Increases of Dish packages less than average cable hike
By Joyzelle Davis, Rocky Mountain News
December 22, 2006

Most Dish customers will pay about 3 percent more next year to watch satellite TV, a smaller increase than most cable customers are facing.
The America’s Top 120 package increases $3 a month to $46, while America’s Top 180 also goes up $3 a month to $56. America’s “Everything” Pack jumps $5 a month. Dish’s most popular package, America’s Top 60, holds the line at $29.99.
Prices for several other packages offered by EchoStar’s Dish Network stay the same: DishFamily remains $19.99, while DishLatino stays at $24.99. All of the prices are effective Feb. 1.
Price increases at cable providers, which are still rolling out their adjustments, are running at about 5.4 percent for basic analog video, according to a report by Sanford Bernstein. That’s still lower than usual. Cable prices increased 93 percent from 1995 to 2005, according to a recent Federal Communications Commission report.
Cable prices are determined in each market, and Comcast hasn’t announced 2007 rates for the Colorado market.
DirecTV, EchoStar’s larger satellite-TV rival, also hasn’t announced next year’s pricing.
Dish Network also is overhauling the names of its programming packages to reflect recent channel additions. America’s Top 60 is now America’s Top 100, a name that encompasses newly added NFL Network, ReelzChannel and, starting in February, 32 Muzak channels. America’s Top 120 becomes America’s Top 200, and America’s Top 180 is now America’s Top 250.
Douglas County-based EchoStar also simplified its high-definition pricing, making it a $20 monthly addition to any other Dish package.
Dish’s price increases were driven by higher programming costs, which increased 8 percent this year.
“We fight to keep our business costs low and make improvements to Dish Network, but we simply cannot offset the unavoidable costs of increased television programming fees,” the company said in a statement.