Cablevision Voom Goes Away

from the it-was-a-nice-thought... dept

Wed, Dec 22nd 2004 2:03pm — Mike Masnick

Back in 2002 when Echostar was trying to buy DirecTV, the government was making some noises about how there wouldn't be any more competition in the satellite TV space. So, to cook up some competition, Echostar approached cable provider Cablevision about starting up a weak competitor in the space just to show there was some competition. Well, the Echostar/DirecTV deal fell apart anyway, but Cablevision somehow got it in their head that launching a satellite was still a good idea, even if there were questions about how far it could reach (who needs to supply the Western half of the US anyway?). Then, they decided they would pay for this insanely expensive, questionable deal by focusing on the high end customers who want things like HDTV. Of course, there aren't that many of those people out there, and there isn't that much HDTV content either. It turns out things worked out just about as badly as everyone expected, and now Cablevision is looking to sell off Voom. Who's the expected buyer? Well, none other than Echostar, the company who started this whole mess in the first place by pushing Cablevision to get into the satellite business.

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Pratik Patel, 23 Dec 2004 @ 5:57am

Just a bit too far ahead of its time
With the boom in HDTV enabled sets this Xmas, it's a shame that Voom may not have enough money to survive. Around the office, all the geeks, and not-so-geeky people are into HDTV this year - whether they are getting one for Xmas, or planning on getting one in the post-holiday sales.
Part of the problem is that Voom is just so expensive compared to cable and Direct/Dish all of which offer HD content - albeit not as many channels as Voom.
If anyone from Voom is listening: though you're bleeding cash, suck it up, charge people less than cable/direct/dish, get them hooked on HD, offer HD capable PVR (for free, again to get people hooked), and ride the HD boom over the next few years.
just my $0.02
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momo, 24 Dec 2004 @ 8:00pm

Bad title
Where did it go? Who is providing my tv service now?
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