[Stewart Vernon]

Ok, a question and a poll... I know someone who will be new to Dish soon, and part of the new sign-up offer comes with a choice of a free Premium channel for 3 months.

If you could be new again... what would be your Premium channel of choice from the ones Dish offers for the 3 month promotion?

 

[bderouen]

I am new, and I took the HBO channels. The reason being is when I ws with Direct, I had everything for a while. It seemed that HBO almost always had the better shows on, at least compared to Showtime. As far as Cinemax, with only a few exceptions, Cin. got all the shows after they ran on HBO for a few months. Now Starz was/is good, but generally, they are the older shows, from what I've seen. Not that this is bad...in fact, I loved it. But if I had to just pick one, that's what I'd do...pick HBO.

 

[Stewart Vernon]

I'm intentionally not voting since it is my poll... but I see HBO out in front.

I like some of the HBO original programming (or did when I had HBO). A few shows on Showtime as well in the past... but I would agree HBO has more original programming that I have liked.

I also felt Cinemax was lower on the rung, even with the Star Wars movies showing now... most of us have those on DVD already anyway, so no big incentive there especially with Dish not having Cinemax HD anyway.

My gut was to recommend either HBO or Starz... but I wanted to see what everyone else was thinking.

 

[dbconsultant]

I voted for Starz because most of the movies I've gone to see in theaters showed up on Starz so their taste matched mine. However most of the movies I had already seen so now I don't have any premium channel. When I miss a movie I wanted to see (not often these days because the quality of movies has gone down), I just get it from PPV - at most I spend $8.00 every few months. The dollars I'm saving made up for the upgrade to HD!

 

[Stewart Vernon]

Yeah, that's my thinking... I buy DVDs also, so a regular subscription to a movie channel doesn't make sense for me... but when you can pick one and get it for free for the first 3 months, I would take that and hopefully pick one that had a few things worth watching.

Probably will end up recommending HBO unless something amazing comes on Starz in the next couple of months.

 

[debpasc]

I voted for HBO, too. It was what I took as a new subscriber and kept it after the 3 months ran out. I took it almost exclusively for the Sopranoes -- I actually like their series and specials more than the movie runs -- I've already seen most of the movies they show by the time they air them. I never missed an episode of Six Feet Under, either -- maybe that was Showtime? Showtime is a very close second -- also because of their series -- I loved Huff, but apparently no one else did, they cancelled it. I like Sowbox Boxing, too. I pay for both HBO and Showtime and don't begrudge my monthly costs for them becasue I do enjoy them. Their made-for-TV series are some of the most creative premises and best writing on TV. I had Cinnemax and never watched it, so dropping it was a non-event.

 

[Stewart Vernon]

Agreed... HBO also has made some good made-for-HBO movies as well as their original series. I do sometimes miss having HBO for their original programming... but couldn't justify the price to pay once my initial freebie ran out many years ago... There are times I am tempted for the "everything" package, especially now with a DVR since the DVR fee would be waived... but I still can't justify the extra money every month.

I used to watch a lot of stuff other than movies on HBO, though, but I know not everyone does... it seems like HBO is overall probably the best way to go but for some people who only want movies and don't care for the original stuff, maybe Starz is the next one.

My experience with Showtime was that I liked one or two things (I liked "Dead Like Me" for instance) they had as original programming... but found the movies to be repetitive after a bit... so I usually don't recommend Showtime as quickly as the others.