AccessDirecTV trouble

[paulman182]

I find the printed guide, AccessDirecTV, very useful. If one is primarily a movie watcher, it is a nice guide. It seems that not many forum members subscribe to the magazine, and I'm pretty sure I won't for much longer. The problem seems to be both with the magazine publisher (which is NOT DirecTV) and with the postal service.

The magazine is marked with a target delivery date of the 26th of each month. It never arrives by then. Three times in the last year it did not come at all. Once the front cover came in a plastic bag with a note apologizing for what the post office machines did to it. When the February issue did not come, I called for a replacement, and get this: they in turn mailed out the January issue on February 28th, and I got it March 19.

If I read this in the forum I would have trouble believing it, but it is true. Does anyone else have problems like this?

[gpg]

I've had a couple of issues not arrive until the 2nd or 3rd of the month, but nothing as bad as you're experiencing.

My biggest complaint with the magazine is that it doesn't cover the new HD movie channels like MGMHD, Starz Kids and Family and Starz Comedy.

[paulman182]

My biggest complaint with the magazine is that it doesn't cover the new HD movie channels like MGMHD, Starz Kids and Family and Starz Comedy.

Yes, I had been hoping every month that those channels would be in there. I've now pretty much given up on the magazine altogether.

[RunnerFL]

I had a subscription to it and it always arrived on time however they took out the section I used most. There used to be a page that had all the pay movie channels movies that were premiering that month, they removed that making it pretty much useless so I dropped my subscription.

[JeffBowser]

I wouldn't be surprised if they dropped it altogether. It's very expensive to provide bundles of paper and delivery. I dropped printed matter at my business 3 years ago, and the savings were phenomenal. I had less than a handful of customers complain, everyone else was fine with online offerings.

[Grentz]

I still wish there was a good printed guide for Directv, but I have yet to find a good one.

Sometimes it is nice to have a paper guide to flip through, especially now when the on screen guide shows even fewer channels at a time (the HR-2X guide)

[paulman182]

I wouldn't be surprised if they dropped it altogether. It's very expensive to provide bundles of paper and delivery. I dropped printed matter at my business 3 years ago, and the savings were phenomenal. I had less than a handful of customers complain, everyone else was fine with online offerings.

An online guide is no substitute for the paper guide when you want to plan a month's movie recordings in advance. I am more than willing to pay for a good one, providing it gets to me every month.

You can't really judge a change by the number of complaints you get. The ones who don't complain may quietly go elsewhere.

[JeffBowser]

I judge it by my revenue, which increased, along with my profitabilty. Paper is on the way out, that's a fact of life.

I can distribute a pdf for pennies. A full blown user manual cost me $20 each, total. It's a big, big difference.


An online guide is no substitute for the paper guide when you want to plan a month's movie recordings in advance. I am more than willing to pay for a good one, providing it gets to me every month.

You can't really judge a change by the number of complaints you get. The ones who don't complain may quietly go elsewhere.

[paulman182]

I judge it by my revenue, which increased, along with my profitabilty. Paper is on the way out, that's a fact of life.

I can distribute a pdf for pennies. A full blown user manual cost me $20 each, total. It's a big, big difference.



I'm not really looking at AccessDirecTV from the company's point of view. I pay the asking price for the magazine, and when I do get it, it has plenty of ads for expensive cars, watches, and alcoholic beverages.

I think we're getting sidetracked from the subject of a magazine that I intentionally pay for and don't get.

[JeffBowser]

Sorry, you are correct, I apologize for taking your thread off topic. I am just trying to make the point that I doubt DirecTV has much long term interest in the magazine for the reasons I outline. What you pay in subscription doesn't even come close to covering costs, but I have no idea what their ad revenue is.

[islesfan]

This is why I dropped my subscription to the Hockey News years ago, and I still have the problem with the Conservative Chronicle. The information is time sensitive, and the Post Office delivers it a week, two, three weeks late or not at all. Both are weekly publications, and one of every five never gets delivered at all. Often, three issues come delivered stuffed inside each other, and partially shredded. The best one was earlier this year, in the first week of November, I got the Thanksgiving issue of the Conservative Chronicle, and I thought "wow we just passed Halloween, and they can't wait for Thanksgiving!" Then I noticed the date, November 24, 2006! Delivered a year late!

Close enough for government work!

[joed32]

I have only received 3 issues, but they have been on time. I use the movie section to plan on what movies I want to record for the month.