Fluff and Stuff
As of late the majority of the Dish Network consumer chats have been more fluff then stuff, but last nights Charlie Chat with Dish Network CEO Charlie Ergen was a little different.
The show opened with Dish Network Senior Vice President Jim Defranco interviewing new Dish Network spokesman and star of TBS’s “Frank TV” Frank Caliendo. It was unusual to see Defranco conducting and interview, but he did a good job. I got to admit I enjoyed the interview, as I am a fan of Caliendo and all the voices in his head.
Next they started giving us the “stuff” actual news and information that many loyal Dish Network customers have been waiting months to hear.
First up were announcements of new Local HD Cities becoming available in April from Dish Netwok. The 23 new HD local into local cities coming in April are as follows:
Austin, TX - Baltimore, MD - Burlington-Plattsburgh, VT – Cleveland-Akron (Canton), OH - Columbia, SC – Flint-Saginaw-Bay City, MI - Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo-Battle Creek, MI, Green Bay-Appleton, WI - Greensboro-High Point-Winston Salem, NC – Greenville-Spartanburg-Asheville-Anderson, SC – Hartford & New Haven, CT – Huntsville-Decatur (Florence), AL – Jackson, MS – Knoxville, TN – Memphis, TN - Milwaukee, WI - Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News, VA – Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbourne, FL – Portland-Auburn, ME – Providence-New Bedford, RI – Richmond-Petersburg, VA – Tampa-St. Petersburg (Sarasota), FL
West Palm Beach-Ft. Pierce, FL
But the stuff didn’t end there as Charlie then showed a number of slides with logos of channels that could be coming to Dish Network in HD before the next Charlie Chat (which is in June) there were a total of 24 channels listed in the slides and those channels are as follows:
AMC, ABC Family, BET, Bio, Bravo, Cartoon Network, CNN, CMT, Disney, ESPN News, HBO2, IFC, MTV, MoreMax, Nickelodeon, SciFi, Smithsonian, Starz Edge, Tennis Channel, Toon Disney, The Weather Channel, USA Network, VH1, WGN
What was interesting and at the same time confusing about this list was after they showed them Charlie made a comment that they hope to have “most” of these channels available by this summer. No hard dates were given for these channels to launch, I am sure the reason for this is because off of this is dependent on the new satellite getting launched and working properly.
And that was the end of the stuff, which meant the rest of the show was fluff. There was a live in studio interview with Trisha Helfer of Battlestar Galacicta, the interview was fun but a little too long for my likes.
A skit was shown with Eric Sahl the Executive VP of Programming for Dish Network where he was acting like he was a contestant on the Millionaire Matchmaker show on Bravo.
If I had to guess I would say last nights chat was 90% fluff and 10% stuff. But that 10% stuff only had me wanting more. Unfortunately consumers will not hear from Charlie until June, which is when his next “Charlie Chat” is scheduled.
While last nights chat was more fluff then stuff I got to give the show a thumbs up for finally giving Dish Network customer a clue of what the future may hold.
Bubba commented:
This was a step in the right direction and one that should have been taken on the last Charlie Chat....just letting us know what good stuff is coming and approximately when it's coming instead of remaining completely mum on the issue. I have the feeling that there would have been considerably less grumbling on the discussion boards and more importantly less people jumping ship for Direct TV if we had this Charlie Chat last time.
At the top of my "most wanted" list was MGM HD and I'm pleased to see it's one of the coming attractions. Same with Smithsonian Channel and IFC HD. I'm sure everybody has their own such list and there appears to be something for everybody here except maybe for the dude who can't wait for RFD HD....and we'll probably have that before year's end too! I'm glad my patience paid off and now I just can't wait for summer!
Npaultodd commented:
"Unfortunately consumers will not hear from Charlie until June"
why do I get the feeling we won't see anymore HD until then!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
BobMurdoch commented:
New Satellite launch to give more capacity.
Eastern Arc.
I think that E* in 2009 will look a LOT different than E* in 2007. Can't wait to see what it's like on the other side....
Greg commented:
that could be coming to Dish Network in HD....those are the key words. Dish Network's motto should be "Talk is cheap....lets hope the subs believe it"
MikeD-C05 commented:
You left out the MGM channel Scott. THat would make it 25 hd channels .
Minac commented:
Fair review of the Chat! The only issue is did Charlie mean summer of 09? ;)
NiceCollinDude commented:
I don't believe anything Dish says, until I see it. They can talk a big game, like anyone else, but until I see something in gold.... I won't believe it!