pegasus queston

[juan ellitinez]

Since D* has decided to sever their exclusive relationship with Pegasus.. Pegasus has decided to file chapter 11 bankruptcy. Would it be possible for E* to buy out pegasus(at a fire sale price) and convert their customers to dish network? This is the type of tactic I would expect from Charlie just to rile up ole Rupert.

[jdspencer]

I guess anything is possible. But, I doubt it would happen, since Pegasus customers have DirecTV receivers of all sorts. The customers would have to agree to convert to Dish. Otherwise, they'd just go over to DirecTV.

[MarkA]

"The customers would have to agree to convert to Dish. Otherwise, they'd just go over to DirecTV."

Remember most Pegasus receivers are owned by Pegasus. DISH would be buying the receivers too. So the customers would need a new receiver one way or another - I'm sure you could convince many to do a swap out for DISH equipment rather than lose service (just send them all a "thanks to Pegasus' new owners you need to schedule a time to have your satellite equipment replaced to avoid losing service" letter...)

[paulh]

Yep, I remember in the Primestar conversion days (to D*) hearing about E* dealers misrepresent themselvs to customers, claiming that they needed to switch to them to avoid loosing all service. Primestar had to add an info channel saying to avoid those shady characters, or that is how it sounded to me.

[Earl Zuberbelt]

Since D* has decided to sever their exclusive relationship with Pegasus.. Pegasus has decided to file chapter 11 bankruptcy. Would it be possible for E* to buy out pegasus(at a fire sale price) and convert their customers to dish network? This is the type of tactic I would expect from Charlie just to rile up ole Rupert.

Why buy the company? Just offer special deals to existing Pegasus customers to switch.

Much easier, and cheaper.

-Earl
Yankee born Southern bred and I took economics in school.

[SamC]

Look for E* (via its dealers) to do just what it did with Primestar.

As to Pegasus, this is not a Ch 7 bankruptcy, where they reduce everything to cash. Its one of those phony "debtor in posession" bankruptcies, where all that happens is that the creditors get shafted and everything goes on as before.

Now could E* buy the customer lists from Pega-sux? Sure. But these peope are not slaves and the reverse-churn rate would be high. If a person lives in Pega-sux land and has DirecTV, you can bet they DO NOT want E*, otherwise they would not have put up with Pega-sux in the first place. Yes E* could buy the list, but the cash would go to the creditors. Creditor #1 is, drumroll please, DirecTV.