Satellite sales consistently gaining ground in numbers and holding lead in customer satisfaction. As we complete the first half of the NFL Season two things become readily apparent. Sports Bars who have bit the bullet and paid for commercial license to show Sunday NFL Football games on several screens are doing booming business. I, myself being a displaced RAMS Fan have had to frequent such establishments on many occasions to see my team play. Not bad but watching it at home would be more convienient on a Sunday Morning. NFL Sunday Ticket has been a significant programming differentiator for DirecTV, helping us build a loyal subscriber base," DirecTV chairman Eddy Hartenstein said. "It's crucial for us to have programming that sets us apart from our competition." His service has more than 17 million customers and is a unit of Hughes Electronics, which is a unit of General Motors Corp. NFL Sunday Ticket allows subscribers to see all out-of-market games each Sunday during the regular season. At the same time, DirecTV would use new middleware from a News Corp. subsidiary to present a new user interface in subscribers' set-top boxes (STBs) followed by "a suite" of interactive TV services including news, sports, weather, traffic and games. Additionally, the filing states that the merged operation would launch a new generation of satellites as early as 2006 and no later than 2008 that would provide capacity for local TV coverage in all 210 designated market areas in the United States. It would also enable DirecTV "to transmit more HDTV programming to subscribers, including local channels in HDTV format in select markets." By 2005, DirecTV said the merged company would offer "very competitively priced set-top boxes with fully integrated digital video recorders, which will result in the deployment of at least 1 million such STBs each year thereafter." Coincidentally, rival EchoStar at the same time announced it had reached the 1 million DVR mark among DISH Network subscribers. During his remarks at the retailer rally, Hartenstein said DirecTV would draw on its high customer satisfaction ratings as a key weapon in fending off cable operators who are now ramping up digital cable programs for retail distribution. He pointed to a recent J.D. Powers and Associates study on cable and satellite that indicated consumer satisfaction is much higher among satellite homes, adding that combined DBS subscriber totals now top 20 million customers or one in every five homes. He added that DirecTV continues to be the top ranked multi-channel TV service in J.D. Powers consumer satisfaction surveys. Although cable subscriptions still dominate the industry, satellite market penetration continues a steady eight-year climb, with nearly one in four households now subscribing to satellite pay TV. Satellite receives an overall customer satisfaction index score of 723 (on a 1,000-point scale), compared to 659 for Digital Cable and 621 for analog cable, with strong performance across all measures of customer satisfaction. Despite this outcome, cable narrows the gap in overall satisfaction versus satellite, improving at nearly twice the rate of satellite (3.1% vs. 1.6%). Both satellite providers included in the study receive the two highest customer satisfaction rankings among the 13 largest providers of cable/satellite TV service. Satellite pay tv regains its highest ranking from 2003, receiving top ratings from customers in three of the six factors that drive overall satisfaction: billing, cost of service, and offerings and promotions. It also performs near the top in the remaining three factors: customer service, image, and performance and reliability. Satellite TV is followed in the rankings by cable companies WOW (WideOpenWest), Cox Communications, RCN and Bright House Networks, respectively. Customer service has once again re-established itself as the top driver of consumer satisfaction, contributing to 26 percent of the overall customer satisfaction index score. This factor weighting is the highest seen for any factor in the cable/satellite TV study, representing a stark contrast to the 10 percent weighting the customer service factor averaged over the previous three years. "The opportunity to purchase voice products from pay TV providers and vice versa from historical voice providers has no doubt contributed to this dramatic increase in the importance of customer service," said Steve Kirkeby, senior director of telecommunications for J.D. Power and Associates. "Similar to the voice market counter-parts, dissatisfaction with levels of customer service will make consumers less satisfied overall, making them more susceptible to bundling and price promotions from competitors." Product bundling continues to be the key area where cable providers can stem migration to satellite and increase cable's share of the consumer wallet. With a continuing strong consumer desire to combine multiple services in a single bill for convenience and simplicity, the study finds that 44 percent of cable subscribers want to combine their cable service with some other telecommunications product or service. The study finds the current average monthly expenditure for pay TV service is $49.08 among satellite subscribers and $50.98 among cable subscribers. What this means for the consumer is more and better choices at more competitive prices are in the offing as cable tv services try desperately to keep the subscribers they have which is much cheaper than trying to lure people away from The Dish. And if you love Pro Football like I do there is no other choice but DirecTV and NFL SUNDAY TICKET. |
