What are current forcasts for the market for new residential satellite
tv subscribers in the united states.  Focusing on Directv and DISH
Network.  This year, next year, five years perhaps.  What are current
sales at now and what does the history look like.  What is their
churn.

I'm sure there are estimates, but are they more than guesses? I
suspect neither company has shown a profit, because of the large
promotions and costly advertising and telephone solisiting. Cable is
fighting back with large incentives to ditch the dish. In my
community, the monthly cost is about the same, with no commitment for
the cable vs a full year commitment, and repair costs more likely for
the dish or direct. Several competitors are tiny now, but could
dominate in less than 5 years in my opinion. All the players are
facing costly upgrades for high definition TV, and internet TV could
cut sharply into the market.   Neil

St. James --

You might find the following predictive model for DirecTV very interesting:
University of Texas at Dallas (Bath, Gordon, Ferguson, Givens)
"DirecTV: A Case History of Forecasting"
http://www.utdallas.edu/~mzjb/2

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA