Since the Charlie chat, I have been hopeful that the sleeping giant has finally woken up, but has Dish really woken up?    I have seen nothing but Smoke and Magic coming from Dish Network lately.  With AMC 14 out of the question as the botched launch, they have stated that this will do nothing to their current HD plans.   Which is Smoke and mirrors, Yea they have added some Local in Local HD and turned on NESNHD, but if you’re not living in Florida, Austin TX, or New England area, you haven’t seen a peep from E*.  This has left well over 80 percent of the country alienated from new HD.  Now Dish has said they have plans and that you will “Soon”   see new national HD coming to dish.  Once again Smoke and Mirrors.  I don’t blame people for switching to DirecTV.   We have waited over 6 months for new HD, along with that inevitable word “soon.”  

This week DirecTV will once again reaffirm their HDTV leader as they are scheduled to launch the ABC family series of HDTV channels.    While I root for Dish to finally wake up, I don’t think it will happen as dish is truly up in smoke.   Most of the subs for Dish wants’ national HD now!  Mainly USA and Scifi HD. Dish has not heard their customers and many have already made the switch.  So for now expect more Smoke and Mirrors until they really do launch some more HDTV.  When they do it will be too late.  I have a retailer friend here in Illinois who stopped selling the Dish HD product because he couldn’t market it.  Everyone who he tried to sign up for it, ended up signing for the DirecTV product as it was stronger period.  

My First quarter 08 predictions:   Directv will see a net increase in subs and a decrease in churn which is already low.   Churn is the amount of subs that leaves your service for another. 

Dish Network will see an increase in Churn and a decrease in Net subs.  They will blame this on the current market conditions, which is nothing but smoke and mirrors.  The real reason why is because Charlie couldn’t pull his head out of his ass to add some national HD to keep some subs.  I personally think dish’s execution has been lacking, and the person at the top (Charlie) should be held directly responsible as dish has had bandwidth and channel allocations for over six months to keep this churn they are seeing now low.  Instead Airhead Charlie has kept these channels off air to dish subs and churn has been high.  It is just common sense but Charlie just doesn’t get it.  Many have said that it’s because Charlie has been cheap.   This also could be the case as more often than not Charlie will hold out to get the lowest rate.   The funny part of this deal; my DirecTV bill is actually lower than what my Dish Network Bill was.   Figure that one out!    So for now Charlie is all talk and no action.   Nothing but a Las Vegas Magic show!