Mixed Bag on Charlie Chat
Charlie Ergen may have said he’s trying to make his company better last week on last weeks Dish Network earnings call, however last night it seemed like it was business as usual for Dish Network and its CEO.
Last night Charlie Ergen hosted his live quarterly “Charlie Chat” show, a special show aired for customers of Dish Network.
On the show Charlie took questions from his customers, plus gave customers news on Dish Network (including announcing some new HD channels) plus had a bunch of taped interviews to fill in the rest of the hour.
The show opened with video of Charlie speaking in front of congress about changing laws so that satellite could offer locals to customers from neighboring DMA’s. Charlie said that we might need to help him this fall by contacting our reps in congress.
Charlie then told customers if they switched to paperless billing that he would give them 3 months of HO & Starz for free. He told folks singing up for this offer was helping to save the planet.
Charlie then encouraged viewers to upgrade their older equipment to Dish’s award winning DVR’s and a special upgrade offer was mentioned.
From there the chat hit the point in which many people were waiting for and that was an announcement of new national HD channels.
Charlie announce that Dish would be expanding its national HD lineup this Wednesday by adding The Movie Channel HD, Showcase HD, Showtime2 HD and BETJ HD.
In my chat room a lot of people were disappointed with the new HD announcement, and then Charlie the avid poker player sweetened the pot by announcing that the following HD channels would be added to the Dish Network lineup by April 1st. The channels listed were Nick HD, Comedy Central HD, MTV HD, VH1 HD, CMT HD, BET HD and Spike TV HD.
This announcement seemed to satisfy many people in my chat room, yet others were upset wanting channels such as Speed Network HD and FX HD.
Charlie then went into HD locals and announced over 30 new HD local DMA’s coming to Dish Network in the near future. With all the new markets announced Dish will serve HD locals in 152 markets serving 93% of US TV households.
From there a video was show of the Jeopardy TV tapings that were held at CES this past January.
From there they showed a video on the upcoming Slingloaded ViP 922 HD DVR from CES. When the video was done Charlie announced that the 922 would be available on June 1st.
After another guest Charlie and Jim took questions from the viewers. To me this was the best part of the show, as Dish normally screens the calls so that only the softball calls come through. This was not the case on Monday night as some great hardball questions got through.
A question from a Turbo HD customer got through, the caller was upset that they were not getting the two new FOX HD channels (Fox News HD and Fox Business HD). Charlie said that they have been getting a lot of calls about that, but told the caller they should switch off their TurboDish package and go with a Dish Classic package with the HD pack add on. This was not the answer many people wanted to hear and my chat room went nuts with TurboHD customers upset at the answer given.
Another question was did Charlie have any news on FX HD or Speed HD? Charlie replied back that perhaps he will have some news this summer. Again my chat room went nuts as NASCAR fans wants their Speed HD to watch all the time trials and qualifying in HD.
Another caller asked Charlie if the new MLB Network was coming to Dish. The answer from Charlie was a flat out no, as he would have to add the channel to all Dish’s packages and he didn’t want to burden all customers by adding this channel. He then went on to say that baseball fans could watch all the games on the Internet at half the cost of the extra innings package and t hen stated that customers with ViP receivers would be able to watch games on their TV from MLB via the Internet. He didn’t say anymore but this took a lot of folks by surprise, is a software update coming to the ViP receivers which will allow customers to watch internet video on their ViP receivers? Even I was confused by Charlie’s comments on this one!
Another hardball question got through and Charlie was asked why Dish Network dumped Smithsonian HD. Charlie gave another great Charlie non answer by saying that Smithsonian HD contractually did not make sense for them to carry and that the channel was probably not coming back soon. (If this is the case why did they carry it to begin with?)
While last night chat was one of the better Charlie Chats in a long time, the answers given by Charlie showed the reasons why many are upset and want to leave Dish for other carriers. Dish Network does not seem to want to give the customers what they want, but instead give customers channels for what they can get a deal for. To me this is a major problem with Dish Network. I have said it before but will say it again, stop deciding what is best for my wallet and me and give me the programming I want to pay for! He doesn’t seem to grasp that customers will and are leaving to get what they want.
While the chat did give a lot of things that people wanted the answers to questions had people upset forgetting about the exciting news they got earlier in the show.
If Charlie is trying to make Dish better as he claims then he really needs to take a step back and take a look at what his customers want. He does not seem to grasp the fact that the customers should come first and that it is his job to give his customers what they want.
Kodiak commented:
I get the Email newsletter from German Kino and it had the following
announcement: FREE Preview starts September 9th and runs through September 23rd on DISH Network Channel 724.
German Kino Plus has the best German programming. TV Movies, Mini-Series, Theatrical Films, Classic Films, Television Series and more. All in German, all commercial free. Add German Kino Plus to your German Package and you will get the best programming, primarily from the great German broadcasters ARD and ZDF. So call DISH Network today!
Well I tried to watch this free preview, guess what it is not available on my dish, I tune to 724 what comes up is 653 I have no channels between 653 and 819, no 700# ranges. So I call DNW and the answer is I have to subscribe to the channel and get a new dish pay for a services call so that I may get to see the free preview of German Kino. If is says free that should mean free and should be available to all subscribers, not just a select few that happen to be tuned to that 118 Satellite. Sad that I cannot see the free preview, if I were able to I might subscribe to the german package. But I'd like to try before I buy.
Response from DNW:
Thank you for your email. We have forwarded your email to the appropriate department and you will be contacted within 24 to 48 hours. We do apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. You can if you desire still contact our Customer Service Department at 1-800-333-3474, they will be able to assist you in resolving your concerns.
We realize that in today’s competitive world you have a choice in services. We thank you for your continued support. If you have any further questions or concerns, please refer to www.dishnetwork.com or reply to this email.
DISH Network is committed to providing world class customer service to our customers. In an effort to continually improve our services, we ask that you take time to complete this short survey to let us know how we are doing. We appreciate your time in evaluating our performance.
Sincerely,
Jennefer C. T4O
TID:OR-Cadillac
DISH Network eCare
Then they recall this reply and replace it with the next one:
Thank you for your email. Our records indicate that your issue regarding channel 724 has been addressed by previous customer representative. If this is not the case, please reply to this email if you have any further questions regarding this matter. We appreciate your email and we are always happy to be of service.
We realize that in today’s competitive world you have a choice in services. We thank you for your continued support. If you have any further questions or concerns, please refer to www.dishnetwork.com or reply to this email.
DISH Network is committed to providing world class customer service to our customers.
And the issue was never resolved. The advertise that I am supposed to get all these channels, I pay for them but do not get all of them.
On a another note, they once sent a tech out that upon leaving he asked for five bucks for gas. Unreal.
I am not a happy customer.
gabriel commented:
Not sure people have seen the pattern of this guy.
He takes programming off at will. The takedown of Voom and of late Smithsonian is an indication he does not care for his long term paying customers.
The ''only'' reason im still with dish is the dvr-period.
Everytime I pay a dish bill I feel like im doing something wrong.
Its time to say goodbye to dish. After 8 years-customer service is out of touch.
SpeedHD is a waste commented:
SpeedHD is a waste of bandwith for the three or four viewers it may capture. Sure there is one or two big events a year that might make the numbers high, but on an ordinary daily basis? You are kidding, right?
Reaper commented:
Yo "YouKnowWho!", why do you have to be such a hater? If you don't like Scott's blog then don't read it. Don't waste our time by posting the same vitriolic response to each of his blog posts.
Tx guy commented:
I guess I\’m a minority that\’s world doesn\’t end with not seeing the MLB channel in the line up. I am a hardware guy and I will stick with dish until everyone else catches up. The fact alone that you can link two Tvs together is enough to keep me with dish. The one thing I will agree on is that they need to do more to retain customers, like better upgrade options and retention discounts.
Kenny Lingus commented:
The chickens are coming home to roost for Charlie
Josh commented:
MLB Network doesn\’t want to be available to all subscribers. The MLB channel just wants to be on a widely expanded tier. Comcast carries this on their Digital basic tier and my cable company has it on the family tier, the widely distributed tier.
Dish is just upset that MLB made it so you have to carry the network just to get Extra Innings.
Reaper commented:
As the "low price leader", Dish's prices are actually in line with DIRECTV's for most subscribers. So who's pocketing the savings from all the interminable Dish retrans disputes? Not the customers. The true standouts of affordable packages are the TurboHD packages and it seems that Charlie is starting to think that they weren't such a good idea; they're not attracting a lot of new customers and they generate less revenue. How to kill them? Don't provide new HD channels in them. That's terrible!
$$$ commented:
Yet Charlie and company raised the prices anyway, just like the rest of the providers in the country did, except he\’s not offering the programming that would justify the rise like the rest of the providers are…
Thisguy159 commented:
You guys are ludicrous you want your cake and eat it too. You can\’t be lowest price with out some compromise. I don\’t know of many CEO that make themselves available like this. I DO NOT CARE for MLB and if the agreement would have been that all packs require to have MLB and I have to pay extra $.15 $.30 or $1.00 I certainly would have made the same decision as he did. If you are HD only pony up more money if you want all the channels or switch and you will pay even more. Don\’t get me wrong I\’m not opposed to getting more but not at the sacrifice of my bill and as I do not know what happens between closed doors I certainly will not flame Charlie for walking the fine line. I as a subscriber would rather not have him start a blame game with the networks which ultimately would cost me in the end.
Grandpa J commented:
Charlie is at heart a hardware man. His hardware is as good or better than other hardware available to consumers. Programming just seems like a necessary evil to Charlie in order to sell or lease his equipment. Therefore, he provides the minimum programming he thinks he can get away with in each program package. This business model may have worked when choices were limited - analog cable, limited satellite bandwidth, etc. – but as digital cable, fiber cable, and the larger Directv satellite fleet gives customers more programming choices and their equipment improves, Charlie’s equipment advantage seems less important to a lot of consumers. Ultimately people look at programming not equipment.
Charlie = Dumba$$ commented:
I doubt anyone will be able to watch MLB.tv\’s internet streams on a satellite reciever capable of streaming windows media format. They\’re encrypted and require you to login on the site in order to access the stream. Not to mention I doubt they\’ll be willing to cooperate with Dish Network and provide a way for them to be viewable via their recievers since they flat out refuse to agree to terms every other provider had no problem with. And if Dish Network even tries, they\’ll probably incorporate something that blocks the user agent of the reciever from even accessing it.
avion commented:
I am still disappointed that PBS is still missing from Dish\’s local HD lineup. I am seriously considering dumping Dish for Direct TV for this reason alone.
Charlie = Fail commented:
Charlie probably lost even more subscribers with those answers, I wonder how he\’ll spin the loss of customers next quarter…
Islandguy43 commented:
There is no sense arguing with a bullheaded stubborn CEO whom wants to dictate what we will watch and at what price. I for one, will leave Dish after Hockey Season go to Directv using their AAA discount plan to get a HDDVR and another HD receiver for while getting the programing I want at a lesser price than Dish.
Charlie keep your CNET Award Winning DVR (Tivo will own it soon anyways), and watch the World Fishning Network, while I am enjoying MSG-HD, YES-HD and MLB HD.
riffjim4069 commented:
I agree with the previous poster...I don't see anything Dish Network is doing right in order to retain current subscribers and obtain new ones. I am expecting them to lose another 100K customers during Jan-Mar. What a shame!
