DirecTV, falling behind?

[SuperJack]

I have noticed that Dish Network is now serving 137 local markets with 4 more about to be activated during July. Quite likely, they will serve over 150 markets by the end of the summer. Why has D* been so much slower rolling out locals? It doesn't matter to me, D* has provided locals in my market (Columbia, SC) for over a year. But I have friends and family who don't yet have their locals from D* and E* is now providing them. Will this not hurt D* market share in areas where they are so far behind E*? I honestly believe that D* has an overall better product, but they are sure falling behind in providing locals. Maybe this is why E* is adding more subscribers.

[Mark Holtz]

The problem is mainly capacity, capacity, and oh yeah, capacity. Some of Dish Networks new markets have been using the "Superdish" which uses the Ka-band, and is a bit harder to install. DirecTV is working on getting approvals for use of a satellite at the 72.5 location to deliver more locals.

[bonscott87]

Because they haven't had the bandwidth. The new 7S satellite gave them that bandwidth and they linked up 40+ more markets in June alone.

And they aren't "so far behind" E* in locals coverage at all. Might want to check out the facts. DirecTV is in nearly 110 markets now, around 130 once 72.5 approval is granted. After these 130 you are now talking about very small cities or towns so getting to them isn't as urgent. But having said that, what they don't get done this year they will get added next year with 8 and 9S. I'd expect by the end of next year they will be in all 210 markets.

THEN the HD locals will start going up late 2005 or 2006 on the Spaceway sats. E* can't do that at all.

So give it time and DirecTV will be far beyond Dish within 2 years unless Charlie pulls something out of his hat.

[Jasonbp]

From my very bad math, I came up with 146 local markets for E* and 116 for D*. I wouldn't calll a difference of 30 markets falling behind.

If you asked this question last month, I would have said they were behind, but seeing they just added all of those new markets. No.

I would think when they get the 72.5 up and running, the markets will start popping up more yet.

[Adam Richey]

bonscott, Dish seems to be lining up SEVERAL satellite launches and satellite leases for space as well. If I've read correctly about their upcoming satellites and new leased space, Dish could EASILY have all 210 DMA's, HD regional sports channels, AND a good set of HD locals. That is also taking into account solving the 2 dish issue.

[Mike123abc]

Dish will probably have the capacity by the summer of next year to do all 210 markets with all but the smallest ones on Dish500. They are launching a new spot beam satellite (Echostar X to 110) that will have 45+ spots on it. This will allow must of the current SuperDish markets to move to Dish500, then they could put even smaller markets on SuperDish since they will have a bunch of free space from the ones that went to 110. Dish has already announced on retailer chat that they will have more than 150 markets by the end of next month. They could probably add another 30 markets by the end of the year if they really wanted to do so. They fired up 148 and can put a bunch of locals on that satellite for areas west of the Mississippi.

DIRECTV is not sitting around idle either, they are working on both more markets and HD locals. HD locals is more of an end of 2006 to 2007 thing for most markets. Right now they are waiting on FCC approval to broadcast from a Canadian satellite slot on a 3 year (or is 5?) temporary lease. They have more DBS satellites planned for launch to help bring them up to almost all 210 markets in a couple years.

Dish has not said anything about HD locals, but they are lining up a lot of satellite capacity (only way people know is that it is disclosed in their SEC quarterly reports). By the end of 2006 Dish could have 6 satellites worth of capacity sitting around. They have contracted for building and launching 4 these satellites already. They will have 4 Ku-FSS (superdish) satellites, and up to 3 Ku-DBS satellites (these are waiting on the FCC to rule about new spacing rules of DBS satellites). Plus Dish has 3 slots worth of Ka band satellites to build for something. In my personal opinion I think Dish is just being quite waiting to see what DIRECTV does.

DIRECTV seems to be going all out on a high tech solution, but they really do not have much of a choice since they had already invested TONS of money in the spaceway satellites, and decided to kill off the satellite internet plans. So, they were stuck with the satellites and have to do something. So, they made some last minute changes to the satellites that will hopefully allow them to do LIL HD. It will be a big experiment. They will probably require all new hardware (dishes, lnbs, switches AND HD recievers). DIRECTV pretty much has no choice but to launch 2 of these satellites (or just flush the money down the drain), the third one will be built if the first one works well.

Dish looks like for the moment they will be going more low tech, just lining up a ton of satellies and different markets will have to have different dishes. Kind of like Dish500, SuperDish 121, and SuperDish 105, except they will probably have 5 or 6 different dishes.

Both companies appear to be working on LIL HD. Neither company is going to let the other company get a huge advantage on it. If VOOM were to suddenly become a threat they would both react and come up with large HD lineups.

[Mike D-CO5]

I sure hope you are right with your predictions. I would love to have all hd locals with Dish someday. OF course I am still waiting for my sd locals to be uplinked for my area. I guess next year will be the year for Southeast Texas. We are like the only area left in the right hand corner of Texas that isn't on the satellite yet. The real question is when are they going to start converting all the national cable channels to true hd ? And of course will they be able to fit them all in the existing satellite structure without using like 10 satellites.:sure:

[Jacob S]

I am guessing that Dish Network is trying to launch as many local markets as possible for DirecTv launches those markets and gets LIL HD markets up. They are probably doing that because they know once DirecTv launches them that they will not be able to add the number of customers that they are now.

I am going to guess that we will find that DirecTv's subscribers acquisitions will start rising as Dish's will start dropping in the future because of this among other things.

[SamC]

Remember that the last 30 markets are not markets at all. Just a station or two, with local cable suplementing that offering with a nearby larger city.

Also remember that DirecTV will have, assuming that its 72 plan works and it is able to get it done compentently (Memo: anybody who had anything to do with 7S should not be assigned to this project) 92% of the country. The cost of covering 8% of the country is just not worth it.

And both providers know what having locals does to their penetration rate. I suspect that its not that big a deal.

[Mike123abc]

And both providers know what having locals does to their penetration rate. I suspect that its not that big a deal.

They must think it is a big deal, since they are launching every market they have capacity to launch ahead of anything else like HDTV. Dish has had 121 up since last year. They had a choice, they could have filled the satellite with HDTV and internation channels, the satellite covers all the US (including AK and HI) and has good power. But, instead they mostly filled it with LIL.

They have a nice master formula somewhere that tells them when they add locals they can expect X number of new customers to sign up and Y number of existing subs will add locals.

[william04]

i personally think local channels are a waste of money and should be included in the basic package not be a bogus 4.99 fee for them..

i dont know if anyone else has noticed but where i live when the SAT goes out so do my locals since its carried by DBS..

i personally think MAJOR loacl channels are a waste of precious bandwidth..we need more PREMIUM channels or atleast carry them all...

the only way i see fit to get ALL the local channels you can get is with a proper antenna..some excellent ones can be had at spectravox.com anyway..

ive seen people get channels 80 miles away that directv doesnt even carry..so there's no reason to have them on DBS anyway..

[jsheldon]

.....so there's no reason to have them on DBS anyway..

I gather that you don't own a DVR. (If you did I wouldn't think you'd believe that.) ;-)

Jerry

[Mike123abc]

i personally think local channels are a waste of money and should be included in the basic package not be a bogus 4.99 fee for them..

i dont know if anyone else has noticed but where i live when the SAT goes out so do my locals since its carried by DBS..

i personally think MAJOR loacl channels are a waste of precious bandwidth..we need more PREMIUM channels or atleast carry them all...

the only way i see fit to get ALL the local channels you can get is with a proper antenna..some excellent ones can be had at spectravox.com anyway..

ive seen people get channels 80 miles away that directv doesnt even carry..so there's no reason to have them on DBS anyway..


The satellite companies have found that there is a large percentage of people that will NEVER become DBS subscribers without local channels being available. A lot of people simply do not want an antenna on their roof no matter how many channels they could get with it.

It is not a waste of bandwidth if they pay for themselves with new subscribers. If they did not bring in the subscribers Dish/DIRECTV would have ceased providing locals a long time ago, they have gone through considerable expense to get the locals...

[Chris Freeland]

I agree with both jsheldon and Mike123abc plus I have an outside vhf/uhf combo yogi style antenna and can only receive some of my locals ota, mostly the vhf ones, I have been told that with a dedicated uhf I could probably receive the rest but I do not want the hastle and extra expense. I do not currently have a DVR but hope to eventually, plus having the local program info in my epg and seamless shifting back and forth is appealing to me, I think this is the case with the majority of DBS subs and potential subs out their.

[Link]

I know people who are waiting on local channels to launch on satellite to dump cable but until then cable is the only way they can get local stations.

As far as Directv goes, I think they've always been behind. They hardly ever launch new regular channels for subscribers and still after all these years offer no WB or UPN to subscribers that can't receive them.

[william04]

I gather that you don't own a DVR. (If you did I wouldn't think you'd believe that.) ;-)

Jerry

i hardly ever watch over the air television..anyway why the hell would i want that crap on my tivo to begin with???

i only use my antenna to watch the news channel which isnt even carried by directv nor dish anyway..

i also just thought i'd mention directv supposedly locals are only maybe.

upn""fox""cbs""nbc""pbs""

while they dont carry the sports man channels or a whole slew of other local channels i can get with my antenna thats not posible with directv...

[Marcus S]

I belive E* is going to have to move all those side sat locals to their primary 110/119 or super dish location, so that will put a crimp in future local net expansion plans.

[Geronimo]

What news channel are you getting with your antenna? What is a sports man channel?

[Jacob S]

Many people want their locals because they have poor or not local reception. Others like the fact that they can get their local channels all on the receiver. In addition you have the DVR functionality for locals as well when they get added. These are the reasons why I like having the locals on satellite. Many people did not have an option before to receive their locals until it got added to their satellite service.

[gglockner]

the only way i see fit to get ALL the local channels you can get is with a proper antenna..some excellent ones can be had at spectravox.com anyway..

Not always an option. We have a professionally mounted Channel Master aerial on our home. Due to distance and mountains, we cannot get NBC and some of the alternate PBS stations. Unless you live in a flat region like Florida or the midwest, terrain can be a problem with receiving locals.

[qwas12]

i just wish that D* would add thier own WB. I really miss it. and if they did do this would it be my local WB

[Jacob S]

That is one advantage that Dish has had over DirecTv all along, that they offer the SuperStations package (3 WB's and 2 UPN's) to most subscribers. I remember when this was included in the old AT50/60 package about 6-7 years ago that was like $26.99 before they had to take the channels out and charge extra for them. The cheapest package at that time did not have them which was AT40 at $19.99 a month.

[JohnH]

EchoStar 9 has Ka band capacity.
AMC 15 has 12 Ka Band Spotbeams. All of this capacity is slated for EchoStar use and should be available for development in the late September of this year time frame.

Mark, the SuperDISH does not use Ka band. It uses Ku-FSS in addition to Ku-DBS.

[JohnH]

Much of the capacity of E* 10 is to backup existing operations. Additional services may not be as much as you might expect.

[Jacob S]

Why dont they just put the junk channels (or less favorable ones) on the backup satellite(s)? I suppose if it cannot be received by a Dish300 or Dish500 dish then that would never happen.