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Scott Greczkowski

Las Vegas Magic Show
January 8, 2008

The Consumer Electronics Show is so large it is impossible for any one person to see everything being shown. Yesterday I spent a good part of the day at the Echostar / Dish Network booth. It wasn’t until I got back to my room late last night did I realize that the folks at the Dish Network booth were working the magic of David Copperfield.

At the Dish Network booth there were pamphlets all over the place explaining all of Dish Networks programming packages. Included in these pages are Dish Networks new pricing for 2008 on these packages. It seems that none of the press that went to the Dish booth noticed this new increased pricing and instead briefly skimmed over a press release put out by Dish claiming that Dish is “freezing prices” for 2008. While this may be true for the Dish Network “DVR Advantage” it is not true for all other Dish Networks programming package. While a customer may have a DVR they are not a “DVR Advantage” subscriber unless they sign up for the special package.

More magic performed by Dish Network included announcing a new $10 HD package, which contains 20 HD channels. However the true illusion performed here was that no one at the Dish Network booth could tell me what 20 channels this new HD Starter package contains.

Another great trick performed by Dish was the magic increase in HD channels without adding a single channels. Last week on the Dish Network website, the satcaster advertised the fact that they have 38 national HD channels but magically in their “Dish Network to Expand HD Line-up in 2008” press release this number magically rose to claim that Dish currently carries 76 national HD channels. I know of no Dish Network customers that can receive 76 national HD channels, not even a magician like David Copperfield could pull on off.

Posted by Scott Greczkowski on January 8, 2008 | Comments (4)

January 8, 2008
In response to: Las Vegas Magic Show
roadrunner commented:

It's just like Direct Tv advertising they have 85 National HD channels but not one Direct TV customer can get 85 HD channels because 1/3 or more of them are locals or RSN's. It's just a marketing ploy by all pay tv company's. Just like Comcast says they have over 150 HD offerings but a majority of them are On Demand offerings not actual channels.

January 8, 2008
In response to: Las Vegas Magic Show
Kola commented:

why do we call it "marketing Ploy" instead of lies

January 8, 2008
In response to: Las Vegas Magic Show
Kyle Luna commented:

You can get the out of market RSN's in HD on DirecTV, except for the pro sports games that require one of the professional sports packages. Provided that you either subscribe to the sports pack or premiere, you can get any college sports games that the RSN's have in HD, the local studio shows that select RSNs do in HD, as well as replays of NHL games in some cases.
As for locals, they don't count them multiple times in the total count for every market they have. They just add the networks as a general number, which most major and mid sized markets get now, and the smaller markets that they don't carry yet can get waviers in most cases for either the NYC or LA DNS feeds.

January 10, 2008
In response to: Las Vegas Magic Show
SB commented:

roadrunner - unfortunately, you do not know of what you speak. Premier DirecTV subs can get over 80 HD channels RIGHT NOW.