2020 Dish Price Increases Announced

[Tvland1]

Folks that want sports, and are willing to pay full freight, can get it elsewhere

Agreed...I have no interest in watching some Way Overpaid guy playing with his balls and being forced to pay for it..

 

[dare2be]

As soon as Dish can get the sports channel owners to accept being in full-freight add-ons, which I believe is their ultimate goal, everyone will be happy.

Sports fans will then see what their channels really cost. Expect $20+ add-ons.

 

[sam_gordon]

LOL, Sinclair and the lot will want to make OTA PPV and ATSC 3.0 provides that opportunity.

I think if that happens, the government will get involved. Part of the licensing I'm assuming is making your signal available OTA for free. And this is not to start a debate on it needing to be free for cable/satellite customers.

 

[navychop]

If the gummint wanted to ensure OTA was free, it would not have allowed ATSC 3 to build in charging.

 

[pattykay]

That may be overwhelmed by expected increases in future contract negotiations with other providers.

Okay, so why charge us now? Why not wait until those increases actually occur to then start charging us? It would be one thing if Dish were doing a larger-than-normal increase now, and then guaranteeing no increase for at least a couple of years. Then I could see the point that they are budgeting for future expected increases.

and also with built in increases in the cost with existing contracts.... Just because Channel X costs $1 in the first year of the contract doesn't mean that it will be $1 for all five years of the contract... It's kind of like a union contract. An increase of salary at signing is good for this year and then there are annual increases for the remaining years.

Well, the contract for every channel in Welcome Pack must have started out really cheap in year one, and then had massive balloon increases in the final years of their contracts, in that case.

 

[pattykay]

Ok here's something to ponder: It says on the website that they are launching more HD channels. What channels are they talking about?

International streaming channels. Dish added a bunch of those this year, but very few Dish subscribers even see those channels, much less actually watch them.

Ideally, they would also finally be adding satellite-delivered versions of the HD feeds of some regular cable channels that are currently available for live streaming through Dish Anywhere.

 

[pattykay]

That may be overwhelmed by expected increases in future contract negotiations with other providers.

Never mind. I think we just got our explanation for this year's seemingly larger-than-expected increases:

I believe Dish just renewed its contract with ESPN.

 

[rvvaquero]

Grass growing?

Actually, I'd like to see the Military History Channel in HD. It's on FiOS. And I'd like to see all sports go away so we'd have no more complaints. Folks that want sports, and are willing to pay full freight, can get it elsewhere.

Since we're wishing, I'd like to see all History, Discovery, Disney, Hallmark, and movie channels go away. Folks who are willing to pay full freight for them can get them elsewhere.

 

[mwdxer1]

As soon as Dish can get the sports channel owners to accept being in full-freight add-ons, which I believe is their ultimate goal, everyone will be happy.

Sports fans will then see what their channels really cost. Expect $20+ add-ons.

I have wanted this years, but the programmers that own the channels call the shots. If Dish wants Disney, they have to buy ESPN & ABC. Our bills would be a lot less, plus the increases would be less. The cost of sports is BIG chunk of the bill.

 

[mwdxer1]

Since we're wishing, I'd like to see all History, Discovery, Disney, Hallmark, and movie channels go away. Folks who are willing to pay full freight for them can get them elsewhere.

Sports cost a lot more than movie & basic channels. Canada has a good system. With a basic service you get 1 sports channel. Anything more, you buy a pack. Some movie packs are the same.

 

[david_jr]

Clearly the content owners are winning and will win. The handwriting has been on the wall for the last several years as the content owners have drawn people away from traditional over the top cable and satellite services by offering streaming of their content at artificially low prices. You can see major reorganization even by the streaming companies and a lot of content owners pulling from services to start their own streaming outlet. Once they put cable and satellite out of business or make them a bit player they can then raise the price of their content to what the streaming market will bear. Satellite at least is hitting the breaking point. Over the last 15 years we have seen our monthly bill go from about $45 a month to $150 a month for the same level of programming. This is a combination of package increases and equipment lease cost increases, but increase is still the same. That's with no HBO or premiums, and no sports package add-ons. We do get the HD Movie pack or whatever they're calling it these days, but I will be letting that go soon. I have already reduced my equipment from 5 outlets to 3. For the first time I am looking into reducing my main programming package to pare my bill down. But it will only go down until the next package price increase, which now seem to come much more frequently than they used to. I think DISH is just trying to hold on for dear life in this market where everyone is trying to get huge increases from them for their content. Oh well its only TV, entertainment, and the more I think of it, it's not so entertaining anymore.

 

[Tvland1]

Since we're wishing, I'd like to see all History, Discovery, Disney, Hallmark, and movie channels go away. Folks who are willing to pay full freight for them can get them elsewhere.

They have that..Orby TV.. I'm watching it now

 

[dare2be]

Clearly the content owners are winning and will win.

Only if the consumers let them win by playing the chasing game as channels come and go.

Yeah, you're right. Don't bank on consumer sense.

 

[mwdxer1]

Clearly the content owners are winning and will win. The handwriting has been on the wall for the last several years as the content owners have drawn people away from traditional over the top cable and satellite services by offering streaming of their content at artificially low prices. You can see major reorganization even by the streaming companies and a lot of content owners pulling from services to start their own streaming outlet. Once they put cable and satellite out of business or make them a bit player they can then raise the price of their content to what the streaming market will bear. Satellite at least is hitting the breaking point. Over the last 15 years we have seen our monthly bill go from about $45 a month to $150 a month for the same level of programming. This is a combination of package increases and equipment lease cost increases, but increase is still the same. That's with no HBO or premiums, and no sports package add-ons. We do get the HD Movie pack or whatever they're calling it these days, but I will be letting that go soon. I have already reduced my equipment from 5 outlets to 3. For the first time I am looking into reducing my main programming package to pare my bill down. But it will only go down until the next package price increase, which now seem to come much more frequently than they used to. I think DISH is just trying to hold on for dear life in this market where everyone is trying to get huge increases from them for their content. Oh well its only TV, entertainment, and the more I think of it, it's not so entertaining anymore.

What I did was to cut everything with Dish over the years. I bought my own equipment, installed it myself, which was easy after installing a big dish back in 1985. I have one vip211k receiver with the OTA tuner, added the outboard HDD, paid the $40 activation fee for the HDD that is for life of the account. I pay no other fees period. Just for programming, AT250/Super Stations/Movie Pack. I have been fortunate enough to get a long term customer discount, also being near 71 years old. My programming runs about $100 a month. Streaming an add-on for me. At this point, streaming will not give what Dish has. Also with the Dish Anywhere app on the Fire TV, I get the Demand portion at no extra cost. Even though $100 a month is a bit tough on the budget, I checked over 6 months and could not come up with any alternative that was even close. Dish has a lot of programming not available to me elsewhere. The Super Stations for example, as I am Grandfathered in, then the sub channels like Grit, Laff, etc, are not received here OTA. I agreed to a 2 year deal that knocks the bill down. I believed in Dish when I bought my own receiver in 1999,and I still believe it them now. If anything, the programmers are to blame for the high pricing, especially sports. Comcast, Spectrum, etc all have nasty disputes. The programmers are charging a fortune. One thing I can say for streaming that free services like Pluto, Xumo, STIRR, and The Roku Channel all make plenty of money from the ads and they all say, they are staying free. With streaming there are so many choices. If you do like a service, drop it and pick up someone else. You want a cheap package, they are out there. Philo for $20 a month offers 58 channels. No sports, little news, but that is how they keep the prices down. So there is something for everyone. With many people, they just want TV on Demand, so if the regular programmers charge too much, people will watch OTA for free and sub to a service like Netflix, Prime, Hulu, etc. So let the programmers price themselves out of the market. There will have to be a day of reckoning for programmers, just like it is happening to cable. Cable especially has lost a lot of subs to cord cutting.

 

[sam_gordon]

If the gummint wanted to ensure OTA was free, it would not have allowed ATSC 3 to build in charging.

ATSC 3.0 is a STANDARD. It's not a law. The FCC simply approved it. I still think, and opinions (yours, mine, and all of ours) are a like a**holes, the government will pull the license of anyone forcing OTA viewers to pay.

Added thought... maybe the government will let them charge for subchannels, as long as one signal is available free. That could see a move of the "big four" from .1 to .2, .3, or .4. (and yes, I know there are some stations where there are two of the "big four" on a single frequency).

 

[navychop]

If we had multiple price increases per year, after each contract renewal, we'd have even more screaming.

 

[satjay]

Saw that comment statement as well with new HD, wondered what exactly that meant for the upcoming year

 

[HobbyTalk]

My 2 year contract is up on 1/7 so I've been testing some streaming services. My cost for AT120 will go up from about $65 to $85 as they would only give me a $10 discount for another contract. For me it looks like Sling will work out best. For the next couple weeks I''d be paying $50 a month for Orange / Blue and the DVR upgrade. Once the college football final game is over I'll drop Orange and be paying $35 a month. Will continue with Netflix and Amazon Prime. It'll be about $130 upfront for the AirTV 2 and a HD so I can record the OTA channels.

 

[dare2be]

My 2 year contract is up on 1/7 so I've been testing some streaming services. My cost for AT120 will go up from about $65 to $85 as they would only give me a $10 discount for another contract. For me it looks like Sling will work out best. For the next couple weeks I''d be paying $50 a month for Orange / Blue and the DVR upgrade. Once the college football final game is over I'll drop Orange and be paying $35 a month. Will continue with Netflix and Amazon Prime. It'll be about $130 upfront for the AirTV 2 and a HD so I can record the OTA channels.

Why not give Flex Pack a go? You know you can add/remove add-on packs on their website at any time and only pay for prorated use?

 

[HobbyTalk]

Why not give Flex Pack a go? You know you can add/remove add-on packs on their website at any time and only pay for prorated use?

It would cost more but may check it out the next week. Sling TV with ESPN and DVR is $50. Flex with ESPN and Hopper is $62. Sling without espn is $35, Flex is $50