Retailer Chat - Aug 1 - Some details...

[Darkman]

Hi All,
Some details from Retailer Chat - Aug 1st:

- Hosts are Jim and "Bald-headed" Ahmed dude....

- talking about Green Color - money, Ahmed says - he might paint
some dollar bill on his bald head Next time - hehe

- Merger: Optimistic as ever about it...Benefits to everyone, internet, locals, more HDTV, etc

- Ahmed joking about this and that, examples:
Puts the "thing" on his head to look like a Wizard/Psychic...
Predicts some stuff to Jim..
Mentions horoscope...
Tells Jim he sees ( in his crystal ball i d assume :) ) strong vibes about certain employees getting substantial Raise...Expecially the one with A.A. initials
(Everyone laughs)

- E* will be launching Waco locals soon - maybe in next couple of weeks...The reason it is Waco - cuz, in the spot where it is, they either put something or do not put nothing at all. SO they figured: "better Waco then nothing"

- West palm beach - did add CBS affiliate...
Indianapollis will ad WB later in August ( home of Pacers )

- Fox West 2 (Sports Net) - the Launch - Sept 4, will be added
to AT100 and AT150 (in qualifying zip codes)

- ESPN game plan Rates/Details.....

- Interactive TV...Later this fall interactive Football
301s/501s being updated now..
Completion of updates:
301s - End of Summer
501s - Next Couple of weeks

- Officially Launched 508s (IRDs) - launched at 501 pricing..."2 remotes in the box" promotion is on too

- Showroom Promos - ch 988 - updated, with "New Talent" on - lol

- Great Deals, promos..Details for them..."No Forms to fill out"

- New Dish Latino promotional material available

- Answering some Emails and Phone calls questions...

- Retailer's Trip - they can win it...

- Aug 1st's Chat Recap is Aug 5th, 12:00 noon Eastern

- Next Retailer Chat - Aug 20, 12:00 noon Eastern

More or less - that is all She wrote....

[voyagerbob]

Originally posted by Darkman


- Officially Launched 508s (IRDs) - launched at 501 pricing..."2 remotes in the box" promotion is on too



This sucks for those of us that got 501's over the summer as we could have waited a while and gotten the 508 for the same price but such is the way of new technology. But great for everyone that waited.

[Marcus S]

I wonder why Waco and not San Antonio & Austin

[James_F]

FSW2 --- About time!

[Steve Mehs]

Originally posted by voyagerbob


This sucks for those of us that got 501's over the summer as we could have waited a while and gotten the 508 for the same price but such is the way of new technology. But great for everyone that waited.

What he said :(

[Darkman]

Originally posted by Marcus S
I wonder why Waco and not San Antonio & Austin

hmm..they spoke about that too...
actually they said - some ppl would wonder - why Waco, why not Baltimore or something..

but somehow Waco was in the right spot or something ( i am not that technical to understand them :( ) - where they either put Waco on, or put nothing at all..

go figure...lol

[Darkman]

James_F: Who is that girl under your NickName?
:)

[James_F]

Natalie Portman

Read this thread and it will make sense...

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6213

[Darkman]

haha - that is a long thread there...looks like you guys are having fun in it :)
but i am going to watch boxing now..so no time to read the whole thing :)

Who is Natalie Portman anyhow?
in brief...

[James_F]

Ever seen Star Wars Episode 1? She is the queen...

http://us.imdb.com/Name?Portman,+Natalie

[Darkman]

i see...
Nope - sorry - do not watch Star Wars..but if ever watched do not remember her...
She looks familiar though..must have seen on TV sometimes..

[SParker]

she's fire red hot too! :D

[Marcus S]

Originally posted by Darkman


hmm..they spoke about that too...
actually they said - some ppl would wonder - why Waco, why not Baltimore or something..

but somehow Waco was in the right spot or something ( i am not that technical to understand them :( ) - where they either put Waco on, or put nothing at all..

go figure...lol

I guess that is why I am confused. San Antonio and Houston fit nicely in the spot foot print. Austin and Waco questionable. However, Austin serves the greater hill country up to Brady and may fall outside the footprint. I am wondering what will go to spot once E*8 is up, also wondering foolishly if E* might offer additional distant nets past the top 6 offered today.

[Mike123abc]

This is probably because e8 has a spot that covers a big blob of central Texas with 3 transponders in it. The spot will probably have San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas non national stations in it. There is capacity for 30-36 stations in the spots:

Austin 6 stations
San Antonio 9 stations
Dallas 11 (rest on national)
Waco 8 stations

This would be about 34 stations.

Waco is the next largest town on that spot that is not already carried.

[MarkA]

What I don't get is since there's no spot near here, why can't they aim one of the unused spots up at western montana. I mean, I'm opposed to LIL, but I think the market I'm in would be super-easy to add on a spot. There's no spots for many miles around, there's unused spots on the sat IIRC, and it wouldn't take any extra bandwidth. While there is probably only a little over 100,000 people in the Missoula DMA (I don't know how to find out the exact number), it's an area without good cable coverage and with rotten cable companies. It would seem to be just the thing to bring in another ton of customers to DISH.

[Jacob S]

They are going strictly by numbers as in the dma number which goes by population of that dma. They are working their way down. I think there are a few exceptions though for some areas where they skip some where a spotbeam may already be at.

[MarkA]

But what I am thinking is while we are never going to be reached by numbers, Missoula, MT might be a good DMA to carry because of how likely the local market is to go for it - poor cable service (except IN Missoula itself, and hopefully the Kalispell area service will be improving soon now that Bresnan bought it), some areas have antenna reception problems, large land area covered, remote (a new spotbeam wouldn't be likely to interfere with adjacent spots).

[Karl Foster]

Originally posted by Jacob S
They are going strictly by numbers as in the dma number which goes by population of that dma. They are working their way down. I think there are a few exceptions though for some areas where they skip some where a spotbeam may already be at.

Bullcrap. If they were going strictly by DMA number and working their way down, why not Austin, New Orleans, Baltimore, Harrisburg, Memphis, or Las Vegas? Instead, they have added Burlington, Waco, Tucson. It is totally political in nature. Let's see, Senator Leahy's state, President Bush's home in Crawford's DMA (Waco), and Senator McCain's state. Seems more like merger posturing than true DMA numbers.

[Mike123abc]

Spots are valuable resources. They are planned to cover the largest markets at the moment. In this case Dallas/SA/Austin are 3 of the top 60 markets under the spot. There just happens to be a bit of room left over for Waco.

They do not have a spot on Montana at this time because it would cost way too much for the number of possible people there that could subscribe. The central texas spot covers about 8-9 million people (about 3.5 million households) compaired to 750k people in Montana.

The new echostar one has a ton of small spots on it to do the LIL coverage for the rest of the US markets. The is the satellite they claim they can only build with the resources of one company since it costs so much.

[Karl Foster]

Originally posted by Marcus S
I wonder why Waco and not San Antonio & Austin

Couldn't be because President Bush's home is in Crawford, within the Waco DMA?

[Marcus S]

Originally posted by Mike123abc
Spots are valuable resources. They are planned to cover the largest markets at the moment. In this case Dallas/SA/Austin are 3 of the top 60 markets under the spot. There just happens to be a bit of room left over for Waco.

They do not have a spot on Montana at this time because it would cost way too much for the number of possible people there that could subscribe. The central texas spot covers about 8-9 million people (about 3.5 million households) compaired to 750k people in Montana.

The new echostar one has a ton of small spots on it to do the LIL coverage for the rest of the US markets. The is the satellite they claim they can only build with the resources of one company since it costs so much.

Mike I am confused about your msg. Dallas will probably never go to spot, Austin/SA are not currently on spot, only Houston is currently. Did you mean to say that spots are better use for smaller rural markets like Waco?

[Mike123abc]

The main networks for Dallas (CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX et all) will not go to spot beam, they are part of distant nets packages. But, like most other large cities there are a bunch of local independant stations there, they have to be carried because of the must carry law. Right now they have some of these small stations on 148 and some of them on 110. There are 11 of these stations that echostar currently carries from the Dallas market. Most are on the 148 satellite.

When Echostar 8 goes up to 110 they can move these small stations from 148 to the spot beam. It makes more sense for them to use a spot beam for these because it saves them from having to install second dishes for whoever wants them for free.

Austin and San Antonio are currently already carried by Echostar on 110. These two markets are not one of the distants nets, so it is best for them to go on a spot beam. The spot beam allows them to use the same frequencies multiple times around the country delivering local channels.

Echostar 8 has a spot over a large section of Texas from Dallas to San Antonio. It will have capacity for 30-36 stations on it. They can put the non national Dallas stations, the San Antonio Stations, the Austin stations, and still have room left for Waco stations.

Spots are best used for all local stations. The satellite provider has a limit number of transponder frequencies assigned to it. By using spot beams they can use the same frequencies over different areas of the country to carry different stations. Due to the size of spots, and the fact that you have to space them out so that you do not interfere with yourself, they are able to use the same transponder in a spot 5-7 times.

Of course with all satellite resources serving larger markets is the priority. If they can point a beam at one area of the country and get 10 million people and point one at a different area and only get 1 million, it makes far more sense to point it at the 10million. The E*/D* merger is saying that they can take all the spot beams that both companies have up in the air and add a new satellite to fill in the gaps to cover the whole country with LIL. But, as it is now, they are essentially building 2 spots on every large market, one for E* and one for D*.

I guess that I should mention what limits spot beams:

1. Power on the satellite. Each transponder in a spot uses valuable power, the solar panels only provide so much power.

2. Antenna, each spot requires its own antenna that takes up space, and adds to the bulk and weight of the satellite.

3. uplink capacity - if you use the same transponder in 5 different spots, you have to send up 5 times the data for the transponder (one data stream for each spot).

[andrzejpw]

Originally posted by voyagerbob


This sucks for those of us that got 501's over the summer as we could have waited a while and gotten the 508 for the same price but such is the way of new technology. But great for everyone that waited.

what he said again. :( Got mine before summer.

But then, mine's been acting up. . . and I'm praying for a nice replacement. . . say, right before the warranty expires! ;)

[Jacob S]

You will probably get a 501 for a replacement, they wouldnt give me a 508 for mine. They said they only give likewise equipment. I think they keep some of the older models for a while just in case and those are refurbished units.

[Darkman]

Originally posted by karl_f


Couldn't be because President Bush's home is in Crawford, within the Waco DMA?

haha - sounds like this saying: "Musicians play the music to the Ones who are paying for songs"

[sbturner]

What about Fox Sports West 2 on Sports Pack? Will it be available there? What channel?

[Jacob S]

Well I am getting a NEW 501, talked to Mrs. Cartwright (spelling?) on the phone, shouldnt have to go through all of this agony to get a new 501 though when you had 4 other ones go bad.

[Darkman]

Tony - Did you find out yet what EPG range Waco locals might be?

[tivosnoopy]

I guess that is why I am confused. San Antonio and Houston fit nicely in the spot foot print. Austin and Waco questionable. However, Austin serves the greater hill country up to Brady and may fall outside the footprint. I am wondering what will go to spot once E*8 is up, also wondering foolishly if E* might offer additional distant nets past the top 6 offered today.I asume by E... you mean dtv.. I'm confused?`

[Darkman]

E* = Echostar (AKA. Dishnetwork)

D* = DirecTV...