Thanks to Iceberg for putting toether the Excel spreadsheet. Just to let you know, Investigation Discovery--285 is not included in the current Select package as noted in your spreadsheet.
Since I pay for my Mother's DirecTV account, we had a talk in February 2011 as to what she watches most often on DirecTV (she likes to watch many of the old Jewish sitcoms on JLTV such as The Goldbergs, Jack Benny, Soupy Sales, etc., and enjoys Discovery, A&E, the various cable news channels, and the locals). After that talk, I downgraded her programming package from Choice Ultimate that I originally signed her up for in February 2010 to Select in February 2011. To me, $44.99 per month, plus tax on the leased receivers is reasonable. I also add the HD Extra Pack for free at the web site, and she receives a $10.00 credit for HD. She does not have DVR service. By changing her programming to Select, this has saved me money for the past year ($26.00 per month x 12 =$312.00) while fulfilling her programming commitment that expires this month.
I'm surprised nobody at SatelliteGuys caught this, but DirecTV made a few channel additions to the Select line-up over the summer.
Added were the following:
Animal Planet--253
ION (National Feed)--347
Lifetime Movie Network--253
Nick JR--301
Persuit--608
RFD TV--345
Spanish programming added:
Aqui--401
Enlace--448
HITN--449
Once Mexico--447
V-Me--440
Also, Baby First--293 was added (I think this was added to all packages), but requires a HD receiver, similar to NASA TV, Free Speech TV and some of the religious channels.
If your not a heavy sports watcher, the new Entertainment package competes very well with Dish, and in my local area, Time Warner Cable, AT&T U-Verse, and Verizon Fios Prime HD. Nice to see DirecTV eliminatng the HD fee, but not sure if that's going to come back to bite you in the HD/DVR access fee of $20.00. I see that at least initially, the second year discount has been downgraded from the current offer of $15.00 per month to $10.00 per month.
I'm assuming the Free HD has been a problem for DirecTV with resellers like Verizon, AT&T, etc that offer combined billing, and it appears DirecTV is now including HD in all packages going forward.
