Posted on 01/06/2005 5:27:49 PM PST by holymoly
Satellite TV customers are facing price rises, as operators Dish Network and DirecTV hatch plans to increase rates, despite an ongoing rivalry with cable providers.
Dish Network, owned by EchoStar Communications, plans to raise subscriptions by $2 to $4 a month, the company said Thursday. That translates to an average of 4.3 percent on average charges of $56.11. The new rates will take effect Feb. 1 and affect certain packages, such as the basic service.
DirecTV is also planning to announce a rate hike this quarter, but details are not yet available, said Robert Mercer, a company spokesman. Currently, DirecTV charges an average monthly rate of $66.46 per subscriber.
Despite the rivalry between satellite and cable TV operators, consumers have not benefited from downward pressure on subscription prices.
The satellite companies themselves put the increases down to price of content and to the cost of adding new features to a monthly service. "We've seen programming costs that have consistently risen over the years, and that is primarily why we have seen these price increases," Mercer said.
Dish Network faced a 7 percent increase in programming costs last year, said Kelley Baca, a company spokeswoman.
The pending rate increases will mark the third consecutive year both companies have raised their monthly subscriber rates. DirecTV, for example, increased its charges by an average of 3.3 percent for all its packages last year and in 2003. Dish Network, meanwhile, averaged an increase of less than 2 percent last year and a 4 percent increase in 2003.
"Programming costs are still rising substantially more than inflation and, for satellite operators, customer acquisition costs have been rising significantly as well," said Craig Moffet, an analyst at Bernstein & Co. "It's reasonable to expect prices will continue to rise at an excess of inflation for the foreseeable future."
Cable operators face the same high variable costs of programming as satellite companies do, Moffet said.
Comcast, for example, is expected to raise its rates an average of 5.8 percent this year.
Combined, the satellite and cable industries have been growing at a rate of 2 percent a year, further reducing the incentive to slash prices, Moffet added.
"This is an industry where there are strong incentives for all the players to compete on product differentiation rather than price," Moffet said.
He added that a price war, spread among millions of monthly customers at a time when costs are steeply rising, makes it prohibitive to engage in such tactics.
Dish Network has 10.4 million subscribers, while DirecTV 13.5 million, according to the companies' figures.
I bet the sales channels pay the companies to be there.
Channels like NasaTV, Cspans, public service stuff are probably free to rebroadcast. (they also stream on the internet)
The 120 or whatever is seriously padded.
you must have a newer receiver then I do, do you have the multiple LNB one with the elliptical dish for HDTV?
Exactly!
Cafeteria style, if you will.
OK, thank you.
FR the source of truth yet again.
no just round.
I assume they'll stop rinning those "pig" ads about cable price hikes now.
kewl for canucks
We may drop Dish Network as soon as the increases hit. Only have the basic. I like around 5 different channels but like others have said, 90% of them are never watched, not even once. It does give an excellent picture tho.
My pet peeve about DirecTV is their "Paid Advertisements" that start around 12am pst. We in effect pay them to watch something that someone else has paid them to broadcast. If the ads started at 3am pst I wouldn't care so much. /end rant
I have C-Band (big dish) I can choose my own programming and the prices are a lot cheaper than the small dish.
In short, drop Viacom.
Sounds great to me.
I canceled my Dish Network service. For as little as there is worth watching on the various channels, it's just too expensive. Rates have gone up 25% or more in the last four years.
I have no complaint about Dish Network's service...it's the programmers that are the problem. Their quality keeps going down, while they charge Dish and DirecTV more.
For example, compare A&E of 10 years ago with today. It's pure rubbish now.
We've discussed dumping our Time Warner Cable, but at times such as the beginning of the Iraq War, we'd be crying for news, so we'll keep it.
Where we live, we're cornholed...no "over air" works, so it's the lesser of two expensive evils; pretty basic cable at around $45 a month,or satellite - which I've heard not much good about.
So...I guess we'll just keep plunking the $45.00 down to TW to keep Ted Turner's ability to quaff the finest gin intact.
I've seen some excellent Canadian and British programming that is unavailable here except through BitTorrent.
Forget to record a show? No problem; download it via BitTorrent. The internet has become my Tivo.
No mention of VOOM? They have the best offering of HD programming among the three.
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