ninsega said:
Aren't no satellites going up until at least May and onward? I think DIRECTV had no intentions of actually providing HD locals to a large amount of the projected markets. I think DIRECTV may have baited customers in last year with their local HD projections and used the broadcast space for premium offerings.
I'll take this one at a time...
Correct that there isn't another satellite launch until May.
I think DirecTV did have a plan to offer HD markets, but something happened that simply delayed it. For example, two things we do know are that there was an HD DVR receiver shortage, and there was also a late-2006 order for more MPEG4 encoders. I think the hardware and the technology that DirecTV wanted to use just wasn't there, and it did cause DirecTV to miss deadlines.
No, DirecTV did not use the broadcast space for premium offerings. The HD local additions are going on a spot-beam satellite. Therefore, the only thing that can be added to the Spaceway satellites are "regionalized programming", such as local channels and regional sports networks.
Something just "happened" that forced the published plan to be missed. It was missed once when DirecTV announced they'd provide 67 markets by year-end. It was missed again when DirecTV announced they'd provide 57 markets by year-end. No matter how you slice it, it was just missed.