DirecTV received just under 3,500 calls in the last 6 months

[BYU71]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

BYU71, it's not "what games are exciting?", it's your implied suggestion that BYU's schedule in the past was consistently better than it is now. That simply wasn't the case.

OK, let's not debate the perception. Let's debate the going forward. Going forward because of the BCS, I think in general non BCS teams will get weaker and weaker. There may be some exceptions, but that will be the case most of the time.

It will be interesting to see how Hawaii does from here on out. BSU had a nice run, we'll see how the next couple of years go. Utes, well you decide.

Now BCS teams don't always stay on top either, but when they fall they are still BCS teams.

If our future is based on playing 10 non-BCS teams a year, the odds are very good we are going to be playing mainly mediocre teams. The product, on field games and games for TV are going to be mainly mediocre.

[Flystripper]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

BYU71, it's not "what games are exciting?", it's your implied suggestion that BYU's schedule in the past was consistently better than it is now. That simply wasn't the case.

BYU's schedule now is not significantly worse than what is was in the past. This statement is beside the point. I don't care about the past. College football has changed significantly. BYU can't be content to just schedule like they did in the past. If BYU is serious about being a big boy, today's college football landscape demands BCS games to garner respect.

BCS programs play 8 BCS games a year and BYU thinks they have a tough schedule with only 2.

[Spaz]

Originally Posted by BYU71

Even the last ten years we have the legacy of scheduling that was done pre Bronco. It is Bronco's words that are troubling as far as future scheduling. Fortunately Holmoe doesn't seem to be on the same page.

I also think it is pretty clear as stated before, our old foes that used to be pretty decent are not so decent anymore.

You tell me Indy. What games coming up in LES this year have you really excited about.

I tried to sell my tickets to the Northern Illinois game on the board. No takers. True blue fans shoot their mouths off about how any BYU game is a great game to go to. When you call them on it, no takers.

FWIW, if I didn't already have tickets to that game (and every game) lined up, I might have been willing to pick them up (depending on price).


Incidentally, I think Bronco's words are largely misunderstood. I really don't think he meant he wants to see a lot of pansies on the schedule. I think he wants to play 2-3 decent-to-good BCS teams a year, plus a cakewalk, and with maybe a ranked BCS team thrown in occasionally.

Many of the comments he's made, IMO, were more about commiserating with the crappy situation CFB is currently in with the BCS than about what he actually wants to have happen...

[BYU71]

Originally Posted by Spaz

FWIW, if I didn't already have tickets to that game (and every game) lined up, I might have been willing to pick them up (depending on price).


Incidentally, I think Bronco's words are largely misunderstood. I really don't think he meant he wants to see a lot of pansies on the schedule. I think he wants to play 2-3 decent-to-good BCS teams a year, plus a cakewalk, and with maybe a ranked BCS team thrown in occasionally.

Many of the comments he's made, IMO, were more about commiserating with the crappy situation CFB is currently in with the BCS than about what he actually wants to have happen...

Well I am more encouraged by Holmoe speak than Bronco speak. Since I am not a great interpreter, I will just have to go on what Bronco said and hope he doesn't mean it literally.

Maybe I am wrong, but I think the scheduling of BSU for 4 years is not in addition to two BCS teams, but as a replacement for a BCS team. I would love to see BSU on the schedule plus two BCS teams, that would certainly help me to feel better about what the future scheduling philosophy is.

The price on those tickets would be full price. It makes my point. People just aren't that interested in at least half of the home games coming up next year.

[Spaz]

Well, you can count me as one of those "4,000" new DTV subscribers. Oh, my brother as well, he's said he's planning on switching to DTV this summer.


Numbers from call centers can be skewed in so many different ways, you should ALWAYS take them with a grain of salt. I never personally called DTV or Dish. And yet, I'll be switching. I don't believe my brother ever personally called DTV or Dish. And yet, he'll be switching.

Are we atypical BYU fans? Sure...we both frequent message boards, which is typical of a more 'devoted' follower. Still, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see DTV subscriptions rise in MWC markets by far more than "4,000" subscriptions.

[CJF]

Originally Posted by Spaz

Well, you can count me as one of those "4,000" new DTV subscribers. Oh, my brother as well, he's said he's planning on switching to DTV this summer.


Numbers from call centers can be skewed in so many different ways, you should ALWAYS take them with a grain of salt. I never personally called DTV or Dish. And yet, I'll be switching. I don't believe my brother ever personally called DTV or Dish. And yet, he'll be switching.

I agree that the numbers can be skewed, but why would I take them with a grain of salt? We live and die by our call center data. It's gone over with a fine tooth comb daily. We get the pulse of our customers through that data. And over a six month trend, with commercials telling me to call DTV and Dish, and missing another football season, under 3,500 calls made is screaming scary data if you are Craig Thompson. That data dictates where money is spent. Additional training, additional scripting, commericals, web spends, etc. If you take that with a grain of salt you're sticking your head in the sand. That's what the MWC has done throughout this entire ordeal.

[Spaz]

Originally Posted by CJF

I agree that the numbers can be skewed, but why would I take them with a grain of salt? We live and die by our call center data. It's gone over with a fine tooth comb daily. We get the pulse of our customers through that data. And over a six month trend, with commercials telling me to call DTV and Dish, and missing another football season, under 3,500 calls made is screaming scary data if you are Craig Thompson. That data dictates where money is spent. Additional training, additional scripting, commericals, web spends, etc. If you take that with a grain of salt you're sticking your head in the sand. That's what the MWC has done throughout this entire ordeal.

'Taken with a grain of salt' meaning there are many factors involved that can affect the overall impact of a deal such as the Mtn.

Of the 100,000 people 'interested' in a certain channel (the number pulled from where the sun don't shine, for use in this argument), what percentage actually make the call to tell you how they feel? Let's just assume it's 10% (which is probably an overestimation, IMO). Now, how many of that 10% are able to find the RIGHT number to call, and then actually get through to the right location where they can give their information?

Then, you're relying on the person taking the data (I'll leave it to you to determine how often a 'mistake' is made in this case) to do so correctly.


Lastly, factor in the fact that MANY potential customers have given up by this point (persistence is NOT most American's strong suit), and I think you'll find far more subscriptions brought about by the Mtn than were indicated by the number of requests.

That is what I meant by 'grain of salt'.

[CJF]

Originally Posted by Spaz

'Taken with a grain of salt' meaning there are many factors involved that can affect the overall impact of a deal such as the Mtn.

Of the 100,000 people 'interested' in a certain channel (the number pulled from where the sun don't shine, for use in this argument), what percentage actually make the call to tell you how they feel? Let's just assume it's 10% (which is probably an overestimation, IMO). Now, how many of that 10% are able to find the RIGHT number to call, and then actually get through to the right location where they can give their information?

Then, you're relying on the person taking the data (I'll leave it to you to determine how often a 'mistake' is made in this case) to do so correctly.


Lastly, factor in the fact that MANY potential customers have given up by this point (persistence is NOT most American's strong suit), and I think you'll find far more subscriptions brought about by the Mtn than were indicated by the number of requests.

That is what I meant by 'grain of salt'.

The data is not exact. I'll grant you that. When you're dealing with over 750k calls, you're going to have some agent error in the dispositions. However, Dish and Direct to make a lot of their business decisions based on that data.

One thing I think would be interesting, and I would have asked for it yesterday if my friend wasn't trying to finish his weekly reports, is the last 18 months worth of data. I know for a fact that Dish and DTV got slammed with calls for about 2 hour period in August of 2006. I happened to unleash about 200 outbound agents on them when one of our dialers went down. Removing those calls, I would be interested to see what six month period had the most volume. My guess is that it's not much different today than it was 18 months ago.

I do agree with you that some who are currently Dish customers will switch. I don't think it's going to be significant. I would guess most lived through two years, they'll not go through the hassle believing that Dish is going to be on board soon also or flat out don't know DTV has it. I think DTV will get back most if not all their customers they lost from Comcast. I think DTV knows this and that is why they publicly welcomed Dish to get involved in the distribution. It won't hurt them at all and it might hurt Comcast. That's just my reading into things though.

[BlueK]

Originally Posted by CJF

The data is not exact. I'll grant you that. When you're dealing with over 750k calls, you're going to have some agent error in the dispositions. However, Dish and Direct to make a lot of their business decisions based on that data.

The data isn't worthless. Although there may be some errors in the collection, that isn't the real problem with using it to guess what those who didn't bother to call are thinking. It's that there is no way to know for sure if it accurately represents what's out there because it's not a random sampling of the audience. Self-selectors are often not representative of those who don't call. All you know is what that group thinks. There is also no way of knowing how many people care about the channel and didn't call. The only way to get a good reading on that would be to design a study using a random or as close to random sampling of the audience you can get, and ask them about the mtn. But that's really expensive and not worth the trouble, so they don't do it.

[Spaz]

Originally Posted by BlueK

The data isn't worthless. Although there may be some errors in the collection, that isn't the real problem with using it to guess what those who didn't bother to call are thinking. It's that there is no way to know for sure if it accurately represents what's out there because it's not a random sampling of the audience. Self-selectors are often not representative of those who don't call. All you know is what that group thinks. There is also no way of knowing how many people care about the channel and didn't call. The only way to get a good reading on that would be to design a study using a random or as close to random sampling of the audience you can get, and ask them about the mtn. But that's really expensive and not worth the trouble, so they don't do it.

Not as expensive as you'd think. There's market research companies available that can sample a large number of 'random' people...either customers or not...in a relatively short time period, and at a relatively low cost.

IMO, it'd be far more cost-effective in driving marketing policy.