You're getting confused with the variety of On Demand being brought online. First of all, where do you see that shows are being removed after a month? Where do you see that only 16 titles will be the only titles available? Does Rogers announce every single show or movie they are going to post? No, they don't. Is this the first few months of it's launch? Yes, and it's a new type of offering from a Satellite provider, so they're not going to jump in neck deep and drown in it.
If you closely follow this link:
http://www.dishnetwork.com/content/whats_on_dish/dish_on_demand/dishonline/index.shtml
You will see that this is just one of the variety of ways the the On Demand service is being provided to customers.
It's free as in Dish does not charge for it. So to them, obviously, it's free.
Why do I need to mention the $100/mth price tag? I am referring to the technology that is available to Bell users and not to Rogers users. Cogeco even offers it though with their "Internet High Speed Pro" at a cheaper price $69.95 and still 16mbit. HD can and will be be delivered over this type of "pipe" with the same compression that Rogers, Bell and the other providers are utilizing to spare their circuit/bandwidth in real time. 19mbit speeds are far from realistic currently with mpeg2 receivers. With the arrival of Mpeg4 receivers, only the naive will continue to think that HD streaming is not possible over this type of bandwidth.
I find it comical that because cable companies were the first to bring upon on demand service, that they think they can dictate how it can be delivered. The name "On Demand" is not copyrighted.
This technology is "firmly" able to deliver the On Demand service to their Satellite customers who wish to have it. Since every Rogers receiver has this ability, does every user want this ability and use it? Would some of them rather spend less on a different receiver and still receive 100% digital signal, unlike our Rogers friends with over 30 analog channels still in place?
It's
delusional to consider that the use of internet connectivity can't be used for this process and I think it's going to be quite successful.
..............I stand by saying that Satellite, no matter how On demand is delivered, and as long as it's delivered at the touch of a button, IS On Demand.