Sadly, I am saying good bye to DirecTV after 14 years

Best of luck to you, Strejcek. We'll miss seeing you around here.

FIOS is not available here. Time Warner and uVerse are not what I want so I'll stay with DirecTV for the foreseeable future.

Drop in to say howdy when you can.

 

FIOS is a great value in the first year or so, then the piper comes. They have also announced they will no longer buildout any more areas. It's costing them enormous amounts of capital to run fiber all over the place and for only 2 million subscribers.

It's a wonderful product, great promotional pricing, but it only lasts for a little over a year.

As stated in this thread, D* isn't for everyone and neither are other services. They all have their pros and cons.

As for the comparison of subs added this year vs last, I wouldn't read too much into that. The ability to grab subscribers is often a result of deep discounting and profitability sacrifices. Look at all the subs E* has added the last few quarters while their financials have taken a hit in the process. It's all a matter of what the objective is, subs...margins...profitability....etc. Different times of a company's life will require different objectives to be met and sought after.

 

I and my cats wish you all the best, Strejcek. I'm glad you'll still be around from time to time....hopefully more than not. In any case, be well, my friend.

 

Last year they even stated they grew too fast in that quarter and it reduced cash on hand. That's when they stated they would be tightening credit and retention offers. Who knows what the actual goal was for gross subs for Q1 but I doubt they're too unhappy with the results. It's a happy medium of signing up more subs and keeping ones that you have. Too much of one or the other changes the cash flow rapidly. Dish had the same problem once they finally started gaining subs again. They had lost some for so long that it started to hurt their cash flow and the new sub acquisitions bit into that as well.


Even if DirecTV became static in numbers their stock would still go up each quarter. With the amount of cash flow they generate it's still a great stock. Unless something dramatic happened it's still a pretty bullet proof stock at this time.

 

That isn't savings, but it is money that would probably be spent the same way when (if?) the new TiVo box for DirecTV is released. It is also only a one time cost though assuming the boxes are kept indefinitely - i.e. keeping an HR20 versus upgrading to the latest and greatest the HR24.

In 2010 - next year and after is to be determined. The excuse for this year is they have already met the build-out goal, but is more likely due to market conditions.

 

No offense, but if I read one more post like this, I'm going to lose it. First off, yes, Verizon offers some very minor promos (free hardware for 6 months, e.g.) but that's not where the savings come in. Those prices that you get for service are NOT new customer deals. They're the savings you get for bundling. What does that mean? That means that an existing subscriber can, when their contract is about to expire, re-up with a new contract. Granted, you'll pay per the current slate of bundled offerings, but you get the same price as any new subscriber. Or you can stick with your service outside of contract. I know lots of people who do that, and in most cases (depending on your contract) Verizon doesn't really touch your price. They CAN - basically they're just not guaranteeing that price anymore (once your contract is up), which means that you would be subject to price increases, but I know lots of people who are no longer under contract paying exactly what they paid when they were under contract.

I've been a FiOS TV customer for 2 1/2 years, and I've been bundling in with them for just as long. Every time my contract is about to expire, I just re-up, and I get the current price (again, this is no different than what new subscribers would be paying). I'm not picking on you, but one mistake that folks on this forum make is to assume that the price deals you get with a service like FiOS are new subscriber promos. Aside from the little one-off deals (free hardware for 6 months... $60 gift card... free HBO for three months), they're not. They're discounts you get just for bundling... and they apply to both old and new customers.

 

Strejcek:
Just found out about you're movin' on. Best of luck to you and don't be a stranger

 

<mod note>Everyone has the right to rant every so often. This doesn't strike me as one...</mod note>

This is not your typical "good-bye" thread. This is a "good-bye friends" thread. Very different. You're not ax grinding, you're sayin' "I'll c'ya 'round."

As an aside, I don't mind the ax grinding thread, everyone has that right.

And I like "I'll c'ya 'round" threads. Gives a chance to say "thank you" for your being here and "good on ya" for a deal that fits your current situation better.

So Officer Strecjek, you are welcome anytime. :welcome_s

Cheers,
Tom

 

I could not agree with you more! I just switched to Comcast with the new Tivo. Like you, I had forgotten how great Tivo was! It really does make a big difference...

and it's cheaper!!!

Here's my experience...
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=176777

 

Ah, I see... the ones that will fall to my Phils in the fall. :lol:

 

I for one appreciate threads like this. I don't see it so much as a :down: to DirecTV as an :up: to replacing any overpriced pay TV with alternate solutions. I'm on the fence with this decision myself and reading others experiences with it are helpful for me.

 

JPL, they have a ton of new customer discounts that ease out over two years. I'm looking at about 5 different ones right now on my desk in various parts of the country. All there in the fine print.

 

Case in point this morning, DISH added 200K+ subs, but took a big hit in earnings. It comes down to what a company is attempting to do. There is a great cost in adding subscribers so just because a company adds less than the previous quarter, this doesn't necessarily mean a bad thing. In fact, many would argue quite to the contrary. Today DTV stock hit a 10 year high for example.

The other part of the paradigm here is the size of the base and the inertia it causes. The larger the base, churn will push down many gains. Even if churn is an industry leading 1.5%, if the base is huge then 1.5% is going to thwart many additional subscribers in net terms. In other words, it's a lot easier to have net growth when a base of subscribers is smaller than larger.

 

Anyone that is for putting the *slap* on HDTVSportsfan and that ugly Yankee avatar is more than welcome to stick around.

Good luck with the fios!

 

Like what? I JUST went through this myself, actually. I just moved to a new house, and Verizon treats relocations like new accounts. Meaning I just got resigned up with the equivalent packages that a new customer gets (I got treated like a new customer). The new customer promo deals that I got:

- Free hardware for 6 months
- $60 gift card
- Free HBO/Cinemax for 3 months

That's it. Everything else (bundled price) is the same as what it would have been if I renewed my contract at my old address instead.

 

I have Fios sitting side by side with DirecTV. (Moved from Comcast for internet and some TV into a Fios bundle and saved money on internet and phone enough to justify some HD TV from them.)

While Fios is a good alternative to DirecTV for many, it still doesn't quite cut it for the sports nut. The out of market sports falls flat. They have EI and CI and NBA but only one channel is in HD for each of them and they don't even have MASN2 in HD in MASN's home territory. And no NFL except for Red Zone.

As for the PQ, I don't see any improvement over what Comcast had (lots more HD than Comcast but only a small handful of non-premium HD channels over what DirecTV has).
I am watching DirecTV and Fios side by side and I do not see the great SD quality everyone claims. No where near the DVD quality that Strejcek mentioned in his first post. In fact, if you don't put the settings right, you wind up with mosquito noise (my first look at BBCA was far worse than what DirecTV does).

As for the DirecTV HD being soft...Well, I'd have to say that something is wrong with Strejcek's setup if he thinks that.

But, it makes sense for many. Especially right now if you are a movie nut. Fios has way more premium movie channels in HD (hopefully DirecTV will catch up with D12). There is no way I would go Fios only as long as I have DirecTV access.

 

I heard that! They don't know people here. "i'll miss you buddy" is nonsense!

 

Amen. I hate U-verse and all their stupid HD channels that D* doesn't have, like:

TruTV
Discovery Kids
Turner Classic Movies
HLN
E
ESPNU
G4
History International
Lifetime
Lifetime Movie
Outdoor
Shorts
Style
Travel
TV One
9 Cinemax
8 Encore
12 HBO
3 TMC
4 Sho