Welcome to DISH, Texas.
By Ryan Block 
posted Nov 17th 2005 1:40PM
posted Nov 17th 2005 1:40PM
Looks like they found a taker in Clark, Texas, who took EchoStar up on their offer to rename their humble town of
fifty five homes and 125 people, DISH. Yes, that's DISH, TX. And in return the town's residents get ten years of free
service for their humility and acquiescence to corporate branding — at an estimated net value of $4,500 per home.
Congratulations! Though as long as the word's still out on all-you-can-eat Pay-Per-View we're not gonna be putting our
respective places on the market. Hook that up — hoo boy — and we might all have to relocate.
[Via WashPost,
thanks, Dave and Xer0]
Does that mean that I can move there and get free service??
I sure hope so...
Hmm... I'm wondering if I can register a P.O. Box there and have dish give me free service because I am renting a 4"x5" box in Dish, TX.
Does that mean TiVo will own the town as soon as they successfully win the Echostar litigation? :-)
From the article I also read about this on Yahoo...
"The best part of the contract, Merritt said, is the free television will be extended to anyone who moves to Dish and any land that is later annexed by the town. The new town signs, designed and paid for by DISH Network, were a bonus"
You also have to take into account what this will do for their tourism.
Dish has to figure that extending the offer to anyone that moves is worth the cost... since when people are asked why they're moving there, they'll have to explain the whole story to a few dozen people...
Damn, I was hoping it would be Chicago.
And to think I almost moved to Cable, Wisconsin! Think of the money I'll save!
http://www.wistravel.com/cable.htm
these people better pay their taxes up-front on the $4,500 gift that they're getting.
Come on Charlie, can't Echostar come up with new marketing ideas, instead of taking cues from Half.com?
Amazing. Half.com did this 9 years ago, renaming a town to Half, Oregon. How unoriginal. Read about Half.com's name switch here: http://www.buzzmarketing.com/inquirer.html
This gag was done before. If you read an obituary of TV host/producer Ralph Edwards you will find that Little Hot Springs, NM changed it's name to Truth or Consequences, MN. in 1950. All they got was Edwards doing a remote broadcast from the town.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/TV/11/16/obit.edwards.ap/index.html
["these people better pay their taxes up-front on the $4,500 gift that they're getting."]
Ya gotta love how "gifts" in the US are the kind that just keep on taking.
Thanks for the link #12. I always wondered about Truth or Consequences, NM.
Maybe one day people will pass it as tourist attraction, like they do where dinasour fossils have been found.
"Now kids, look at the bowls people used to put on their house."
I remember the engadget article about this a few months ago. I'm surprized a town went for it. Actually, I would do it in a heartbeat because i don't give a crap what the town name is.
Now let's wait and see when L.A., New York, Chicago, and Miami starts to change their name to Dish Dish Dish Dish.
Left out is the fact that there are, I mean "were", sorry, two cities in Texas named "Clark" so that one or the other was going to have to change its name sooner or later. This Clark was the smaller one, so it was probably the one that had to change. So given that they would either have had to pay for it themselves and rename the place "Bush" or something, or get a corporate sponsor, it looks like they were the smart ones in getting someone else to pay for it and give them 10 years of free TV to boot.
Seriously, I foresee that soon Google will make an offer to a city in the U.S. to rename itself, perhaps offering it free wireless internet.