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- Published: 22 Jun 2011
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DirecTV has its own network called The 101 Network, available only to DirecTV subscribers in the United States. DirecTV is also the exclusive U.S. rights holder to sports packages NFL Sunday Ticket, NASCAR Hot Pass, and the "DirecTV Experience", for Men's Majors Golf Tournaments and Grand Slam Tennis Tournaments.
Most subscribers use reception antennas which are much smaller than the first generation antennas, which used antennas a few yards (meters) across. Advances in antenna tech, inc fractal antenna layouts have allowed a general reduction in antenna size accross all industries and applications. Receiving equipment includes a satellite dish, an integrated receiver/decoder and a DirecTV access card, which is necessary to operate the receiver/decoder.
Consumers who purchase DirecTV equipment subscribe to various packages of DirecTV programming for which the subscriber pays a monthly fee. Additional monthly fees may include a protection plan (which provides for repair or replacement of consumer leased equipment from damages caused by lightning, power surges, floods, etc.), DVR/HD access, additional receivers, and added premium packages. A subscriber also can order pay-per-view events and movies. DirecTV contracts with and pays program providers such as cable networks, motion picture distributors, sports leagues, event promoters, and other programming rights holders, for the right to distribute their programming to its subscribers. All programming distributed by DirecTV is delivered to its broadcast centers in Castle Rock, Colorado, and Los Angeles, California, where it is then digitized and compressed. The resulting signal is encrypted by DirecTV to prevent its unauthorized reception. DirecTV then transmits these signals to several satellites located in geostationary orbit. 2006 revenues were US$14.76 billion.
The arbitration was to alleviate concerns that Fox would pull its network programming, which includes professional baseball and football, off cable systems to encourage viewers to subscribe to DirecTV.
News Corp. agreed not to pull either the network programming or its regional sports networks while a dispute was being arbitrated.
In November 2006, News Corporation announced its intention to transfer its managing interest in The DirecTV Group to John Malone's Liberty Media; in return it bought back Liberty's shares in News Corp., giving the Murdoch family tighter control of the latter firm. On February 29, 2008, after receiving FCC approval, Liberty completed its acquisition of News Corporation's shares of DirecTV. Liberty put DirecTV's Puerto Rican operations in a trust to satisfy the FCC's requirement that it or Liberty Global's cable provider on the island be divested. In 2004, DirecTV abandoned the Mexican market, though it maintains 41% ownership of Sky Mexico. On October 15, 2007, DirecTV announced that they now have 70 national high-definition channels available, with up to 100 coming by year end. On October 3, 2008, DirecTV announced that it would offer HD local channels in 121 markets by year-end.
As of June 30, 2007, DirecTV had 16.32 million subscribers. On December 13, 2007, DirecTV purchases most of the assets of ReplayTV from D&M; Holdings. On May 4, 2009, DirecTV said it would become a part of Liberty's entertainment unit, part of which would then be spun off as a separate company called DirecTV. Liberty would increase its share of DirecTV from 48 to 54 percent.
On November 18, 2009, it was announced that DirecTV hired former PepsiCo International CEO Michael White as its new President and CEO. He started on January 1, 2010. He replaces Chase Carey, now at News Corporation.
On Feb 9, 2010, DirecTV dropped Sirius XM Radio and replaced the channel lineup with Sonic Tap audio stations.
In October 2010, DirecTV unveiled its new, updated company logo that features the Cyclone Design similar to the one used in the company's original logo from 1994–2005 and with "TV" not in bold lettering.
In the past, receivers were manufactured by DirecTV and other companies. Other companies' DirecTV receivers have been phased out and DirecTV now designs their own models with companies such as Pace Micro Technology of Britain, LG of Korea, and Thomson of France. DirecTV and TiVo announced on September 3, 2008, that they will work together to develop a version of the TiVo service for DirecTV's broadband-enabled HD DVR platform. Originally scheduled to launch in the second half of 2009, it is now expected to be available in spring 2010.
DirecTV typically uses a fixed dish antenna to receive its signals. Traditionally an 18×24-inch elliptical was used; however, most new installations use an 18×20-inch antenna to receive signals from three geostationary satellite positions simultaneously. These systems are becoming more common as DirecTV attempts to squeeze more programming onto its growing systems. DTV is now installing a dish that has five LNBs for HDTV programming and local channels in selected markets. These systems receive signals from up to five separate satellites in both the and . After the new satellite, DirecTV 11, is fully operational, DirecTV will stop supplying dual, triple, and five-LNB dishes to all customers and move to supplying a three-LNB Ka/Ku dish known as the Slimline3. This dish will see orbital locations 99, 101, and 103 degrees West. The Slimline3 will be the new standard install dish (for HD and SD programming), while the five-LNB Slimline will be used for installs in areas that receive local or international programming from orbital locations 110 or 119. The Slimline3 looks nearly identical to its predecessor, aside from a smaller LNB.
The new DirecTV HD channels require an H20/HR20 or H21/HR21/HR22/HR23 set top box (STB). In order to receive the new HD channels (channels added after September 2007), all HD receivers except the HR23 must have a B-Band converter installed. If the converter is not installed, viewers can only receive older HD channels (channels 70–99). The "HR" moniker designates the receiver as a HD digital video recorder (DVR) model.
Only the H20/HR20 support direct reception of over-the-air ATSC broadcasts. The H21/HR21/HR22/HR23 receivers do not have a built in ATSC tuner, but the AM21 external tuner is available. In addition, there is HDMI support for HDTVs with an HDMI port. New STBs also support MPEG-4 standard for HD *Programming. DirecTV also offers the AM21 (an ATSC add-on for the HR21), the HR21-Pro (a HD-DVR with 100 hours HD or 400 hours SD recording capacity), and an online DVR scheduler.
DirecTV has introduced a new line of remotes to go with their new receivers.
To handle the proliferation of bandwidth-intensive HDTV broadcasting, DirecTV rebroadcasts local HDTV stations using the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec while employing a newer transmission protocol (DVB-S2) over the newer satellites. This allows DirecTV to squeeze much more HD programming over its satellite signal than was previously feasible using the older MPEG-2 compression and DSS protocol it has been using. This technology will be gradually expanded to the existing satellites as customer equipment is replaced with new MPEG-4-capable receivers.
Receiving the channels encoded in MPEG-4 requires newer receivers, such as the H20 as well as the 5-LNB Ka/Ku dish. DirecTV has contracted with Britain's Pace Micro Technology, Korea's LG Electronics and France's Thomson to manufacture these new receivers. Pace manufactures the DirecTV Plus HD DVR (Model HR20-700, and HR21-700) and LG Electronics offers the Model H20-600 receiver, while Thomson provides the Model H20-100 and HR20-100 DVR receivers. DirecTV has admitted to software issues with some of the H20 receivers and HR20 DVRs, which have been plagued with random problems since they were released in mid-2006. DirecTV regularly released software updates for the HR20 receivers, in an effort to reduce issues to an acceptable level.
DirecTV has phased out its original TiVo-branded HD DVR, the HR10-250, which can only decode the older MPEG-2 signals. All DirecTV-delivered local HDTV stations (outside of the NYC and LA network stations) are encoded in MPEG-4. The HR10-250 cannot receive the MPEG-4 local HDTV stations in these markets but can still receive over-the-air ATSC broadcasts in these markets. After a multi-year hiatus, TiVo and DirecTV are developing a new TiVo enabled HD DVR that will be able to receive/decode DirecTV's current MPEG-4 satellite signals, expected for release in 2010.
These characters include Captain Kirk (William Shatner, ), Bill Harding (Bill Paxton, Twister) , The Economics Teacher (Ben Stein, Ferris Bueller's Day Off), Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd, Back to the Future), Burton Guster (Dule Hill, Psych), C.J. Parker (Pamela Anderson, Baywatch), Rick "Wild Thing" Vaughn (Charlie Sheen, Major League), Beyoncé (Upgrade U music video), Nadia (Shannon Elizabeth, American Pie), Turtle (Jerry Ferrara, Entourage), Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver, Aliens), Steve Freeling (Craig T. Nelson, Poltergeist), Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates, Misery), Mini-Me (Verne Troyer, Austin Powers In Goldmember), The Girl in the Ferrari (Christie Brinkley, National Lampoon's Vacation), Daisy Duke (Jessica Simpson, The Dukes of Hazzard), T-1000 (Robert Patrick, ), Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts, King Kong), Hellboy (Ron Perlman, Hellboy), Richard Hayden (David Spade, Tommy Boy), Black Eyed Peas (Meet Me Halfway music video), Christina Aguilera (Keeps Gettin' Better music video) and Honey Hornee (Kim Basinger, Wayne's World 2). Also in this series of commercials were Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, and Archie Manning promoting NFL Sunday Ticket, and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. promoting NASCAR Hot Pass. Cartoon characters have also been used in the ads, beginning with Scooby-Doo and the Mystery, Inc. gang.
DirecTV during that time also ran series of ads that takes shots at cable television's service (or lack of service). Beginning in March 2010, they did a spoof of the classic game show To Tell The Truth with Alex Trebek hosting the show. The series of commercials both pays homage to the Goodson-Todman game show, and take shots at both cable and DirecTV's arch rival Dish Network, who later sued for false advertising. Dish says DirecTV's ads claim a misleading number of HD channels at a price that doesn't include any HD. Dish also says DirecTV misleads consumers by saying it can offer 200 HD channels when it really offers about 130. Dish says the ads end with the promotional price of $29.99 a month, which it says doesn't include HD. Another series of commercials, promoting the 2010 NFL Sunday Ticket package of all-football programming, featured neighbors committing uncivil acts to neighbors who watched the "wrong" football team. One spot had a woman leaving a snack platter for a neighbor on which the food spelled out "DIRT BAG"; another showed a dog trashing a neighbor's property; yet another showed an on-duty policeman knocking on a DirecTV customer's door, stunning him with a taser and leaving him passed out in his open doorway.
DirecTV's customer service is provided by many third-party owned call centers both inside and outside the United States. DirecTV also has a subsidiary named DirecTV Customer Service LLC, which owns call centers in Denver, Colorado (opened in 2007); Boise, Idaho; Huntsville, Alabama; Missoula, Montana; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Pharr, Texas; and, most recently, Huntington, West Virginia. N.E.W. provides technical assistance by phone to customers who subscribe to DirecTV's Protection Plan. Most of the call centers are contracted to provide agents to answer customer phone calls regarding billing or technical questions.
The complaint alleges unfair or deceptive practices which include, but are not limited to unclear disclosures concerning rebate terms and conditions, unclear and/or unfair advertising for use of the term “free;” automatically extending contracts when customers require equipment repairs, upgrade equipment or move; failing to disclose finance terms and conditions that the company’s least expensive package of $29.99 per month is only available to customers who meet certain financing conditions and agree to have the costs automatically charged or debited. The suit also alleged that some cancellation fees accessed by the company were considered to be unfair, and that the company unfairly retained consumer deposits made to obtain services. Those who cancel service prior to the end of their contract lose part of the deposit and may also be charged cancellation fees.
The Attorney General’s Office is asking the court to compel DirecTV to change its business practices, impose civil penalties and provide restitution for consumers. The case is currently pending.
Since these complaints have been filed, DirecTV's customer service support departments nationwide and abroad have been provided with clear directives to continue to disclose DirecTV's policies concerning lease agreements and consumer contractual obligations. All inquiring customers have the right to decline service with the company if not in agreement with these policies prior to activation. These disclosures are provided to consumers upon inquiry regarding new services, in order that the customer may submit to said agreements in compliance with DirecTV's policies. This information is also readily available on the company's website in the disclosure and agreement section listed below all packaged advertisements. All advertised pricing is based upon offers pending credit approval, which DirecTV maintains is the standard to obtain new service.
Any credit not approved upon setting up a new account may be able to access an unapproved credit offer which maintains a customer may still have the ability to lease up to 2 standard receivers only and the package of their choosing. All existing terms and agreements apply upon activation of a new DirecTV account.
, the Better Business Bureau gives DirecTV an F rating.
, the 36-month running count of complaints about DirecTV logged with the Better Business Bureau is 39,292, including 8,275 with a response of "Full refund" or "Partial refund", 15,519 with a response of "Agreeing to perform according to their contract", 15,085 with a response of "Refuse to adjust, relying on terms of agreement", and 405 with a response of "Refusing to make an adjustment". Currently, the claim has yet to be completely fulfilled; DirecTV added HBO 2 east HD and HBO Zone HD on June 23, 2010, but has yet to add the rest. DirecTV also does not carry HBO Comedy, @Max, ActionMax, OuterMax, ThrillerMax, 5StarMax and Wmax at all. As a comparison, all of the Showtime channels and Starz channels that DirecTV offers are available in HD. (Coincidentally, Liberty Starz and The DirecTV Group are both owned by Liberty Media).
DirecTV and HBO have reportedly been in negotiations for the rest of the channels for several months, with the main issue being DirecTV refusing to offer free previews and introductory discounts for the suite to attract potential subscribers. DirecTV, however, did add the Video on Demand versions of HBO and Cinemax on December 20, 2010.
Versus was removed from DirecTV for six and a half months starting September 1, 2009 due to a carriage dispute. It was resolved on March 15, 2010 and the channel was returned to its original package.
DirecTV dropped G4 on November 1, 2010 due to a carriage dispute. Currently, there are no plans to renegotiate and/or renew carriage for it.
Category:High-definition television Category:Direct broadcast satellite services Category:Satellite television Category:Lists of television channels by company Category:Companies based in Los Angeles County, California Category:Companies established in 1994
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