Saturday, December 31, 2011

Happy & Prosperous New Year 2012

We take this opportunity to wish all our fellow bloggers the management and staff of Dialog TV,

"A Happy & Prosperous New Year 2012"

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Dialog TV lied... makes God TV & EWTN time sharing permanent

In a move that is considered ridiculous & stupid, Dialog TV have made the time sharing of programmes from EWTN & God TV on Channel 70 permanent. Whilst lying initially that the programmes via EWTN would be broadcast only for Christmas, Dialog now run the scroll saying "We are pleased to announce... blah blah".

Who is pleased Dialog? Are the viewers of God TV pleased that the programmes they watch are getting cut before it finishes? Are the viewers of God TV pleased that they are no longer able to watch the channel 24X7? Are Dialog TV subscribers pleased that Dialog TV was planning this all along & lied to everyone saying that this time sharing is only for Christmas time? If Dialog TV wants to expand then management should tighten their purses and expand capacity or move to MPEG4 to increase capacity.

Instead now time sharing seems to be the style adopted by Dialog TV to increase the number of channels on their platform. First God TV is being time shared with EWTN which makes us wonder whats next on the list. A very stupid idea which sadly Dialog believes as being innovative or the way they would call it "The Future Today".

If "The Future Today" is all about time sharing then sadly Dialog is on it's way down. Dialog should remember that no channel on it's platform should be time shared with another because people purchase connections to watch a channel 24X7. If there are requests for another channel then it should be added to a new slot.

Dialog TV a high profile pay television operator is desperately trying out things that smaller pay operators in Sri Lanka haven't even dreamt of. This speaks volumes of the state of desperation Dialog TV have fallen into due to lack of capacity on the network as well as lack of experience of Dialog TV management in running a pay television operation.

Looks like Dialog TV are staring down the barrel and may succumb to the Comet Cable curse.

In addition to all this, it looks like Dialog TV had foreknowledge about the shift of Star Movies Asia to Star Movies India. Dialog TV which always prints the Star Movies schedule on their programme guide didn't do so in December 2011. So the claim by Dialog that they were suddenly asked to change the feed can be safely assumed as another "lie".

Dialog TV we demand that you stop lying to subscribers. STOP THE TIME SHARING & return to carrying God TV 24hrs a day on Channel 70. Work harder on getting Star Movies Asia back on your platform. Increase capacity immediately and add more channels plus add EWTN as a separate channel.

Please keep us updated on the latest on Dialog TV as the days progress.

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Merry Christmas & more....

Well it's just a few hours to Christmas. As of now Star Movies India still continues & God TV programming is being interrupted by EWTN. 

Well Star Movies has changed their feeds to Sri Lanka and Maldives causing other local pay operators also to change feeds. We did highlight in one of our previous posts that this may happen but Dialog seems to have ignored our warnings. In addition to placing phone calls to Dialog TV we also suggest to send emails to Fox International channels Asia, asking them to return the Star Movies Asia feed to us which would be known as Fox Movies Premium from Jan 1st. After all the Star Movies feed shift is not Dialog's fault 100%, they do bear a part of the blame for not taking action to prevent this from happening. We kindly request a fellow blogger to post the email address in the comments section so that all those who visit this blog can email Fox International Channels Asia.

However Dialog is at fault and remains very tight lipped on the issue of God TV which is being time shared with EWTN every few hours causing God TV viewers to miss the programmes being broadcast. Even though the screen scroll says that this is only for the Christmas season, one wonders why the EPG carries the time shared schedule right upto the end of December and according to several subscribers customer care is saying that they haven't being given an end day for the time sharing. Several subscribers have bought Dialog TV connections to watch God TV and these people are being left high and dry with this move. Subscribers are complaining of programmes being cut off in the middle to accommodate EWTN. On Christmas day, more airtime has been given to EWTN than the channel that existed on the slot being God TV. Dialog seems to have poured hot water on their feet by messing around with a religious channel. With religion being a very sensitive issue, Dialog should have left God TV alone. Not only God TV, Dialog should leave all their present religious channels alone and never mess with them. If Dialog wanted to add EWTN then they should have waited until capacity is increased. It is however very funny to note that Dialog have ignored requests for Ten Action and several other channels and have given priority to EWTN.

Anyway with all these negative developments Dialog TV will definitely lose subscribers to other pay operators specially to ones from India. Please keep us updated on the latest on Dialog TV as the days progress.

We take this opportunity to wish all our fellow bloggers and the management and staff of Dialog Axiata.

"A Very Merry Christmas"

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

first Star Movies now.... God TV

The string of mess up's by Dialog TV is continuing. Days after shifting the Star Movies feed to India from Asia they are now displaying a scroll saying that EWTN will be broadcast on the slot allocated to God TV during Christmas time. A few years ago Dialog TV removed God TV on Christmas day if memory serves us correctly and after complaints from subscribers they were forced to add God TV once again.

Last year Dialog TV added EWTN to the channel slot occupied by "Learn TV" and allowed God TV viewers to watch the channel without any interruption. Now again in 2011 according to information we are receiving from God TV viewers. Dialog TV is going to time share God TV with EWTN. Dialog TV is a pay television company which should be broadcasting it's channels on a 24hr basis and not a FTA channel to be time sharing channels.

If they want to add EWTN they should add it to a separate slot altogether. Dialog TV we demand that you don't deprive the people who pay you for their services by carrying out stupid decisions such as these. There are many who have subscribed to Dialog TV to watch God TV and it will be totally unfair by them to carry out time sharing. Even if the time sharing is a temporary move, it is still unfair because people will miss the Christmas programming that God TV has in store.

So first Star Movies, now God TV, we wonder what's next?

Please keep us updated on the latest on Dialog TV as the days progress.

Monday, December 19, 2011

Star Movies Asia replaced with Star Movies India & HTV is kaput

Dialog TV have angered all their subscribers by replacing Star Movies Asia with the commercial ridden & lower quality Star Movies India. Subscribers are complaining that customer care is consistently giving them different reasons for the switch ranging from stories about technical glitches to the most pathetic of reasons.

During this festive season when people are on holiday and looking forward to enjoy movies with their families, Dialog decides to become "The Grinch who stole Christmas" and takes out the most popular movie channel in it's lineup and adds the Indian masala version.

Star Movies is rebranding to "Fox Movies" from 1st Jan 2012 and whether this has something to do with the switch is not certain. It is a well known fact that Dialog let go of the Zee channels once they increased channel cost after upgrading the quality of their channels and replaced them with lower cost options. Now we wonder if the same has happened to Star Movies too.

We certainly hope that the switch is temporary. This has been handled in the most unprofessional manner possible by the management of Dialog TV and no communication has been made to subscribers who are subscribed to the channel by paying high rentals regarding the switch. A totally unethical and unfair business practice on the part of Dialog TV.

We urge all Dialog TV subscribers to communicate their displeasure to the non subscriber oriented folks at Dialog TV who think that their subscribers will watch anything that they push down the subscribers throat. Dialog must remember that Star Movies India is available in Sri lanka via all the Indian DTH providers, so if this is also what they will provide to their subscribers at much higher rentals then they are sure to lose subscribers.

Dialog TV we demand you to take immediately steps and rectify the issues and add Star Movies Asia back and get rid of that masala indian feed.

In other news it is now very clear that Heritage TV is kaput and Dialog TV seem to be testing a new channel and it is not a locally available FTA channel and we believe that it is a local channel catering to pay television platforms.

Please keep us updated on the latest regarding Dialog TV as the hours and days progress, specially the situation regarding the Star Movies feed shift.

Monday, December 5, 2011

Please update your channel list & website

It's sad but true... Dialog doesn't know what is happening to the channels on their own network. "Fox History & Traveller" is a goner, it is now rebranded as "Fox Traveller" ever since "History" channel relaunched in India. However the Dialog website & the channel list on the decoder carry the name as "Fox History & Traveller" & "Fox History" respectively. It's high time that the channel list & the website are updated immediately. If not this will only result in prospective subscribers being mislead into thinking that Dialog TV contains a history based educational channel.

In addition we would like to point out that "Star Movies Asia" maybe rebranded as "Fox Movies Premium" from Jan 1st 2012, please check the post in our TV & Radio Sri Lanka blog post titled "Star Movies to the rebranded as Fox Movies Premium". However the we are not 100% sure whether the rebranding exercise will be effective in this region as well since certain other regions will continue to receive the channel as "Star Movies" even as 1st Jan 2012. However we urge Dialog to take necessary steps to retain this Asian commercial free feed of the channel and under no circumstances shift to "Star Movies India".

We hope Dialog would learn to be more proactive when it comes to updating their website and channel list.

Please keep us updated on the latest on Dialog TV as the days progress.

Friday, December 2, 2011

Christmas time with Dialog.....

"So this is Christmas"... We just love saying that but the rest must leave Dialog wondering "And what have you (Dialog) done, Another year over". Let's see failure to implement MPEG4, New channels (replacements are not taken into account), properly working new features, blah blah blah just gives the impression that nothing has been done and it's already another year over unless Santa has something in his workshop for Dialog subscribers because frankly Dialog has nothing to give them.

This year saw some replacements as the year before and the one before that namely the introduction of Setanta & now recently Colors in place of Ten Action & UTV Movies plus the Sun channels in place of the Zee channels. Replacements are always controversial and have caused their share of problems and sour feelings among Dialog & it's subscribers. I think we are reminded of the removal of Zee TV & it's subsequent reintroduction in just a few months after pressure from subscribers.

So with just under a month left in this month, let's see if Dialog can pull off something magical and surprise us all during this festive month in terms of major improvements to Dialog TV. 

We are hoping to carry out a review of Dialog TV for the year 2011 in a couple of weeks time close to the end of the year and hopefully things will look better than they look at the moment.

Keep us updated on the latest on Dialog TV as the days progress.