Charlie Chat.. Chat Tonight

[Scott Greczkowski]

Tonight at 9PM Eastern Time at 9PM Dish Network will hold this months Charlie Chat.

Tonight Chat should be an interesting one, with the FCC rejecting Charlie's Merger Plans what will Charlie talk about for an hour? Will he tell us about his "Plan B" or will he tell us that what you see on Dish Network now will be what you see on Dish Network years from now? (Im hoping he has a plan B) :D

As always DBSTalk.COM will have its Chat Room Open for our ever popular Charlie Chat... Chat! Come in and join us and talk in real time about the chat! People start getting to the Chat room at about 8:30 PM, it is usually a good time so come join us!

(A link to the chat room will be posted in the header of each page later tonight!)

You can view the Charlie Chat on Dish Network channel 101.

[Bob Haller]

Hey this is one thats cant miss! I expect a review of their NEW plan to get it approved. NRTC involved? Nationwide pricing, divest side slots, Multi player platform. ETC.

[jeffwtux]

He's already offered nationwide pricing from the beginning. That isn't going to cut it. How about nationwide promotions. People calling DishNetwork's 1800-333-3474 number to order a system for install in the middle of Kansas will be guaranteed the same deals as people who walk in a BestBuy or Blockbuster in suburbia. Right now you can get drastically better deal at retailers than from Dish or Direc itself. They can easily work around nationwide pricing by not offering any good promotions but adjusting their commissions to allow retailers to do it. Then they could still make more money off of the monopolized rural customers. He should promise to make a promotion guarantee. Kind of like the electronics store's price match guarantee. If you can find any deal anywhere from any licensed DIsh/Direct dealer(after the merger I'm assuming they will be one in the same) you must get the same deal by calling 1800-333-3474. That currently isn't the case. Not even close.

[jeffwtux]

I don't expect him to admit defeat tonight or ever. He'll just keep campaigning to the bitter end and deny defeat until they come up with a new strategy and nobody cares about hearing him admit defeat. As far as I'm concerned he admitted defeat 2 weeks ago when he signed the deal to get NHL center ice and finally offered a major professional sports package. The company talking points up until then were that they'd get sports packages from the merger. Why did this change?

[Mike123abc]

I would expect him not to mention the merger at all. Instead extolling 26 new cities of LIL, new HDTV, new receivers, etc.

Essentially I would expect him to try to press his current advantage in spots/slots until D-7s gets up.

He can read the writing on the wall, he has to keep pursuing the merger in the background to avoid defaulting on the agreement. But, no use sounding like the world has ended to your customers and make them give up hope for DBS. He will make it seem like DirectTV is about to go under now that the merger has not been approved, and boy are not you glad you have Dish now as magically all the benefits of the merger come your way (except LIL for all), just too bad the DirectTV crowd could not share in this miracle of modern technology that only Dish can provide.

[Geronimo]

I think he will talka bout the merger. No way to avoid it. He will tell us all it is not really dead but slowly he will talk about a non merger world. I doubt he will run down DirecTV at the same time he is aggressively pursuing the company.

The nationwide pricing promise never really answered the charge that there were fewer post mergere competiitors and the fact that Pegaus disagreed, and the lack of specificity in the "guarantee" made it irrelevant.

[jeffwtux]

Not talking about the merger would be ignoring the 1000 pound white elephant in the room. It's impossible. You can't expect people to forget you ever mentioned it when it was the centerpiece of every chat for a year. However, I maintain that he conceded defeat when he got the deal with NHL center ice.

[MikeW]

Giants v Cards @5, Niners v Seahawks @6. I'll wait 'til 9 and see the recap here instead.

[Richard King]

People calling DishNetwork's 1800-333-3474 number to order a system for install in the middle of Kansas will be guaranteed the same deals as people who walk in a BestBuy or Blockbuster in suburbia. Right now you can get drastically better deal at retailers than from Dish or Direc itself.
Price fixing is illegal. Pricing is determined by the retailer with a "suggested retail" set by Echostar. If they started selling direct at the lowest price of any of their retailers, it would take about a week to have no retailers left. It ain't gonna happen.

Not talking about the merger would be ignoring the 1000 pound white elephant in the room.I think that's actually a huge "rally monkey" in the corner of the room. :(

[Doug E]

Mike W, I agree with you. My 721's 2 tuners will both be totally in use with the PIP feature showing the Giants and 49r's. Charlie will simply have to wait.

[invaliduser88]

Charlie won't be able to use his default answer tonight.

"merger merger merger!"

What if he is sobbing like the guy at the end of Toy Story 2? :crying:

[Martyva]

Somebody should call and ask about Tennessee football.

[jrjcd]

...now, now marty...lol...

[Bob Haller]

My DP did the one minute bug. I missed the first 15 minutes. What was said..

[AkShark]

Will there be a summary of tonights chat??

[Marcus S]

There's one on dbsforums. It was so embarrasing I can't even admit to being an E* subscriber right now. Charlie would have come across better if he had just worn a yellow bird outfit and flapped his wings in a mateing ritual. I think he has been watching to much Discovery... He also blew off several phone calls that where accidentally disconnected.