I've been with DirecTV since 2001, so it's been a while. The greatest thing about their service is that every single year I call in and am able to get good deals. Like I've gotten a free HD-DVR, and gotten great discounts on NFL Sunday Ticket pretty much every year. This thread just prompted me to go looking for any current deals, and I found that right now they are offering free HD programming to existing customers for 24 months, so I called in and got that. The DBS Talk forums are a great resource to check occasionally and find out what kind of deals other subscribers are getting.
codell and juicystream, I hear what you're saying, and you can get a la carte viewing of shows now. Some are on Hulu. Some can be viewed in full on the network channel. This includes Nick Jr. My 2 and a half year old doesn't watch hardly any video, but we will occasionally play a Dora episode off Nick Jr.'s website. You can also buy a season pass for some shows. We paid $15 to get season 2 of Top Chef Masters, which I thought was a fair price for 10 episodes. I'd do the same for other shows as well. The problem with a la carte for cable companies is the way networks bundle programs. ESPN can force a cable company to buy all their channels if they want to offer ESPN (which they pretty much have to). CNN and Fox News are similar. The NFL network had that huge showdown with Comcast last year when they tried to jack the rates up for all customers. Lifetime can play hardball with the networks. Enough women want this channel, so you have to provide it to all of your customers in a standard package or we won't offer it to you. All the networks are bleeding money now, and the price of the channels are only going up at this point. But at some point there's a backlash. I'm not the only one that has dropped cable. Eventually, the industry will all go a la carte. TV's will increasingly have internet and network capabilities. More shows will be available for purchase. I look forward to the day when I pay for what I watch and can get any show I want to watch in HD.
Not anywhere near me luckily. It's more southwest Arkansas, down toward Hot Springs. I am in northeast Arkansas in a city called Jonesboro. Thanks for your concern though.
Misleading thread title. I though Dish Network was going out of business Been with them for 3 yrs and have no complaints. But due to my busy lifestyle, I don't have much time to be sitting on my ass these days so I couldn't care less about these fancy channels.
Don't do it!!! I made the switch from Dish to DTV a little over a year ago, and regretted it. IIRC, Dish was essentially free installation, but DirecTV has an extremely expensive install charge and I had nothing but problems with them. I definitely prefer the DTV packages, but I'm not sure it was worth the headache of switching over.
Uhh...both have a free standard installation. If you were charged for installation, then you either got scammed or you're one of those people who expect to have all your TV's mounted for free, difficult wire fish, house vacuumed, swept and mopped and the yard cut.
That's what they advertise. After all the caveats they explained to me, there is virtually no such thing as a standard installation. Plus the customer service rep who I spoke to told me that it included 1 HD-DVR plus 2 SD-DVR's, which turned out to be a flat-out lie.
This reminds me of the time I asked my dad if he ever thought of taking us to visit his home-town in Cameroon, and told us we probably couldn't handle it becuase they still didn't have indoor plumbing.
So I can contact them and get it for 24 months for free even if I just got through with my free 12 month period after upgrading?
