Satellite Luring Away Cable Subscribers

[Youth N Asia 0]

Satellite Luring Away Cable Subscribers

 

 

Direct broadcast satellite service (DBS) EchoStar said Wednesday that its DISH-TV division added 270,000 new subscribers in the second quarter. Investor's Business Daily observed today (Thursday) that the new business came at the expense of the 10 biggest cable firms, which together lost 130,647 during the same period. The publication observed, however, that DBS services only command about 20 percent of the pay-TV market.

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I didn't think they hurt cable that much...but more and more you see Comcast running anti-salellite ads. Serves them right, Comcast is doing a shitty job anyway

[sfaJack 0]

I just got connected with Time Warner Digital cable on Monday at my new place. I've been asking around amongst folks here at work and friends and opinion is about 50/50 on whether cable or satellite is better.

 

My best bud swears by his satellite dish, but I don't know. Some of the things I've heard about weather impacting satellite reception seems like it's more trouble than it's worth. Either way, Time Warner has 6 months to not fuck up too badly. If they do, you can bet I'm going to consider switching.

[Guest Eagan469]

I've had digital cable for a year.

 

No trouble here.

[Youth N Asia 0]

I've stayed with my aunt and uncle (northern Michigan, where they have no cable). They have satellite and weather is not near as big a deal as the cable companies want you to believe it is.

 

I think if I was living along, and didn't have to worry about putting it in multiple rooms I would go with satellite. Cause Comcast Cable is the worst with customer service.

[OldSchoolWrestling 0]

Is Dish Network available in your area? Because they have some really cheap packages to where even if you had to dish out a little bit for extra rooms, it would pay off in the long run.

 

I switched from Comcast to DirecTV and I love it and pay less and have it in 3 rooms.

[Guest Salacious Crumb]

The weather USED to be a big deal with a dish. Any wind or heavy rain and you were without tv.

 

But the technology has advanced to the point were there could be a hurricane going on outside and you wouldn't lose anything.

[Youth N Asia 0]

We're tied into Comcast digital for another 6 months or so.

[shlidgn90 0]

i am seriously thinking about changing my service. i have time warner digital and my service hasn't run for a month. all that happens is they'll make up an service call which no one shows up for. plus i had to pay 300 dollars for bad service last month.

[NoCalMike 0]

Comcast Digital cable has a great channel selection, but it is a pain that every 6 months or so they seem to invent these brand new cost raises that tack onto the bill over and over. It is ridiculous. We have had D!sh network for the last 3 years and the price hasn't been raised on us once.

[Youth N Asia 0]

Goddamn Comcast...the day we got it we had MTV X (all rock) and I thought it was great. The next day they changed it to an all MTV hip hop station...blah!

 

Plus I'm not even going to mention that every single year they manage to screw up Wrestlemania and still charge us for it...but that's a long ass story best told on another day

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

I've had Time-Warner for three years, and now I have Comcast. No complaints...

[fazzle 0]

But the technology has advanced to the point were there could be a hurricane going on outside and you wouldn't lose anything.

Except for this past Sunday, where I missed 15 minutes of the Dennis Leary roast because of a little rain.

[MrRant 0]

Excuse me while I laugh all the way to the bank.

 

You guys really need to understand what you are talking about. Cable will own DBS for awhile.

 

Such ignorance. MTV X wasn't changed by Comcast... try the people who, you know... OWN the channel (MTV).

 

And by some of these "stories" that I am seeing are outright exaggerated from you guys. Any place will give you credit for downtime its usually a federal and state law.

 

Next time... please know what you are talking about.

 

Thank you.

[Guest Lethargic]

I have a lot of sympathy for anybody that still has cable.

[Guest Crucifixio Jones]

Goddamn Comcast...the day we got it we had MTV X (all rock) and I thought it was great. The next day they changed it to an all MTV hip hop station...blah!

Yeah, cuz God knows that right there is reason for cancellation.//sarcasm

 

Like Rant said, try bitching about MTV and not Comcast since they're the ones who did away with MTVX and replaced it with MTVJams (which I just happen to enjoy and is prolly the most frequently watched channel in my home).

 

I've had Comcast digital cable in three different locations and I've had nothing but the normal run of the mill problems. Yeah, sometimes you get outages, but that's to be expected with ANY service of ANY type. Nothing is 100% all the time. I was seriously about to give Comcast MAJOR props but even without bad weather I had sporadic internet service outages last night for some unexplained reason. Oh well, I just went to bed early and got some REST for once. No biggie. Besides, that's internet and we were talking 'bout cable, no?

 

SNKT Saturday: 2 DAYS AWAY

[Guest Sturgis]

The only reason I got Comcast Digital Cable is to get PPV, which I used to get for free. It's really good if you have insomnia, but that's it.

[Guest The Notorious CRD]

I switched from Dish Network to Time-Warner Digital Cable and I enjoy digital cable much more than I did Dish Network.

[Guest Choken One]

TWDC owns.

[BX 0]

The weather USED to be a big deal with a dish. Any wind or heavy rain and you were without tv.

 

But the technology has advanced to the point were there could be a hurricane going on outside and you wouldn't lose anything.

Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

Comcast Cable sucks. For starters I can't get Cable where I live. And while I technically live "out in the middle of nowhere", about 3 years ago they ran cable up to the street that I live on. Now, I guess that because the only other people that live on my street are an old couple with a chicken farm and about 40 cows. But how hard would it be for them to run about 2500 feet of cable to me? I'd be willing to pay for Cable and Internet, b ut no they won't do it. So I get really pissed when I hear that they are losing customers to satellite, because Im sure that most of the people who get Satellite do it because they can't get cable.

 

I also hate Comcast for buying the minor league baseball team I live 5 minutes from and jacking up the prices. 7 bucks for GA ticket to a low A Ball team (Delmarva Shorebirds) is rediculous.

 

So I still have a Big C Band Dish. Im sorry, but I'd rather pay $250 a YEAR for just about all the channels you can get as opposed to pay $500+ on DirecTV for half of what I currently get now (as in Wild Feeds of shows like Smackdown, 24, etc.) plus West feeds (3 hours behind) of most of the channels (like Spike TV, USA, Discovery Channel, etc.). And if I wanted to, I could hack the damn dish box like people do with Directv, because no one cares if people hack the C-Band boxes. There might be at most 2 million residential people who have C-Band dishes. And C-Band will never go away because its how most shows are fed to local stations (IE Smackdown to UPN and 24 to Fox Affiliates) and how most networks are fed to the Cable companies themselves.

 

And yeah, if Comcast ever called and asked if I would want Cable I'd sign up in a heartbeat, but the chances of that happening are slim to none. I've called 2 times this year already (I once saw an ad that said they were servicing new areas..but not here). The main reason I want it is for the cable internet anyway (I could probably still keep the big dish hooked up..). My only other option besides slow ass 21k dialup for internet around here is Directv's broadband thing which is either $70 or $99 a month depending on whether you get 1 way (cheaper, but still requires the slow phone line) or 2 way (expensive, but they still put a cap on the ammount of surfing you can do and its not that fast anyway)

Edited August 15, 2003 by MarvinisaLunatic

[Guest Lethargic]

The weather USED to be a big deal with a dish.  Any wind or heavy rain and you were without tv.

 

But the technology has advanced to the point were there could be a hurricane going on outside and you wouldn't lose anything.

Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit.

Why is it bullshit? I don't know about any other company, but I have DirecTV and mine very, very RARELY goes out and even then it's gotta be a pretty horendous storm with some tornados and shit to make it go out. And even then, it's less than 5 minutes and not all channels go out.

[MrRant 0]

Comcast is rebuilding a lot of areas so it may come soon. You can have them do a serviceability check and they may be able to do something.

[BX 0]

I have DirecTV, and I live in NC. It's been raining here every day since June. We regularly get an interrupted signal.

[Big McLargeHuge 0]

Fuck Cable.

 

I just wanted to get in on all the shit talking. Even though it is about television service.

[Guest Lethargic]

I have DirecTV, and I live in NC. It's been raining here every day since June. We regularly get an interrupted signal.

Maybe whoever set your dish up didn't do a good job. From what I gather, if you have more interruptions than the norm, that's usually the reason.

[Big McLargeHuge 0]

My DirecTV service rarely goes out when it rains.

 

In fact, it's gone out mostly when the weather was clear. Even then, it was very brief.

[Mole 0]

I have ZERO complaints about Comcast Digital Cable.

[Cran Da Maniac 0]

I have Adelphia Digital Cable, and their service sucks ass. It goes down all the time. and to call them up and have them fix it is a pain. And when you do get them out there, they act like you're the problem.

[SpikeFayeJettEdBebop 0]

I have DirecTV and other than it going out for maybe 4-5 minutes during SOME storms, I have absolutly no problems with it.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

My dish works fine in bad weather except for extreme circumstances like a bad ice storm. You may lose it once every couple of years for about five minutes or so.