You sign up for a TV deal. Your bill skyrockets after the deal ends. You call and complain.

Cable and satellite TV customers know the drill.

Playing that game is the second biggest complaint Dish Network gets from customers. The first? Paying for too many channels they don’t watch.

“I think we reached a tipping point,” said Warren Schlichting, Dish’s executive vice president of marketing, programming and media sales. “The consumer’s appetite has changed for having hundreds of channels. If you take a step back, you’ll see programmers and distributors (like Dish) have incentive to grow the pay TV industry. And we better find a way to meet consumer demand or people are going to watch Netflix all day.”

On Thursday, the Douglas County satellite TV provider, reeling from its largest loss of quarterly subscribers ever, introduced a novel approach to address both issues. The Flex Plan offers 50 popular channels — including Food Network, CNN and USA — but no local networks for $29.99 a month.

Local networks, kids channels and sports packs cost extra. But that means if you’re not a sports fan, you don’t pay for sports. You can cancel or add packs without a fee. Dish even offers this how-to suggestion: “For example, if you want access to additional coverage of the presidential race, you can subscribe to the ‘News’ channel pack and then remove it once the election is over.”

The Flex Plan isn’t quite a la carte, but allowing consumers to pay only for the channels they want, Dish is redefining the pay TV industry in a way that few other of his cohorts dare do, said Jimmy Schaeffler, chairman of The Carmel Group, a video-industry research consultant. Cable rivals, including Comcast, have stripped-down plans. For about $73 here in Denver, Comcast customers can get internet and only local TV channels.

Dish CEO Charlie Ergen has “now established himself as the leader among traditional players — and as such, he is going to be the one who takes the arrows in the back,” Schaeffler said. “But at the same time, if there is success to be had here, he will discover it earlier than his peers.”

Dish Flex Plan details Includes: AMC, TNT, USA, HGTV, E!, Cartoon Network, History, A&E, CNN, Discovery, TBS, Food Network, FX, TV Land and others. See dish.com/packages for details. Also includes installation of satellite dish and TV equipment. Extra: For $4 to $10 more per month, users can add channel packs for kids, national sports, regional sports, news, heartland and outdoors. Premium channels such as HBO cost $15 per month. Hopper DVRs start at $10 extra. Price: $29.99 per month for the base plan if user opts for autopay. Caveat: A two-year commitment is required, with an early-termination fee of $20 per unused month. Fine print: Protection plan is included for six months, but then Dish starts charging $8 per month unless subscribers calls to cancel.

Ergen has railed against cheapskate customers who aren’t worth the added revenues. He recently said Dish no longer has $19.99 plans. But with Flex plans just $10 more per month? Dish is still making money on Flex, apparently.

“We’re not a charitable organization, that’s for sure,” Schlichting said. “Video margins are being compressed. And we’re well aware of that. As a pure-play video provider, we don’t have mobile phones or broadband to subsidize us. We have to make money on video.”

Flex takes a cue from Sling TV, the internet service Dish started last year. Sling’s base plan, which offers 25 channels for $20 per month, has no local channels or long-term commitments.

A big difference with Dish’s Flex is the two-year commitment. Break that contract early and the termination fee is $20 a month. Dish said it’s because it invests in a satellite dish and TV equipment, unlike Sling.

Dish is also focusing its marketing on the $44.99 plan, which drops to $39.99 for customers on autopay. That price includes the $10 local TV channels pack. So if you don’t want the local channels, the base plan is $29.99. And Dish intends to keep that price the same even after two years, so customers don’t have to keep calling in for a better deal, Schlichting said.

Flex Plan was created to stem the loss of subscribers and is available for existing Dish customers, Schlichting said.

When a customer calls to cancel, “it’s a limited conversation,” he said. “But now when we have the conversation, it can be, ‘Hey, maybe you don’t have kids. Maybe you want this other pack.’ It’s definitely built on some of the learnings we’ve had from Sling.”

Dish needs the boost. In the second quarter, which ended June 30, the company lost 281,000 subscribers, its worst-ever drop. But that figure includes any growth of Sling TV subscribers.

According to his calculations, analyst Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson believes Dish lost 330,000 customers in the quarter. Sling, meanwhile, added a mere 49,000 customers, which as a new business is even more alarming than Dish’s heavy satellite TV losses.

Moffett said some losses were probably customers who canceled after losing a channel, like the current dispute Dish has with Tribune Media that has taken local channels Fox 31 and The CW2 off the air for two months.

“But there is obviously more here than just programming disputes,” wrote Moffett in a report. He had downgraded Dish’s stock to “Sell” in June. “Dish’s second-quarter subscriber loss makes clear that the satellite TV business is losing its currency. Rapidly.”

But, added Schaeffler, “The world is changing around them quickly, and they know it, so they’re trying lots of other ways to avoid what many may call the inevitable. … If anybody is going to pull a rabbit out of the hat in the satellite TV business, it’s going to be Charlie.”