News
DIRECTV Raising Monthly Prices For HD
Customers will lose three channels unless they pay $4.99 extra, says e-mail notice.
By Swanni
In an e-mail sent to customers this week, DIRECTV said HDNet, HDNet Movies and Universal HD will be moved to a new programming package called "DIRECTV HD Extra Pack."
The three channels have been available for years as part of the satcaster's basic $10 a month HD package,
However, on December 15, the HD Extra Pack, which will also include three recent channel additions (Smithsonian HD, MGM HD and MHD), will cost an extra $4.99 a month.
Both new and current customers will be required to pay the $4.99 monthly fee for the six high-def channels. That will be in addition to the $10 monthly fee DIRECTV customers pay for the remaining HD channels.
DIRECTV says it now offers 74 High-Definition channels, having increased its national HD channel count from nine to 47 in the past three weeks.
In the e-mail to current customers, DIRECTV says the six channels in the HD Extra Pack will be available as part of a "free preview" until December 15.
The six channels apparently were chosen for the HD Extra Pack because they do not have a standard-definition companion channel, although Discovery's HD Theater, which is not in the Extra Pack, does not have a companion standard-def channel, either.
DIRECTV spokesman Robert Mercer confirmed this evening that both current and new customers will have to pay $4.99 a month to get the channels in the HD Extra Pack. But Mercer said it's not a price increase.
"It's hard to see how this represents an increase when customers will continue to pay the $9.99 access fee that allows them to receive DIRECTV's HD technology and all channels broadcast in HD that are tied to their respective base programming package," he said. "Once the HD Extra tier preview ends in mid-December, customers will have the option of taking the package, or not. That we moved three channels from our regular HD lineup into the Xtra tier hardly represents an 'HD price increase/' Arguably they pay a little extra if they want those three channels back, but that's their option."
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