Well, after today's FCC decision I would say that the Chat is a must see. We should make a drinking game out of it. Everytime Chucky says "Blame..." it can be anyone as he blames everyone but himself, lets drink a shot. Or we can all drink a shot when he says "We would have done it if we got the merger". I have to agree with Scott now. Charlie isn't going to show up for this chat.
The merger is dead. A 4-0 vote is an indication of how one-sided the decision was. Plus the DOJ is probably also in agreement. The concessions to overturn that vote would have to be so great that the merger wouldn't be worth the paper it would be written on. Ergen will probably give it a try but to fight beyond that point in the courts would be ridculous. It's probably already a no-win situation.
Again, I ask why the FCC was so adamant about not approving this deal because of anti-competition reasons, when they are all for cable anti-competition?
The main thing I read from the 4 voters at the FCC was that they were mad at Echostar for ignoring the FCC in regards to requiring 2 dishes to recieve locals.
I am not surprised on this issue. When the two-dish plan was rumored in December, 2001, I raised an eyebrow, but it wasn't surprising. We knew that E* had significant delays in launching E*7 and E*8. (So did DirecTV, and they almost didn't make it.) It was our understanding at the time that this was a temporary solution, and that Dish would move all of the stations to 110/119 once E*7 and E*8 was launched, negating the need for a second dish. This is especially important considering the costs of the switches and the second dish. (Some of us needed a SW64-a $150 switch).
Now, Echostar's tune seems to be that second dish will be a permament part of the landscape. The spotbeam satellites were designed with the hope that the must-carry rules would be overturned... yet another sore point.
E* has figured out that very few people will order the extra dish. For example the NY DMA has 8 channels on the wings. This is enough for an entire market to be added. They know the cost of people ordering the second dish will be way below the $6/month they will get from all the people served by the added DMA.
I think it is the FCC/NAB being rediculous here. By wanting to have some barker channels carried on the main satellites they would deny an entire markets LIL. I think what E* is doing is good for the satellite business in general, they will provide a free upgrade to recieve these channels if you really want them, and they provide LIL to markets that would not have them.
I know many will take advantage to get the second sat installed to get international and HDTV. This is the cost of doing business for E*, they will lose some doing all these second dish installs, but they gain whole markets for LIL.
I know the free dish was the compromise made with the FCC (E* wanted to charge for it). This is also correct on the part of the FCC, must carry is must carry. Forcing E* to carry all channels on the main is as bad as forcing customers to pay more for some channels. This is really a good deal now for both the FCC and E*, both sides have problems with it, but both really get benefits too.
I don' think they ever wanted to charge for the second dish. They dida t aone point ask you to name the channel number or call letters of a station on the side satellite to get it and they did not promote the free second dish.
Then came a very confusing mass mailing and eventually the on screen notices about a second dish.
No a monster satellite company hurts the consumers. That is why the merger was rejected. Don't try and pin this on New Corp. They have less friends than Dish does.
No merger= no more bandwidth, who wants to bet tonight that they now offer x number of foreign channels. If they cry we have no room then stop adding foreign channels that probably 3% actually subscribe to. I feel E* needs to get their dam priorties straight!
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