Dish Goes After DirecTV With Ad Campaign
Dish Claims Rival Passes NFL Sunday Ticket Costs To All DirecTV Subs
By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 6/16/2009 10:44:43 PM
Dish Network, having suffered net subscriber losses in the two most recent quarters, is directly attacking rival satellite operator DirecTV on the price of its programming packages in a national print ad campaign -- which alleges that DirecTV spreads the costs from its exclusive NFL programming deal to all subscribers.
The Dish ad includes more than 800 words of copy, under the headline "Why We Cost Less," while emphasizing its low-cost programming packages and asserting that "no one offers more HD than Dish Network."
In addition, the ad alleges, "Sunday Ticket costs DirecTV one billion dollars a year and ends up being subsidized by other DirecTV customers whether they get the Sunday Ticket or not. Maybe that's why in the last three months of 2008, the average DirecTV customer paid about 15% a month more for TV than the average Dish Network customer."
In a statement, DirecTV spokesman Darris Gringeri said, "Desperate times call for desperate measures. Of course it's inaccurate, and why should anyone be surprised? This is just another in a long series of ridiculous claims from Dish."
In March, DirecTV announced a $4 billion, four-year extension with the National Football League to offer the Sunday Ticket out-of-market programming package.
Dish's ad claims that "we refuse to carry the NFL Sunday Ticket," without noting that the company didn't have a chance to refuse it.
The Dish ad is running in more than 90 newspapers nationwide, including the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Atlanta Constitution, Chicago Sun Times, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Indianapolis Star, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Orlando Sentinel, Minneapolis Star Tribune, San Antonio Express-News, San Francisco Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle and Denver Post.
Dish spokeswoman Francie Bauer said the ads will run at least through June and maybe longer.
The Dish ad includes a link to a Web site comparison between the satellite TV services, dishbeatsdirectv.com, which purports to show annual savings of between $84.12 and $192.00 with Dish depending on the level of service.
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Dish has more HD channels and at a higher picture quality and all for a lower price. The End.
Rob - 6/24/2009 7:10:37 PM EDT -
Brandon - congratulations on being one of the easily-manipulated folks who are buying into Dish's deception and flat-out lies.
I've had DirecTV for over 7 years, and on the one occasion I ever had to call for service (which was my own fault, by the way, not the equipment) they had someone out within days, a real professional who explained what I had accidentally done wrong. My neighbor, though, has Dish, and when he had a problem, they told him he was going to have to wait TWO weeks. He ended up calling me over, and we figured it out on our own.
Fact of the matter is, Dish is getting clobbered. Their marketing is targeted at lower-income households (which would explain the nature of this ad, since they're probably less educated as well and likely to fall for it).
But hey, if you're happy with Dish, keep it. That is, until they go bankrupt and get bought out by DTV or AT&T or someone...
Jeff Paulson - 6/18/2009 5:34:21 PM EDT -
I had Dish for about 4 years and had problems with it since day one, which is a shame, because I found it mush simpler to use than DIRECTV. However, the customer service was horrid. There isn't enough space for me to list all of the issues I had with them, but not once was I satisfied. I just got DIRECTV in April. So far, so good. I do like the amount of channels I receive for the money and so far haven't had to utilize their customer service department and hopefully never do. We'll see!!
KJ in Cleveland - 6/18/2009 11:49:05 AM EDT -
I have had both DirectTV and DishNetwork. I will stay with DirecTV. When I have had issues with DishNetwork, I was not happy with the quality of service I received from them. Directv has always been great to take care of any problems that I have had. In general, I like Directv because of their service, their receiver layout and can't wait until they have an HD/DVR with Tivo.
Randy O - 6/18/2009 11:00:27 AM EDT -
I've had great luck with Dish. I'm a huge football fan, but I just can't swallow the expense for NFL ticket. it's absurd. and I too suspect that the rest of the subscribers have to support that billion dollar deal with the NFL. I'm happy with the low cost and good support i get from Dish.
Does it seem like this "news story" was a plant from DirecTV?
Brendan Thielen - 6/17/2009 4:22:05 PM EDT
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