Dallas Distant Nets Gone May. Why?

[Marcus S]

I would really love to understand the thought process on this boon dogel decision by Echostar. There are tons of Dallas distant net subs throughout the entire state of Texas, and it's a big one. That does not even include the out of state subs. To gain a handfull of channels back does not seem worth having effected subs fire up there rusty C-Band satellites and say bye bye to Dish Network.
I am totaly perplexed on this one.

Last I read on Nielsen from SHVIA data compiled just last year, combined Ku & C-Band "distant Dallas net subs" was close to 500k with Rural Texas, Florida, and Colorado making up 300k+. Only LA & NY exceeds Dallas distant net subs. That's alot of rural distant net subs to potentially loose and overall I was even more surprised to see there where so many distant subs in general.

[boba]

Well DirecTV only has N.Y. and Ca. so you still have three more distants left than they have. Dish just decided Dallas wasn't as important to their marketing plan as freeing up channels by using the spotbeam. Maybe we should blame it on the Cowboys lousy football performance the last couple of years.

[Cheyenne]

As more DMA's are converted to spot beam and additional cities added, the full conus transponders increase in value.
Thus Dallas will no longer be offered and does not even come close to NY and LA market value.
Gosh, I thought there weren't even 800K buds subscribed anymore. To really justify the full conus bandwidth, would there have to be at least a 25% market penetration?
Lets say something in the area of 2 million potential subs for Dish.

OR, boba is correct about the Cowboys being at fault.

[Marcus S]

3 more Home Shopping Channels & 3 more Public Interest Channels headed your way. Now that makes sense. :( I don't understand this especially in lite of several Charlie -snip it's- where he was most supportive of expanding rural sub net offerings. Seems it's now all in reverse. I know several that had either Austin, Houston or San Antonio. Moved to spot, they switched to Dallas. After this, I suspect major unhappiness.

I have a feeling this decission may backfire on Echostar. You never tick off a Texan and live to tell about it. :) I think you would be surprised at how many rurals still have their old bud's in the backyard. Very easy to fire up again.

Here is an interesting link on the subject. C-Band what the world does not know... (http://www.satellitetheater.com/C-Band%20World.htm)

[Cheyenne]

I do not think there would be any more shopping channels in the near future. Perhaps maybe one more PI channel due to FCC regulatory compliance. No worry there... just give it 500k bandwidth. Word is that more conus bandwidth will go to HD (110).
Yeah !.... Know a Texan that wants to buy my bud?
I personally will never go back.
Marcus, are you going back to bud?

[Marcus S]

Seriously considering it. The roter is burned out, but the LNB's look good and I ran RG6 Quad to the house when many did not even know what it was.

[Mike123abc]

Most of Texas and Oklahoma are served by LIL now. This has probably dropped the distant Dallas subscribers down a lot for Echostar. Texas is starting to pick up small DMAs on the spots (Waco and Tyler), people probably opting to watch the local stations rather than pay for Dallas ones now.

I suspect that distant market sales on DBS are dropping fast. As more and more markets get locals, there is probably a lot less interest in distants. I would not be surprised if they are down to NY/LA/Denver soon. Direct TV has already said they plan to go to a 100 markets very quickly, and I bet E* will have no choice but to follow to avoid losing market share. If E* gets control of R/L DBS I see Dish having capacity to go to 175 or so markets on spots.

I know the rule about the ability to get LIL has nothing to do with the white area receiving of distants. But, I think after the novelty of distants wear off people start to cut back to just LIL.

[Marcus S]

Mike, I think you need to explain that to those that live in Hamilton, Brady, Big Springs, Texline and many many other rural subs that do not live anywhere near a DMA or within the spot foot print. Texas is a large country. :)

Tyler Texas, I am still !rolling on that one. Tyler is only 100 miles from Dallas, Waco is only 100 miles from Austin. Thousands of subs to be racked in from either? :rolleyes:

But let's drop 300k+ from Dallas. -oiveh- I know that E* has wanted to move the HD Demo Channel to 110/119. Now there's value.

[Mike123abc]

My point being that all the Largests DMAs are now covered in TX. The remaining DMAs are very small, and so the customer base starts to fade. I am in Wichita Falls DMA, we are #142. The current largest market in TX not served by LIL is El Paso at #101.

El Paso is 276k households or .256% of the US population.

Even if you add up all the households in the rest of TX it is less than 1250k households. Then you have to consider that probably 97+% of those are in a "A" or "B" signal grade area that would not qualify for distants on DBS (NOTE THIS IS NOT TALKING ABOUT C-BAND). Then you have to consider what % of them are Dish subscribers and take the Dallas locals.

Dish is not stupid, and no one could accuse them of not trying to sell something that people want to subscribe to. Dallas is losing distants subs fast and they are going to drop it. They had other markets they could have dropped first if Dallas was so popular.

They would not drop 300k subs at $5.99/month. It is more likely 10k subs or less that use Dish for Dallas distants.

Here check out: http://www.nielsenmedia.com/DMAs.html

[Marcus S]

Mike, the problem is E*'s distant policy. For example, you might live within 100 miles of C Springs, covered within spot, but do not qualify. You have to sub to Denver which is 200 miles away. The same is true in Texas. Outside of a 70 mile radius, your closest stations on cable, you do not qualify to receive them on small dish. From the generalized Nielson map it pin points specific rural cities by pop, it does not take into account a tally of all distant subs / cities just outside a given DMA. It is covered in the Nielson distant net sub Tally's by distant net city offered by Ku & C-Band. There are 200k+ distant net rural subs within Texas for Dallas alone. That's allot of people to cut off.

A closer example, would be Decatur, Alvord, and Bridgeport Texas. All within the Ft. Worth DMA, not offered, not within the Wichita Falls DMA, no longer qualify for Dallas. Also keep in mind that E*'s spot only cover's the I-35 corridor from San Antonio to Dallas. There are miles and miles of rural Texas East, West, & North of I-35 that are about to loose Dallas. Distant net subs in Brenham can't even get Houston, but they are within Houston's DMA.

[Mike123abc]

It is not E*'s policy it is what is in SHVIA. Congress changed the rules for DBS systems. Essentially for DBS you can only get the locals in your DMA unless you happen to live in a "white area". And to qualify for a white area you have to be unable to recieve a grade b picture with a 40' antenna in the center of the street you live on. Needless to say you can get very far away stations with a 40' high huge antenna. I can recieve a grade B signal from Dallas (about 120 miles away) with the antenna on top of my tall 2 story house. And I am much farther away from Dallas than Decatur, Bridgeport and Alvord (they are only 50 miles out of Ft Worth).

So, congress made it very hard to qualify for distants on DBS.

Now I do not have my DMA map with me tonight (I am not at my house). It is the 2002 map not updated with 2003 yet, but probably close enough to check which DMA the towns you described are in. DMAs are done by county.

Congress set the rules and E* actually appealed them and lost. It is not like they were not trying.

[Marcus S]

I totally agree, however there are the exceptions as I mentioned where distant subs are outside of the 70 mile DMA qual and cannot be served by the closest DMA 70+ miles even though within spot's foot print. That is E*'s policy, not SHVIA's and is -the-problem.

Mason, Brady, Hamilton, Iraan (Ira Ann) are excellent examples of this delima. There are at least 200 rural Texas cities that most have never heard of and have the same problem. So now they have to sub to LA, NY, Chicago? That makes perfect sense. :confused:

Dish retailers are very present in rural Texas. I expect that E* will receive a huge :blackeye: for this one.

[Hopper27]

You all talk like E* sat around and said, "oh the heck with Dallas, we don't care about those darn subs".

I highly doubt that happened...

In truth, they made a business decision based on what is best for E* overall. That some people are not happy about it doesn't mean it still isn't what's best for E*.

Jason

[Marcus S]

I think the problem, is that big E* marketing looks at summary warped stats to justify the decission. In reality, with a little more digging, the stats show a signficant number of rural subs about to be dropped. Business decission, yes, common sense, no.

Either way, I expect E* to hurt on this decission and ponder the reality of what just went wrong. I picked up several C-Band forums on this topic tonight. So many E* subs asking questions. Can I get Dallas, Austin, Houston, San Antonio? Rural subs do not complain much, they just switch.

[scooper]

Mike123ABC - you're not quite right on the definition in the details - I believe it is a DIPOLE 30 feet in the air, and 50% able to get a signal from the middle of the street.

However, if all these Texas folks were getting these as Distant Locals, they can still get Distant Locals - just not the Dallas ones any longer.

[boba]

For all you new DBS's out there Charlie and Jim started their business in Dallas TX. I'm sure if it wasn't a valid business decision Dallas would be up there. They do know something about TEXAS.