D*Superfan--Bob Mercer of D* Misleads SI Columnist  

My response to Dr. Z

Regarding the Superfan package on DirecTV, once again, DirecTV has misled the public in their response to you. The Superfan package started out at $99, but after a groundswell of complaints (see these threads for details: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=541123; http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=539378; www.nohdtax.com), DirecTV changed their mind and lowered the cost to $49 for existing subscribers. The problem with what DirecTV is doing is that they are bundling high-definition broadcasts with the other “interactive†features which are NOT in high-definition. Currently, no high-definition DirecTV receiver that has interactive features exists. The interactive features require an interactive receiver, of which there are very few compared to the total subscriber base of DirecTV since they just started using them last year and there is no such thing as a high-definition interactive receiver. Thus, they are selling two products which you cannot use at the same time. One group of people will use the high-definition portion of the package and another will use the interactive features. Somehow, everybody is paying for something they can’t use. Additionally, what this sets is a very bad precedent: paying extra for high-definition programming with a sports subscription package. I understand paying extra for regular high-definition programming in addition to regular programming (ESPN-HD, for example). But when I am already paying $200 for a sports package, don’t tell me it costs an extra $49 to watch it in high-definition. Is color an extra $5 as well? $10 for surround sound? If that’s the case, why am I paying for the standard-definition signal when I won’t watch it? Let me just buy the high-definition signal and I’ll be happy. DirecTV can spin this all they want by bundling it with “interactive†features (which, I will reiterate, are in standard definition), but the bottom line is they are charging extra for a high-definition signal with their sports packages, and as high-definition becomes the preferred medium for sports broadcasting, it sets a very bad example and will lead to much higher prices for these packages. If DirecTV spent too much buying exclusivity for Sunday Ticket, that’s their problem. Don’t pass the buck to me because I won’t be paying for their stupidity.

I want to understand this uproar.

DirecTV is bundling, in the eyes of many here, HD with non HD features and charging HD viewers for "unwanted" features.

So where is the uproar over ESPN charging cable and satellite operators $2.50+ per month per subscriber when the vast majority of viewers (something like 70%) never watch ESPN at all and would much prefer not to have to pay for you being able to view those very expensive NFL, NCAA, and MLB games?

The fact is, HofstraJet, ESPN can spend as much as it likes on the sports contracts because it gets all that money from forced payments from people who have no interest in oprioviding you with programmking you enjoy. (And the $2.50+ a month is just for ESPN. ESPN2, News, and Classic add further to the average persons' subscription cost -- even though, again, most never watch.)

My guess is that if else is forced to to provide something you want to watch it is OK, but if you are forced to pay it isn't.

At the very least it shows that we're not as stupid as they think we are.
Well done.

First of all I agree that this looks like some bad deception. This might be a hair off-topic then, but can somebody tell me if these will be in HD and available on the HD-TIVO? I was going to cancel the whole package, but this feature might be enough for me to keep it. But not in SD.

--Darin

And while he is skewering DirecTV, I hope he also explains how ESPN charges cable and satellite operators $2.50+ per month per subscriber when the vast majority of viewers (something like 70%) never watch ESPN at all. Presumably they would much prefer not to have to pay so the rest of us get to view those very expensive NFL, NCAA, and MLB games (many of them in HD!)

By the way, the $2.50+ a month is just for ESPN. ESPN2, News, and Classic add further (at least another $2.00) to the everyone's average monthly subscription cost -- even though most homes never watch any of those channels. So the average cable/satellite subscriber subsidizes the sports fan to the tune of $50 a year or more. Which means if the non-sports homes weren’t forced to pay, the ESPN packages most of us enjoy would cost us somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 a month.

I also wrote Dr. Z (and in fact wrote him when he first mntioned the issue, pointing him to the nohdtax website which he apparently ignored). Maybe this time he'll read the emails.

fred, I can't tell from your post but you do know that Dr. Z is an SI guy, and not ESPN right?

paul zimmerman has more personal integrity than just about any sportswriter around- he will be furious he was played like this. d* will rue the day they tried that pathetic con on him, i can almost promise you.

You ungrateful people always slamming D*. :rolleyes:

Yes, madpoet, I am aware he's with SI.

Sports fans have got to love that. ;) :D

Just making sure ;). Anyway, I like Dr. Z (other than his occasional need to interject politics into his sports columns) and he's a great stats guy. I hope his email screener lets some of our messages through. Michael Silver and I had an excellent running email debate over the rights of teams to test for recreational drugs a few weeks ago. I always appreciate it when the columnists respond.

-MP

And wouldn't it be great if these packages were unbundled and I could order up the ESPN channels I wanted, and pay less per month than I pay to see freakily augmented breasts on the Playboy Channel. And the non-sports enthusiast did not have to subsidize my Raider habit.
It is the tiering of HD and the absurdity of HD/SD-"interactive" bundling that is so annoying. It's like the execs at D* don't really have HDTV's at home themselves, and have no understanding, many of us just don't watch much SD anymore. What, am I supposed to have SD and HD receivers side by side with an ab switch, or go to the bedroom to watch the 30 minute highlight programming? Oh, that's why it comes on after midnight.

aahahahhahhaha! really? you arent? you guys encouraged all these practices by buying into D*'s Sunday ticket policies and pricing schemes to begin with to "support your team". For years you have quietly absorbed the sub-standard pixellated divx they pump into your tvs and call it HD, and you make threads here begging for more. You have paid the extra surcharge for all that without question, and now that your precious football is in the mix, you call foul? thats hipocracy at its finest. Complain all you want, you did this to yourselves...

Where did this come from? All people did was sign up for D* to get Sunday Ticket. Every year the price went up a bit. It was always just a little, something we could live with. Now they turned up the heat and many are drawing the line. No need to blame the customer. It's a cost-benefit issue, and D* went too far, so customers are speaking out. If D* is misleading the media, they should be called on it. They know exactly what they are doing.

Wow...I hate saying this, but I can't disagree...

However, I feel better that I now only shell out $60 a month to them instead of $160 (not including sports packages).

I hope that MF PR guy gets canned for LYING.

He wont, he'll get promoted, as more people will buy into it. Most avsforum members who claimed to be so outraged at the $100 price hike couldnt wait to sign on the dotted line when D* threw them the most insulting discount (a 50% price reduction on a surcharge that wasnt warranted to begin with). Whatever. Maybe its because i'm not a real big fan of football (at least not enough to pay to go see them live or purchase anything that evil corporation puts out that costs me money to see) but I figure after all those threads talking about how much more the NFL stands to make after the contract renegotiation, these rate hikes were only inevitable.

D*'s website still shows the original pricing for the SF package. I doubt that the guy from DirecTv outright lied to an SI columnist about something that could so very easily be researched.

you know the story of this, right? (not a thread hijack)

Isn't this the guy who had no clue what the original guy meant when he said "high def"? Something tells me D* made some vague but true statements and Dr. Z filled in all the blanks himself.

That was my thought. What's the point of deliberately misleading an SI writer on something that can so easily be verified as true or not?

There would be no point, of course, MnGuy.
But what fun would recognizing that be to the "DirecTV is the Evil Empire" faction?
Perhaps soon they'll find another corporate pinata to swing at.
But for now it is DirecTV.

I don't, but I'd like to. :)

zimmerman went ballistic when ESPN hired rush limbaugh to do NFL commentary. z's politics "came out" then. TT leave the history out when criticizing him.

Can someone help me a newbie who is planning on getting D* for the first time this year......What is an interactive receiver ?

as far as I've heard, they are going to be in SD.

Although, I'd imagine it'd be easy to do them in HD for all of the HD recorded games and use the same footage downgraded for SD users at the same time (much the way "game of the week" on nfl network has a HD and SD version)

I'm looking forward to this regardless. But I'd really like to see it in HD.

The 8 game channel sounds intriguing. But if it is in SD and not letterbox. each game is going to look fairly poor compared to how it could look.

Interactive features? Not worth it. the only difference is that you can click directly on a game to be transported there, with a rgular HD receiver you would have to type the channel in yourself. I'll spend the 2 seconds it takes to that by hand.

One of the chief concerns seems to have been eliminated with the release of the H20. Now there will be an interactive HD receiver in time for the season.

As for Dr. Z's politics, I've written to him several times asking him to drop it. No one CARES. He's one of those "I'm moving out of the country if Bush gets re-elected" crowd, but you'll note he's still here... anyway, I doubt we'll hear another word from him on the subject.

-MP

Nice life.

As opposed to what, posting inane comments here? Pardon me if I want my sports writers to write about, I don't know, sports.