a better match for me.

I also keep hearing the warning to folks considering cable - watch out! In a year your bill is going to go up 1000%! Ok, that's an exaggeration. But I have a question - why is that any different than what DirecTV does? Go to their website, and also read the happy new DirecTV customers on here, and what rate do you always read about? You read about their promo rate. Folks giddy that they save $20/month for the first 6 months. That's great, but really that's no different than someone going to cable and them getting a 'teaser' rate. That's why it's a promo rate. Cable does it, but so does DirecTV. I have no issue with it. As long as a consumer knows going in that that teaser rate is temporary, what's the issue? Sorry, but some people on here make it sound like people who choose cable are mentally deficient, and are easily duped, and must therefore not be aware of the fact that the rate that they're getting is only temporary. I'm not saying that you're doing that - I don't think you are - but other do all the time, and I'll be honest, I find that line of reasoning somewhat insulting.

In any event, FiOS turned out to be a better match for me, and all worked out well in the end. And if after a couple years it's no longer that good of a match for me, I'll come back to DirecTV. These decisions aren't permanent.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

JPL,

If it works for you that's really all that matters. I hope FIOS gets even better for you (and moves to an area where I live).



jpl said:


> I left last April, after 5 years as a customer. I wasn't unhappy with the service. On the contrary, I liked DirecTV alot - and I still think it's a great service. I also didn't go chasing a deal. FiOS TV became available in this area - I'd been considering it for a while. I got an HDTV last March, and I wanted an HD DVR. DirecTV wanted $300 + $20s&h for the HR20. Also I would have needed an antenna to get all my locals in HD, plus all my digital subchannels. All in all I would have shelled out $400 just to start, and that was more than I was willing to swallow. I tried to get them to negotiate, and they wouldn't so I signed up for FiOS. Actually, first I researched the heck out of FiOS, and the more I looked the more I liked - it turned out to be a better match for me.
> 
> I also keep hearing the warning to folks considering cable - watch out! In a year your bill is going to go up 1000%! Ok, that's an exaggeration. But I have a question - why is that any different than what DirecTV does? Go to their website, and also read the happy new DirecTV customers on here, and what rate do you always read about? You read about their promo rate. Folks giddy that they save $20/month for the first 6 months. That's great, but really that's no different than someone going to cable and them getting a 'teaser' rate. That's why it's a promo rate. Cable does it, but so does DirecTV. I have no issue with it. As long as a consumer knows going in that that teaser rate is temporary, what's the issue? Sorry, but some people on here make it sound like people who choose cable are mentally deficient, and are easily duped, and must therefore not be aware of the fact that the rate that they're getting is only temporary. I'm not saying that you're doing that - I don't think you are - but other do all the time, and I'll be honest, I find that line of reasoning somewhat insulting.
> 
> In any event, FiOS turned out to be a better match for me, and all worked out well in the end. And if after a couple years it's no longer that good of a match for me, I'll come back to DirecTV. These decisions aren't permanent.


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## jpl (Jul 9, 2006)

Ken S said:


> JPL,
> 
> If it works for you that's really all that matters. I hope FIOS gets even better for you (and moves to an area where I live).


Thanks. Sorry for being so wordy, but the question was asked 'why do folks leave?' I believe that question is legitimate - so I gave my reason for doing so. I also wonder why people take umbrage with threads dealing with why someone is leaving. I understand that threads like that can be tedious, but I believe they do have value. If I'm considering DirecTV, and I stumble on this forum, I sure as heck would want to know why someone would be leaving the service. It only serves to help the company in the end - if they can figure out why folks are leaving, they can do something to bring down the churn rate, thereby making the service better for everyone, while driving down cost (churn is expensive - you'd much rather have a more stable customer base than have people popping in and out like that - it's the reason for the contract that you sign when you first sign up - it's a move to help offset churn).

It's no different than the gym I belong to - they required a pretty hefty registration fee - $300. But they gave you coupons worth in excess of that $300 fee for things in the gym (free personal training sessions, free food at the snack bar, that kind of thing). I couldn't figure out why they would do that - why give away more in freebies than the initial registration fee - why not just do away with the registration fee? The reason - they don't want you just dropping them. They want to make it more painful for you to leave by tying a dollar amount to it.

Anyway, sorry for the side track - I find threads like 'I'm done with DirecTV' to be very valuable - they definitely serve a purpose. If someone doesn't like reading those threads, then don't - avoid them.


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## drded (Aug 23, 2006)

Free coupons are like gold to businesses. Only about 25% ever get redeemed. Of those that do, most generate more revenue than the face value of the coupon itself.

Dave


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

gregjones said:


> I'm abandoning ship on this thread.


!rolling


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> !rolling


So, how about telling us where you got the .1% figure from? Seems you like to accuse people of making up numbers and then misleading others. But when it comes down to it...you made up the numbers in an effort to discredit another poster. Classy move.


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## Upstream (Jul 4, 2006)

Ken S said:


> So, how about telling us where you got the .1% figure from? Seems you like to accuse people of making up numbers and then misleading others. But when it comes down to it...you made up the numbers in an effort to discredit another poster. Classy move.


And what little credibility I once had is now in question.

Bummer.


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

Ken S said:


> So, how about telling us where you got the .1% figure from? Seems you like to accuse people of making up numbers and then misleading others. But when it comes down to it...you made up the numbers in an effort to discredit another poster. Classy move.


Nice try. 

No one is trying to discredit anyone. There is simply a difference of opinion and the viewing of the "facts". If I've learned anything, I've seen that numbers can say what someone wants them to say, depending on the caveats and the context of the information. In other words, numerical "facts" are in the eyes of the beholder.

Apparently not everyone reads all the posts in a thread, as the explanations of how various figures were derived are plain as day. The further clarification that the 1.6% monthly churn rate actually includes renter moves, as well as other equipment cancel scenarios, further lowers that 1.6% considerably.

Also, they added 256,000 NET new customers this past quarter, and they have been in the plus column NET now for ages.

The early picture that was being painted that customers are dropping like flies is just plain grossly misleading and wrong. Others pointed that out as well. That's the bottom line. 

If people choose to ignore these facts, that's certainly their free choice to do so. As for me... I prefer reality. I now join *gregjones *migrating into a more productive discussion elsewhere...


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## Upstream (Jul 4, 2006)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> The early picture that was being painted that customers are dropping like flies is just plain grossly misleading and wrong. Others pointed that out as well. That's the bottom line.


I don't know what "dropping like flies" means. I do know that DirecTV reported that more than 3 million subscribers left DirecTV last year.

I don't know why they left. I can guess at lots of reasons people leave (such as moving, dying, not paying their bill, or finding another provider they like better), and I am sure all those reasons account for some of the subscribers leaving.

None of that changes the fact that more than 3 million subscribers left DirecTV last year.

And that means that DirecTV needed to find more than 3 million plus new subscribers in order to expand their existing subscription base.


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## jjohns (Sep 15, 2007)

A big reason for subscribers leaving are the price increases all the time. Seriously, has there been a straight two year stretch in the last 5-8 years where there was no price increase or taking of channels away? I don't think DirecTV can go for 24 straight months without deciding it needs more money from you. That's what I've noticed big time lately.


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## spartanstew (Nov 16, 2005)

jjohns said:


> A big reason for subscribers leaving are the price increases all the time. Seriously, has there been a straight two year stretch in the last 5-8 years where there was no price increase or taking of channels away? I don't think DirecTV can go for 24 straight months without deciding it needs more money from you. That's what I've noticed big time lately.


There's certainly reasons why people could be unhappy with D* and want to leave. This, however, should never be one of them. EVERY product increases in price each year. Milk, Bread, Cable TV, everything. If someone claims to leave because of a price increase, then they have other issues.


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## jjohns (Sep 15, 2007)

spartanstew said:


> There's certainly reasons why people could be unhappy with D* and want to leave. This, however, should never be one of them. EVERY product increases in price each year. Milk, Bread, Cable TV, everything. If someone claims to leave because of a price increase, then they have other issues.


Other issues like lack of unlimited funds.


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## spartanstew (Nov 16, 2005)

jjohns said:


> Other issues like lack of unlimited funds.


Or to be more precise: they couldn't afford it in the first place.

Not sure what you do for a living, but if $3 = unlimited funds, you might need to change careers.


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## jjohns (Sep 15, 2007)

spartanstew said:


> Or to be more precise: they couldn't afford it in the first place.
> 
> Not sure what you do for a living, but if $3 = unlimited funds, you might need to change careers.


I'm not sure why you've decided to drag this into personal attacks but nonetheless - to infer that no one terminates a service because of too high of a price is just plain kooky.


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## mikewolf13 (Jan 31, 2006)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> Nice try.
> 
> No one is trying to discredit anyone. There is simply a difference of opinion and the viewing of the "facts". If I've learned anything, I've seen that numbers can say what someone wants them to say, depending on the caveats and the context of the information. In other words, numerical "facts" are in the eyes of the beholder.
> 
> ...


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## spartanstew (Nov 16, 2005)

jjohns said:


> I'm not sure why you've decided to drag this into personal attacks but nonetheless - to infer that no one terminates a service because of too high of a price is just plain kooky.


Actually it's not.

Nobody terminates due to a yearly $3 increase. If they're happy with the product and can currently afford it, the $3 won't matter. If they're already unhappy or if they're struggling to afford it to begin with, then the increase might be the final factor, but it won't be the only one.

If raising the price $3 means that the service is all of a sudden "too high of a price", then it was too high to begin with for that individual.


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## jjohns (Sep 15, 2007)

spartanstew said:


> Actually it's not.
> 
> Nobody terminates due to a yearly $3 increase. If they're happy with the product and can currently afford it, the $3 won't matter. If they're already unhappy or if they're struggling to afford it to begin with, then the increase might be the final factor, but it won't be the only one.
> 
> If raising the price $3 means that the service is all of a sudden "too high of a price", then it was too high to begin with for that individual.


"A big reason for subscribers leaving are the price increases all the time. Seriously, has there been a straight two year stretch in the last 5-8 years where there was no price increase or taking of channels away? I don't think DirecTV can go for 24 straight months without deciding it needs more money from you. That's what I've noticed big time lately."

Above was my original post. Where in the world did you get $3 from? I mention the price increases in the last 5-8 years and you pull out a $3 one from that and argue a point? Considering I didn't mention or allude to a $3 increase anywhere, I would suggest that you are arguing with yourself. (And losing.)


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## spartanstew (Nov 16, 2005)

jjohns said:


> Above was my original post. Where in the world did you get $3 from?


The price increase this year (in case you don't even know what you're arguing against) is $3 per package. That's a pretty standard increase over the years for D*.



jjohns said:


> I mention the price increases in the last 5-8 years and you pull out a $3 one from that and argue a point?


Yes, they increase prices every year. AS DOES EVERYONE ELSE. Every manufacturer in the world increases prices, usually on a yearly basis. In the case of D* the average price increase is around $3 (as mentioned). I'm not pulling anything out to argue a point. That was your point.



jjohns said:


> Considering I didn't mention or allude to a $3 increase anywhere, I would suggest that you are arguing with yourself. And losing.


Of course you didn't mention it. It makes your argument look silly. It's easier for you to just say "yearly price increases are causing people to leave". That way, the uninformed might read your post and think "wow, they must be going up a lot to drive customers away". Adding in the actual cost increase of $3 shows the flaws in your argument.

You honestly think that someone who's happy with the product and services D* offers and has no issue paying their current bill amount would leave SOLELY because there was a $3 price increase? Or because it went up $10 - $15 in a 5 year period? You can't seriously think that.

To get back to the question in your quote: Of course they can't go 24 months without taking more money from the customer. No business can. Prices go up every year. You've never noticed this before? You never noticed that cars cost more each year? That milk costs more? Houses cost more? Where have you been living?


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## Upstream (Jul 4, 2006)

A camel's back does not break under the weight of a single straw.


Spartan is right. If this year's $3/month price increase means you can't afford DirecTV, then you were probably struggling with the price last year as well. But JJohns is also right, if you were easily able to afford DirecTV when you signed up many years ago, the cumulative effect of many years of price increases may mean you can no longer afford it.



But people may leave due to the price increase even if they can afford it. If the price increase means that DirecTV is no longer a better value than your alternatives, you may leave. And while I don't believe many people will switch providers just to save $36 per year, at some point the cumulative effect of the price increases may convince them to leave. I imagine many people will seriously consider switching if they found a suitable alternative that saved them a couple hundred dollars per year.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Actually, pricing is one of the largest reasons that people leave a service. DirecTV knows this and clearly states that price increases will most likely increase their churn rate...they state it in their risk factors.

In an industry where deals for new customers are always available a price increase is certain to push many to another provider. Anyone that has worked with pricing models knows that a major factors is customer loss/gain based on pricing models.

The ultimate pricing model is the airlines where they adjust pricing minute by minute based on demand for certain flights.

So, yes a $3 price increase does make a difference, but in DirecTV's view the total gained revenue will be greater despite the loss of customers. How many will leave because of the price increase? We won't know unless DirecTV tells us...or we see it published in a marketing journal down the road.

I can tell you while I was with AOL (late 80s) that even subtle differences in pricing had a large effect on revenue and membership numbers. Customers eventually will decide what they'll pay...if not we'd still be paying .10/minute for internet access and .36/minute for mobile calls (not including the long distance fees) and high variable rates for any toll calls from our land line phones.

There are a few places where pricing won't make as much of a difference. Things like Fuel, Home Heating Oil, Eggs, Milk, and of course in the non-competitive industries like electric, water and natural gas. While competition in the TV provider area isn't great the competition does exist and a nudge in pricing will most assuredly send many to a competitor.

P.S. It's now clear that getting an answer from poster claiming .1% isn't going to happen. Just as it didn't happen when he claimed the results of a survey were inaccurate. I guess that's just what makes the internet so much fun. You don't have to have any basis for your claims...just spew, laugh and run.

But enough on them...if anyone is interested in continuing this discussion I'm up for it....There are some pretty intelligent people here that have worked in other industries that could share their thoughts. Maybe someone from DirecTV, Dish, Comcast, etc. will chime in...even anonymously if they wish.


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## mikewolf13 (Jan 31, 2006)

Upstream said:


> A camel's back does not break under the weight of a single straw.


It's not that $3 turns DTV from being affordable to sending anyone to the poor house. Noone likes to feel like they are being "nickled and dimed" to death...even if they can afford the nickles and dimes.

It's also psychological..Even if logic tells me (dish/cable/Fios) will go up also over the next two years, they are not the ones that have been raising MY rate over the last 5..so my anger is (mis?)-directed at DTV

Also, after several years of small increases, other providers promotional rates are more attractive..and I am perfectly happy going away for two years to take advantage of a promotion and after that two years come back...if the deal is good.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

Last warning for this thread, let us not talk about each other. Lets talk about churn and how it happens and how it affects the industry.

Thanks,
Tom


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## jjohns (Sep 15, 2007)

Coming down on the side of increasing prices to customers speaks for itself.


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## spartanstew (Nov 16, 2005)

Ken S said:


> Actually, pricing is one of the largest reasons that people leave a service. DirecTV knows this and clearly states that price increases will most likely increase their churn rate...they state it in their risk factors.


Yes, it results in churn, but it's not the only factor.

If every current customer thought the PQ was the best available, the channel selection was unparalleled, the equipment was flawless and the customer service was the best in the industry, a price increase would result in ZERO churn.

As upstream mentioned, it can often be the "last straw", but it's really not the reason.


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## dreadlk (Sep 18, 2007)

I don't know where you got that from but I know I have dealt with companies and made it clear that if the price goes up by even 1 Cent I am moving on! Sure enough a few months later they put a couple of bucks onto the already high fee's and I cancel that same month. So yes one straw can break a camels back and it does not have to be cumalative.

Some of you guys think that TV is the end all be all for life, you should understand that there are many many people who dont even watch 5 hours of TV a week. These people might have Directv and decide that if the Bill goes up by one more dollar they will switch to basic cable and they often do just that.



Upstream said:


> A camel's back does not break under the weight of a single straw.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

gregjones said:


> Rates are averaged. If you would like to talk about annual churn (not churn rate).


Rates are not averaged when you want to convert the rante from one time period to another. That's the problem. We were talking about how to derive the annual churn rate from the monthly churn rate, and people were incorrectly saying that to get the annual churn rate, that you should average the monthly churn rates&#8230;. which is incorrect.



gregjones said:


> add the monthly churn numbers (not the monthly churn rates). This is a very valid answer to the question of how many people left in the last year. Since you are not dividing, it is not a rate.


And if you divided it by the average number of subscribers during that year, it *would* be a rate&#8230; it would be the annual churn rate&#8230;. and using your number to do that calculation is about the same as adding up all the monthly churn rates and then multiplying the sum of the monthly churn rates by the average number subscribers during the year. Both give you roughly the same answer for the number of people who left during the year.


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

spartanstew said:


> Yes, it results in churn, but it's not the only factor.
> 
> If every current customer thought the PQ was the best available, the channel selection was unparalleled, the equipment was flawless and the customer service was the best in the industry, a price increase would result in ZERO churn.
> 
> As upstream mentioned, it can often be the "last straw", but it's really not the reason.


Oh, I absolutely agree it's not the only factor by far. Sprint has certainly proven that being the cheapest and providing poor service and quality can land you in trouble. Price, unfortunately for those of us that appreciate quality, is a major determining factor for opening or keeping an account.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

dreadlk said:


> I don't know where you got that from but I know I have dealt with companies and made it clear that if the price goes up by even 1 Cent I am moving on!


If you told that to DIRECTV, they would nod and remind you that they have you wrapped up tight in a multi-month programming commitment and no matter how much you squawk, they're going to get their pound of flesh.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> Ken S said:
> 
> 
> > So, how about telling us where you got the .1% figure from? Seems you like to accuse people of making up numbers and then misleading others. But when it comes down to it...you made up the numbers in an effort to discredit another poster. Classy move.
> ...


Even nicer try, but you still haven't explained how you came up with the 0.1% churn rate that you claimed. :wave: :wave: :wave: :wave: :wave: :wave:



hdtvfan0001 said:


> I prefer reality.


Given your 0.1% number (and your inability to explain it), that's worthy of a.... !rolling!rolling!rolling!rolling!rolling


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## spartanstew (Nov 16, 2005)

dreadlk said:


> I don't know where you got that from but I know I have dealt with companies and made it clear that if the price goes up by even 1 Cent I am moving on! Sure enough a few months later they put a couple of bucks onto the already high fee's and I cancel that same month. So yes one straw can break a camels back and it does not have to be cumalative.


key part of your post: already high fee's.

In that case, you were already disgruntled with that company because you thought their prices were too high. If you would have been happy with their current pricing, you probably wouldn't have left with the increase.


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

cartrivision said:


> Given your 0.1% number (and your inability to explain it), that's worthy of a.... !rolling!rolling!rolling!rolling!rolling


If you mean explain it to *YOUR* satisfaction, perhaps.

Again, people can selectively read the churn numbers the way *they *choose to interpret them. Unfortunately, by only collectively adding them up for the year, it's misrepresentative. DirecTV verfied, for example, that terminated renters are included in the reported churn %.

In my post, I chose to call this "simply a difference of opinion and the viewing" of the numbers, which it is. Every day, people take the *exact same numbers* to support more than one view and spin them differently.

It could even be possible that *more than one view *is accurate, depending on caveats or other considerations. This happens all the time in business. It's the inspiration for the "glass-half-empty and glass-half-full" viewpoints.

I guess the Mods need to step in...as some folks seem to have ignored the warning about these kinds of personal attacks and childish insults.

In the mean time, best wishes and continued success in your debate.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

I don't see this thread heading anywhere, the warning has obviously been ignored, the numbers haven't changed, and no interesting new thoughts have presented today. So thread is closed.

Tom


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