CHICAGO (AFP) - A Texas town has changed its name to DISH in exchange for 10 years of free satellite television service.All 125 residents of the town formerly known as Clark will get basic service and a free digital video recorder satellite TV receiver, a move that has some people joking that the Fort-Worth suburb will become a town of couch potatoes.
"We joke that in ten years everyone will come out and say wow when they see the light," said secretary Michelle Going, 32.
Going is not worried that her three boys will go square-eyed because she is going to stick to her old rules of only allowing two hours of television a day, and only after homework and dinner.
And the new system also has parental controls which will allow her to limit the channels the boys can watch.
Despite the jokes, the switch is incredibly popular, said Mayor Bill Merritt. The city council meeting to vote on the name was packed on Tuesday night and about 12 people -- 10 percent of the town's population -- stood up to support the name change, which passed unanimously.
"I'm sure there are some people who are attached to the name (Clark) like the man who founded the town and named it after himself," he told AFP Wednesday. "At the meeting last night we had no naysayers."
The town made the change for more than just a 50 dollar monthly savings per household, Merritt said. The hope is that publicity and a budget-neutral giveaway will lure new residents.
"The getting our name out there is working and the second part is really to market ourselves - come here and you get something out of it," he said.
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.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
All of us here in SEX, NC would like to wish DISH, TX good luck!
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
Oh I get it. You were used to paying for sex until your town got it for free.
_________________ The stakes are so high, he said, that we should gamble on God's existence. We have nothing to lose if it turns out that God does not exist, but everything to gain or lose if he does exist.
Joined: Sat Feb 12, 2005 6:30 am Posts: 6116 Location: NC
Idaho town renames itself Secretsanta.com
New moniker comes with promise of cash, documentary deal
Updated: 12:18 a.m. ET Nov. 22, 2005
SALMON, Idaho - Officials in the northern Idaho town of Santa, Idaho, Monday voted to rename the 115-person hamlet Secretsanta.com to hype an online gift exchange management service.
Last-minute legal wrangling left unclear whether the water board for Santa, the town’s only official body, had the authority to approve a new moniker. Even so, the board voted in favor of becoming Secretsanta.com in exchange for an undisclosed sum from a planned documentary on the name change.
Santa is the latest in a lengthening list of rural communities to agree to bear the brand of a company or service. Clark, Texas last week changed its name to Dish to promote EchoStar Communications Corp.’s Dish Network.
In 2000, Halfway, Oregon agreed to call itself Half.com after an Internet retailer later purchased by eBay Inc.
The towns are following a tradition established in 1950 when Hot Springs, New Mexico changed its name to Truth or Consequences after a radio program that became a TV game show.
Gidget McQueen, the Santa official spearheading the re-christening, said the deal with Secretsanta.com -- a Web site that group gift exchange planning -- is too good to pass up for a village that is otherwise not on the map.
The expected re-dubbing of Santa with ceremonies planned for Dec. 9 is the brainchild of marketing guru Mark Hughes, chief executive of Buzzmarketing and the architect behind Halfway, Oregon’s name change.
Halfway, Oregon officials say being known for one year as Half.com brought the city $75,000 and 20 computers for its schools. “Even to this day, we still have people come through and talk about Half.com,†said Ralph Smead, member of the area’s chamber of commerce. REUTERS
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