[slice1900]

That depends on whether DIRECTV 8 (17 years, 119W) and DIRECTV 9S (almost 16 years, 101W) hold out until they finally close the door on Ku-only receivers. There are well upwards of 700 SD LIL channels currently being carried by DIRECTV 8 and DIRECTV 9S.

DIRECTV 16 surely can't handle the entirety of 101W by itself.

T16 can easily handle all of 101 itself. It is currently handling 26 transponders, it can handle the other 6 when they drop the spot beams.

If they lose a satellite delivering MPEG2 SD locals they won't care. They have been encouraging people to upgrade to for years, and would have dropped it entirely if not for a couple of specialty users (primarily aircraft, which don't use the MPEG2 SD spot beams so they wouldn't miss it) but the small number of residential and commercial customers still using SD only hardware? When they call and tell Directv "I lost my locals" Directv will tell them how they can upgrade to HD.

I don't know about D9S, but D8 has fuel life until 2034.

 

[harsh]

T16 can easily handle all of 101 itself. It is currently handling 26 transponders, it can handle the other 6 when they drop the spot beams.

DIRECTV 16 has only 30 Ku CONUS transponders. I'm not seeing where DIRECTV 16 has any spot beam capacity. The spot beam load is being handled by DIRECTV 9S and it consists of 19 spot beams and that can't be handled by four CONUS transponders.

If they lose a satellite delivering MPEG2 SD locals they won't care.

These are some of the most hard core DIRECTV customers. It may also represent a big blow to many of the RV and marine customers that depend on Ku beamwidth.

 

[jsap]

I have used DirecTV streams DVR and it's VERY good. I liked that it skipped 15 seconds rather than 30 which made it much finer to stop at points of the show. It was VERY close in functionality to the HRxx boxes. So yes, the tech is getting better.

Glad to hear that, I'm just going by what I have used personally, of course, and in the end, all I am hoping for is to be able to enjoy the games as much as I do now.

Honestly we know very little of how it's going to work or how much it's going to cost. We don't even know who's going to provide the service. I have no problem with streaming because that's just the way things are going. You'll lose some functionality, but you might gain some as well, and certainly it will be available to a larger base.

This is really the gist of all of this - we don't know much yet, and some of us are just more skeptical of what we are going to end up with than others, but I hope I'm wrong and I love the new service more!

 

[dtv757]

...
I don't look in the 700's for any local games, ...

Any luck did ch 733 work ?
Its definitely NBC SN Philly


Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

[James Long]

The problem is that with the loss of every satellite subscriber, the costs that have to be borne by the rest of the subscribers goes up.

The most expensive part of the monthly subscription is the payment passed on to the content providers. Only the overhead has to be spread out over less subscribers. While there are big ticket investments, those costs are spread out over millions of subscribers over dozens of years. Streaming faces the problem of every new subscriber costing the company MORE in overhead. Millions of individual streams to subscriber devices add up. As the streamer grows they must add additional infrastructure to deliver those streams. A larger portion of the subscription goes toward getting that content out the door.

There is simply no way to get around it and that is why even the most basic subscribers are having to pay for their equipment upgrades, additional montly fees, and are doling out well over $100/month for DBS service when streaming competitors are offering the same service for 1/2 the cost or less.

People paying half are not getting the same service. You are not going to find a $50 service that provides every channel and all the content of a $100 satellite service. There will be something missing from the $50 service.

And then the subscriber will need to pay for their own Internet to view the streaming service. Sure, they may subscribe to the same data plans and home Internet without subscribing to a streamer but to pretend that there is no cost is deceptive.

As subscribers move from traditional MVPDs to streaming vMVPDs or non MVPD versions of streaming the cost of content will follow the subscribers. If one wants the content one needs to pay, regardless of the delivery method.

 

[jsap]

Any luck did ch 733 work ?
Its definitely NBC SN Philly


Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

No, when I try 733, it says that it is blacked out.

 

[compnurd]

Aren't Fox and ESPN still 720p?

They are 1080P on there respective streaming apps

 

[slice1900]

DIRECTV 16 has only 30 Ku CONUS transponders. I'm not seeing where DIRECTV 16 has any spot beam capacity. The spot beam load is being handled by DIRECTV 9S and it consists of 19 spot beams and that can't be handled by four CONUS transponders.

These are some of the most hard core DIRECTV customers. It may also represent a big blow to many of the RV and marine customers that depend on Ku beamwidth.

No it has 32. Why do you always post stuff you are completely uninformed about? Why do you post about Directv at all, when you have never been a customer and know nothing about them?

Yes T16 has no spotbeams, it needs none.

 

[primerisk]

People paying half are not getting the same service. You are not going to find a $50 service that provides every channel and all the content of a $100 satellite service. There will be something missing from the $50 service.

How many of those 250+ channels are you actually watching? The way DTV sets up their tiers you have to go to Ultimate to get it all. Once they add on all of the fees for DVR, Advanced Receiver, Regional Sports, etc you are looking at $175/month for one TV. Have more TVs? Start racking up the additional charges. And god forbid if you have been a long time subscriber with a 5 or 6 TVs and you need to upgrade your old HR21-100s. Have an extra $2k laying around to pay for equipment that you lease? Oh, and after that they want to have you pay an additional $9/month to protect the equipment that you don't own and you pay to lease just in case it fails. SMH Tack on a couple premium channels at you're over $200 and locked into a 2 year contract. Sure, you can get DTV for $100/month, but you won't be getting very much. Sure, they call it 160+ channels, but geez 1/2 of them are music channels and 1/4 of them are spanish.

I challenge you. Write down every show you've watched this year and which service it was on. How many unique services did you get? Was is 300? 200? 100? 50? I'll bet it is less than 25. It's that set that you actually watch that you should be paying for, not the other 225+.

YouTubeTV gives you 85+ channels for $65
Hulu Live TV gives you 75+ for $70

Something missing? Pay for it's stream separately for $4-$8/month. Premiums cost the same or less than DTV, especially if you bundle.

75% of what I watch is on Hulu, Netflix, and Broadcast for locals, so I have no need for YouTubeTV or Hulu Live. The rest is on Prime, Showtime, and HBOMax which costs me a whopping $37/month (Yeah, throwing in the $12/month for Amazon Prime through I'd pay for Prime if their streaming service didn't exist). Netflix is free as I have TMobile service and Hulu is $13 (no ad plan). $50/month and there isn't a show or service I want to watch that isn't available. Heck, if you want to do the numbers game, I receive 130+ channels on my antenna and have a Amazon Replay DVR to hoover it all up and I don't have to pay an additional $10/month for the privilege.

And then the subscriber will need to pay for their own Internet to view the streaming service. Sure, they may subscribe to the same data plans and home Internet without subscribing to a streamer but to pretend that there is no cost is deceptive.

Are you trying to tell me that you don't pay for internet because you have DTV? You have internet and pay for it anyway, so it is a sunk cost either way. Why not actually get more value out of the service you are already paying for? But I'll play. I have 600mbps service for $45 all-in with taxes. Add that to my streaming costs and we're at $95/month plus about $5 in taxes on the streaming services. $100/month and I want for nothing. What is your bill total with DTV and Internet service?

On top of that, I don't pay for my premiums all year. When a series I like is over and nothing much else is on, I just cancel with a couple clicks instead of fighting with a CSR for 30 minutes on the phone and then resubscribe, generally with a "come back for 1/2 price for 3 months" when I do. I had Starz for $0.99/month for 18 months because every time I went to cancel after the 3 months for $0.99 they extended the offer to get me to stay. Took my wife that long to plow through the 77 seasons of Outlander and Godz. I cancelled and now I get an e-mail every week asking me to come back for $0.99 and I will once there is something I want to watch. Have a single show, say Better Call Saul on AMC, pay for the service for a couple months at $9 or buy the whole season on Amazon for $9.99 and watch it whenever you want. Want to check out Ted Lasso, well you can't get it on DTV, so you'll pay $5/month for AppleTV+ and need to buy a box to stream it on since DTV won't allow the service on their box.

As subscribers move from traditional MVPDs to streaming vMVPDs or non MVPD versions of streaming the cost of content will follow the subscribers. If one wants the content one needs to pay, regardless of the delivery method.

Yup, they just don't have to pay $250/month to watch 10% of the services they pay for.

TL;DR Version: Streaming allows you to watch anything you want and pay for it al a carte for a lot less. The only thing you couldn't get on streaming was NST, but soon you will.

 

[James Long]

YouTubeTV gives you 85+ channels for $65
Hulu Live TV gives you 75+ for $70

Neither of those are the $100 in content for $50 claim that you made in your previous post.

Yup, they just don't have to pay $250/month to watch 10% of the services they pay for.

And now you are doubling down by further inflating the cost of satellite. When you are ready to calm down and have a rational (less emotional) conversation we can get into the details.

TL;DR Version: Streaming allows you to watch anything you want and pay for it al a carte for a lot less.

Nice claim. Not 100% true, but nice claim. The claim only works if one limits "anything you want" to whatever is available via streaming AND limit "anything you want" to less than a full subscription. One can narrowly define a few content channels and scream from the mountaintops that streaming is cheaper within that narrow definition.

A la carte will be the death of low priced TV. Right now content providers are surviving on their "deliver our channels to 80 million MVPD subscribers every month whether they watch or not" marketing plan. When people decide that they don't want to pay $10 per RSN or $20 for the ESPN channels and their MVPD lets them opt out the customers who want that content will be paying more. $20 for an a la carte RSN? $30 for the ESPN channels. It will only be cheaper if one chooses not to subscribe.

A la carte will allow people to choose to not subscribe. Hopefully the content channel can survive on less subscribers paying more than the current "everyone pays a share" plan. And hopefully none of the content channels that die are ones that you or I want to watch.

 

[Grafixguy]

Any luck did ch 733 work ?
Its definitely NBC SN Philly


Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

I'm in South Jersey, just outside of Philly. When we moved here from North Jersey, I was pleasantly surprised to find MSG and MSG+ as part of the package, but as already pointed out, any Sixer, Flyer or Philly game is blacked out on the sports packages in the 700s but MSG is never blacked out so if the Devils are playing the Flyers, the game is available.

The are other ways around it, too, such as using the NBC Sports app with a Comcast or Fios login. Why these blackouts are still a thing when getting around them is no more than an annoyance is really beyond me.

 

[Steveknj]

I'm in South Jersey, just outside of Philly. When we moved here from North Jersey, I was pleasantly surprised to find MSG and MSG+ as part of the package, but as already pointed out, any Sixer, Flyer or Philly game is blacked out on the sports packages in the 700s but MSG is never blacked out so if the Devils are playing the Flyers, the game is available.

The are other ways around it, too, such as using the NBC Sports app with a Comcast or Fios login. Why these blackouts are still a thing when getting around them is no more than an annoyance is really beyond me.

This is an issue with the various leagues, not with any one service, at least normally. I'm in Central Jersey and we are in the NY Demo, but I think it's kind of strange how they determine these demos. Princeton, which I think of as South Jersey, is in the NY Demo as well (I have family living there). I'm not sure where the cutoff is for Philly territory. I've heard stories about areas of the Midwest (Iowa perhaps) where, for various sports the area is claimed by both the St Louis and Chicago Demos which creates all kinds of confusion.

 

[b4pjoe]

Places in the midwest claim STL, both Chicago teams, the Brewers, The Twins and KC.

 

[schmave1]

This is an issue with the various leagues, not with any one service, at least normally. I'm in Central Jersey and we are in the NY Demo, but I think it's kind of strange how they determine these demos. Princeton, which I think of as South Jersey, is in the NY Demo as well (I have family living there). I'm not sure where the cutoff is for Philly territory. I've heard stories about areas of the Midwest (Iowa perhaps) where, for various sports the area is claimed by both the St Louis and Chicago Demos which creates all kinds of confusion.

Yep, that's Iowa, which as b4pjoe mentioned the Cubs, White Sox, Cardinals, Brewers, Royals and Twins all claim as their TV territory.
I've wondered about the NY-Philadelphia cutoffs in New Jersey as well. It has always seemed like the New York teams can be seen a little farther south than their DMA, and vice-versa for the Philly teams to the north. At the very least, areas on the edges of both DMAs can get the other city's stations on cable.

 

[wmb]

A la carte will be the death of low priced TV.

When was TV ever low priced?

Just because you didn’t have to pay out-of-pocket for over-the-air broadcast doesn’t mean someone didn’t pay the cost. How do you think the OTA networks are going to pay the $billions for their rights to broadcast NFL games? Advertising.

Following in that tradition, streaming services are starting to be ad supported. Netflix is partnering with Microsoft for an ad supported version of their platform. It wouldn’t surprise me if that didn’t work both ways… Microsoft delivers targeted in-program ads and uses viewing data to target online ads.

Other streamers are following suit. Google/YouTube are financed by ads. Amazon… Disney… All of these online platforms make huge piles of money from advertising.

You also assume that the streaming service prices are elastic. They aren’t, and providers know that. They also can model profit margins based on prices. They know what people are willing to pay for their various TV services and what they can get away with charging for their service. That also allows them to budget for content.

BTW, doesn’t DirecTV track what people watch? My recollection was that they can report viewing statistics back to Nielsen, right? I assume that’s not the only way they use that data…

You also seem to have this notion that people are unaware of the added cost of one package vs. another and choose to not upgrade to a package containing a desired channel because of this cost. People do that all the time.

Related to Sunday Ticket, it would definitely be a value add for any of these streaming services, both from the consumer and ad provider point of view. Something that a 2 million and shrinking subscriber satellite-based Sunday Ticket couldn’t ever hope to effectively monetize.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Steveknj]

Yep, that's Iowa, which as b4pjoe mentioned the Cubs, White Sox, Cardinals, Brewers, Royals and Twins all claim as their TV territory.
I've wondered about the NY-Philadelphia cutoffs in New Jersey as well. It has always seemed like the New York teams can be seen a little farther south than their DMA, and vice-versa for the Philly teams to the north. At the very least, areas on the edges of both DMAs can get the other city's stations on cable.

And what's weird about it, is where I live, with a cheap indoor antenna, I can get both NY and Philly channels (but not all of either). So not quite in either demo or both. I think so much of it is arbitrary. Have they surveyed the folks who live there? I doubt it.

 

[Steveknj]

When was TV ever low priced?

Just because you didn’t have to pay out-of-pocket for over-the-air broadcast doesn’t mean someone didn’t pay the cost. How do you think the OTA networks are going to pay the $billions for their rights to broadcast NFL games? Advertising.

Following in that tradition, streaming services are starting to be ad supported. Netflix is partnering with Microsoft for an ad supported version of their platform. It wouldn’t surprise me if that didn’t work both ways… Microsoft delivers targeted in-program ads and uses viewing data to target online ads.

Other streamers are following suit. Google/YouTube are financed by ads. Amazon… Disney… All of these online platforms make huge piles of money from advertising.

You also assume that the streaming service prices are elastic. They aren’t, and providers know that. They also can model profit margins based on prices. They know what people are willing to pay for their various TV services and what they can get away with charging for their service. That also allows them to budget for content.

BTW, doesn’t DirecTV track what people watch? My recollection was that they can report viewing statistics back to Nielsen, right? I assume that’s not the only way they use that data…

You also seem to have this notion that people are unaware of the added cost of one package vs. another and choose to not upgrade to a package containing a desired channel because of this cost. People do that all the time.

Related to Sunday Ticket, it would definitely be a value add for any of these streaming services, both from the consumer and ad provider point of view. Something that a 2 million and shrinking subscriber satellite-based Sunday Ticket couldn’t ever hope to effectively monetize.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You've completely missed his point. Anyone who's watched TV for the last 70 years knows how advertising is the life blood of TV (not to mention ANY kind of media). Nobody is disputing that. The argument for a la carte pricing is that it's cheaper to bundle 5 channels together (even though some are low viewership) than it is to charge for each, thus if everything is a la carte, they you will pay more for channel. Imagine if you had to pay separately for TBS, AMC, USA, your locals, ESPN, and other popular channels. That would add up. You might pay for JUST those channels you want, but you'd end up paying the same for say 20 channels as you would for 85 (just throwing out arbitrary numbers). So even though you might want to just watch TBS, you will also get a few channels you don't normally watch. Would you rather pay $5 for each of those 20 channels or get those 20 channels plus 60 more you may only occasionally watch for the same cost (and perhaps discover an obscure channel you might enjoy that you wouldn't pay for otherwise)?

We are even seeing it play out somewhat in the streaming world. Disney bundles it's three major channels for less than paying for all three separately (and perhaps the same or less than paying for TWO of them separately). We'll see other forms of bundling just like that. Why? Because it gets you to watch content you might not (and if it includes advertising even better), and it is cheaper from a logistic standpoint to offer it that way.

If you go strictly a la carte, a few things will happen:
1) You'll pay more per channel and get less content
2) You'll get less channels because the channel provider might decide that they don't have enough subs for a channel and just end it, and that channel might be one YOU watch. For example perhaps you watch Discover Channel and History Channel and Discovery Networks which own both, decides that not enough people are watching History so they disband it. Now you lose a channel you enjoyed. if they were bundled, you'd still get both.
3) You'll get much more consolidation of content, so not as many opportunities to watch a show because now 3 channels worth of content will be on only one channel.

For you a la carte lovers, think about how that's working with streaming services (which many right now are a la carte). You have to shell out $10 per service to get all of the content you want (yeah, you can play the monthly game of picking and choosing but not everybody does that). Eventually you wind paying the same as cable/sate for ONLY what you want, but now there's a service that has THIS show, or another that has THAT show, so you sub to more and more services, and it costs a fortune to watch all that stuff. That's where something like what Disney is doing by bundling help lower the cost. Discovery will most likely bundle their streaming content as well once they figure out their model after buying Warner.

 

[jsap]

You've completely missed his point. Anyone who's watched TV for the last 70 years knows how advertising is the life blood of TV (not to mention ANY kind of media). Nobody is disputing that. The argument for a la carte pricing is that it's cheaper to bundle 5 channels together (even though some are low viewership) than it is to charge for each, thus if everything is a la carte, they you will pay more for channel. Imagine if you had to pay separately for TBS, AMC, USA, your locals, ESPN, and other popular channels. That would add up. You might pay for JUST those channels you want, but you'd end up paying the same for say 20 channels as you would for 85 (just throwing out arbitrary numbers). So even though you might want to just watch TBS, you will also get a few channels you don't normally watch. Would you rather pay $5 for each of those 20 channels or get those 20 channels plus 60 more you may only occasionally watch for the same cost (and perhaps discover an obscure channel you might enjoy that you wouldn't pay for otherwise)?

We are even seeing it play out somewhat in the streaming world. Disney bundles it's three major channels for less than paying for all three separately (and perhaps the same or less than paying for TWO of them separately). We'll see other forms of bundling just like that. Why? Because it gets you to watch content you might not (and if it includes advertising even better), and it is cheaper from a logistic standpoint to offer it that way.

If you go strictly a la carte, a few things will happen:
1) You'll pay more per channel and get less content
2) You'll get less channels because the channel provider might decide that they don't have enough subs for a channel and just end it, and that channel might be one YOU watch. For example perhaps you watch Discover Channel and History Channel and Discovery Networks which own both, decides that not enough people are watching History so they disband it. Now you lose a channel you enjoyed. if they were bundled, you'd still get both.
3) You'll get much more consolidation of content, so not as many opportunities to watch a show because now 3 channels worth of content will be on only one channel.

For you a la carte lovers, think about how that's working with streaming services (which many right now are a la carte). You have to shell out $10 per service to get all of the content you want (yeah, you can play the monthly game of picking and choosing but not everybody does that). Eventually you wind paying the same as cable/sate for ONLY what you want, but now there's a service that has THIS show, or another that has THAT show, so you sub to more and more services, and it costs a fortune to watch all that stuff. That's where something like what Disney is doing by bundling help lower the cost. Discovery will most likely bundle their streaming content as well once they figure out their model after buying Warner.

Thank you for putting something I have been wanting to say in such a well written and thought out post. I skimmed through the channels this morning, and between my wife and I, there are close to 50 channels that we have watched at least something on in the past few weeks, there would be no way to get all of this a la carte for a reasonable price. Part of what I like about the packages is that sometimes I will notice a show in the guide on a more obscure channel that looks interesting and I'll watch/record it - those are the things I would miss if I had to pick and choose my channels. I already have to also pay for Hulu (Only Murders in the Building), Netflix (Stranger Things), Amazon Prime (Thursday Night Football), AppleTV (Ted Lasso) and Disney+ (Marvel & Star Wars shows) in addition to my DTV. Unfortunately, I don't see this getting any better as streaming becomes more and more prevalent.

 

[Steveknj]

Thank you for putting something I have been wanting to say in such a well written and thought out post. I skimmed through the channels this morning, and between my wife and I, there are close to 50 channels that we have watched at least something on in the past few weeks, there would be no way to get all of this a la carte for a reasonable price. Part of what I like about the packages is that sometimes I will notice a show in the guide on a more obscure channel that looks interesting and I'll watch/record it - those are the things I would miss if I had to pick and choose my channels. I already have to also pay for Hulu (Only Murders in the Building), Netflix (Stranger Things), Amazon Prime (Thursday Night Football), AppleTV (Ted Lasso) and Disney+ (Marvel & Star Wars shows) in addition to my DTV. Unfortunately, I don't see this getting any better as streaming becomes more and more prevalent.

Exactly, I do the same. I rarely watch NFL Network for example, but sometimes they show an old game I would rewatch or some other special. It's nice to have that option and know that it's not costing me more because it's in my bundle (obviously, we choose our bundles based on what has the channels we watch often). And I've been saying for awhile that when you go strictly streaming you eventually are going to wind up paying the same. Eventually the price will continue to rise as more and more content has to be delivered. We are seeing it more and more. AND, you are losing a lot of the best DVR features, including my favorite, the ability to skip ads. Now I have to PAY for the privilege of watching ads, or pay a premium to get rid of them (and even THEN sometimes they force it on us.) Netflix is going to an ad based scheme, because they want to offer a cheaper alternative. I will bet, withing 10 years or less,those non ad based plans go away. Advertising dollars are too easy for services to give up. AND, we won't have the option to skip them either.

 

[JoeTheDragon]

If you go strictly a la carte, a few things will happen:
1) You'll pay more per channel and get less content
2) You'll get less channels because the channel provider might decide that they don't have enough subs for a channel and just end it, and that channel might be one YOU watch. For example perhaps you watch Discover Channel and History Channel and Discovery Networks which own both, decides that not enough people are watching History so they disband it. Now you lose a channel you enjoyed. if they were bundled, you'd still get both.
3) You'll get much more consolidation of content, so not as many opportunities to watch a show because now 3 channels worth of content will be on only one channel.

Now for sports will teams try some antitrust cases to get?

Not be forced to sell there local team packaged with ESPN / others?

The right to sell there local feed to anyone anywhere? / The right for the one team out of market package to not need you to buy the local teams rsn feed?

Some kind of lower cost local team games only ESPN?