Will DISH ever add Significantly Viewed Channels?

[psdstu]

With the Senate passing the STELA bill I was wondering if anyone could comment on whether or not DISH might once again provide those of us living in the Panama City Fl DMA with CBS which for us comes out of Dothan AL DMA?

Up until Dec 2006 DISH did provide the CBS signal from Dothan which the FCC considers one of our Significantly Viewed Channels.

Despite the whole Grade B signal issue, no one around here can get any decent signal using even a large Outside Pole mounted antenna.

I am just looking for some thoughts from those of you who are a whole lot smarter on this issue then me.

Thanks!

[boba]

Until the law changes a court decision prohibits DISH from offering "significantly viewed" or any distant network signals.

[Bobby]

When the bill is signed, if the satellite coverage is still in it, the law will have changed and you just might get what you ant.

[andyin137]

Have you looked into All American Direct to see if you can get a CBS ,if you dont have a local CBS or the only way of picking it up is by having a Large Antenae this should be enough of a reason to provide you A CBS.
If no CBS in your Area (Locals)you shouldnt even have to apply for a waiver.
Also know even if you dont qualify in a certain area you can use an address in an area that will allow a CBS distant (takes some research).I have done this in the past and All American Direct doesnt usually ask questions(long as you pay bill).
For myself I have waivers for all the networks even though we have all the networks in our local area,I just wanted LA Networks as they have better news coverage than my area.So I applied over and over until they got sick of me and approved.I explained to them that my Job has me living in one area and working in another and I need to have access to at least 1 LA network.Luckily all approved.
This may be more information than you wanted,but thought I would throw it out there.

[psdstu]

Thanks for the comments so far.

Does anyone know if the STELA bill allows DISH to once again provide Distant Networks?

From what I understand DISH in Dec 2006 was no longer allowed to provide Distant Networks......... and with that loss those of us in this DMA lost our CBS station.

I'm not exactly clear how Distant Networks and Significantly viewed Channels work together, but I hope that the new STELA allows those of us in this DMA and other small markets to at least get access to the 4 Networks.

[riffjim4069]

Until the law changes a court decision prohibits DISH from offering "significantly viewed" or any distant network signals.

I thought Dish Network was only prevented from offering DNS due to fragrant violations...but perhaps that also included SV? Just out of curiosity, does D* provided SV for most customers? I know that Comcast (formerly Adelphia) offers SV in my former Virginia neighborhood, but Verizon does not.

[n0qcu]

Significantly viewed stations are "DNS" so when Dish lost the privlage of providing DNS they also lost the ability to provide SV.

[wkomorow]

Satellite companies unlike Cable companies have very little motivation to add significantly viewed, especially with local broadcasters upping their carriage fees. Remember sat companies only collect about $6 per DMA regardless of the number channels in the local package. This is significantly less than cable companies get for lifeline cable (about $12). When Dish was able to add SV they did not seem very eager to add them. Direct adds them to complete a DMA that does not have all the networks. They also added Burlington VT locals to those of SW Vermont (Albany DMA) - no doubt to please Pat Leahy who is on the oversight committee in the Senate and rewrote the law to provide SW Vt residents with VT programming. When the law changes, although I would love to see Springfield SV here in the Berkshires, I doubt it will happen. There may be a few DMAs that see them, but I doubt see the motivations until cable companies begin using the lack of SVs in ad campaigns against satellite.

[whatchel1]

I thought Dish Network was only prevented from offering DNS due to fragrant violations...but perhaps that also included SV? Just out of curiosity, does D* provided SV for most customers? I know that Comcast (formerly Adelphia) offers SV in my former Virginia neighborhood, but Verizon does not.

fragrant or flagrant

[mike123abc]

Dish will definitely add significantely viewed channels as soon as they are allowed to do so. There are way too many markets that lack one or more channels that Dish needs to pick up to get to the promise of all 210 markets (one of the agreements they have to get the law changed).

It also is not good to have cable have more than satellite.