Dish Network: Distant Networks

I will send mine today. I don't understand how cable gets away with it. I lived near Philly and my cable was also giving me NYC channels. Scott is right. I can sign on and read the Boston Globe or Chicago Tribune, so why can't I get these channels. Little by little our rights are being taken away.
 
SummitAdvantageRetailer said:
Doesn't DirecTV offer distant networks, too? Are their distant network channels going away too? How come this is only for E*?

Because "D" supposedly complied better with the "rules" and Fox is the biggest hold out on the out of court settlements mentioned. When you peel away the BS, this is really a "D" vs "E" thing and while Charlie has always thumbed his nose at both the NAB and FCC, Murdouch has conversely kissed up to them.

Picture Charlie lying in the arena (in his little gladiator outfit), with the sword poised over his chest and Murdouch, Martin and Fritz (actually I'm not sure he's still head of the NAB but anyway...) in their little white togas and olive branch wreaths on their heads, slowly turning their thumbs down.
 
Are we really helping if we live in a served area (either by OTA or by Dish) and send a letter? I'm afraid that would reinforce the stance taken by the industry.

Unfortunatly, if people are thinking writing this letter will change anything regarding being able to get distants in general, they are wrong. I do think there is the chance - IF enough letters are sent, especially enough different letters (not form letters) that something will be done so that rural customers - those who are not served IN ANY WAY can keep their distants via Dish.(No OTA, and Dish does not have their locals) But the handwriting is on the wall - all the rest of us are going to lose distants I'm afraid.

And I agree with those that say Direct TV will be next. It is only a matter of time that the industry comes back and says they want the same thing for all providers - distants only for those that are not served by any source, even overiding any waivers given. You don't understand what is happening if you think waivers will protect you - I believe they will be a null and void at some point.

Dish may or may not be at fault - most likely some fault, but it provided the opening for what the industry really wants in the end.
 
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Go to Jail...Do Not Pass Go

Thanks to savemychannels.com, my wife and I just e-mailed our Senators and Representative. We also followed it up with a fax from our home to each and every one of their offices. Even if you disagree with particular laws, it certainly doesn't give you carte blanche to violate them. Personally, I'm not a fan of the 65 mph speed limit on the Interstate...but if I get caught driving 95 then it is understood that I am going to jail for reckless driving.

"I am a Dish Network customer who does not receive distant network channels. I don't want customers to lose those channels and access to their entertainment. However, the Courts have ruled that Dish Network has repeatedly and willfully violated the spirit, intent, and letter of the law concerning distant network carriage and should receive maximum penalty for their actions.

As a retired member of the military, I support the courts decision to turn off all distant network feeds to their customers. I served to defend and uphold the constitution and I feel our elected leaders should do no less.

Dish Network is now engaging in a misleading campaign in an attempt to thwart this court ordered sanction. They are telling their customers that "Big, Bad, Ugly Broadcasters" and their unfair regulators (the FCC) are pulling the plug on distant networks, in the hope that public outcry will save them from serving this appropriate court ordered sanction. Once again, Dish Network is not being truthful with their customers nor with this Congress. I find their conduct in this matter appalling.

I am asking Congress not to interfere in this Court Order, which the appellate court and most legal minds have found to be an appropriate action."

Lastly, I do not condone SatelliteGuys "Call for Action" in this matter because it joins Dish Network's distortion of the truth. This matter has nothing to do with choice or the networks not wanting satellite cusomers to have access to their distant network. There are more certainly more appropriate ways to deal with changing telecommunications laws. This matter is strickly about Dish Network violating the law. Now if SatelliteGuys were to change the rhetoric and state this matter is about customers being unfairly penalized for Dish Network's repeat violations of communications laws, then by all means I will reconsider myh position.

Again, this matter has nothing to do with protecting freedom of choice nor the broadcasters taking away distant network channels---and savemychannels.com is certainly not an appropriate forum to impact change---rather, it has everything to do with Dish Network violating the law and whether customers are being unfairly punished. Dish Network had every opportunity to correct their past behavior (years!) and it is their fault that it came down to this.

I support the Court Order as it currently stands!
 
Yes Dish messed up, that I dont disagree with, I dont agree with the "we will take out ball and go home" approach by the broadcasters.

I think should be fined heavily for their actions, but distant networks should not be taken away.

One of my fears is if Distants are gone from Dish then the broadcasters will find a way in the future to get them off of DirecTV and the only network they will have is FOX.

Fine and sanction Echostar all you want but do not take choice away from the consumer.
 
When I started with a BUD system the main reason was to get network stations, I had ONE(sometimes) network 60 miles away. Over time I moved to Dish net. with DNS, take away DNS I will get one local 23 miles away and still no cable so my access to network stations is the same as we had in the 1950's.
Now they are talking planned Brownouts for this area which will be a first. PRGRESS!
 
riffjim4069 said:
Thanks to savemychannels.com, my wife and I just e-mailed our Senators and Representative. We also followed it up with a fax from our home to each and every one of their offices.
!


THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT :)
 
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Would this even be a problem if Dish would finish the other 40 dmas left in the country? IF they would to that one thing then distants wouldn't even matter. I think instead of fighting about this with the courts they should go ahead and put the other 40 dmas us on the satellite.

I thought the whole reason why we had distants was because there were no locals back when we started with Dish in 97. INstead we had Primetime 24 with locals from NewYork and Los Angeles. I think that 9 years is sufficient time for Dish to get all the locals done in the country. Dish has more than enough bandwith to do this. If they have bandwith to start the digital /hd locals then they could finish the sd ones. Then this whole argument wouldn't matter.

Charlie is fighting against the affiliate system as it has been written since the 50's. He is saying if you can buy a newspaper from anywhere in the country , then you should be able to watch a station from anywhere in the country. Now I agree with him on this point but this is about money here. He wants to sell you as many stations as you want because he can charge you more money.

The way things are going this whole system of affilitates won't matter anyway in the future. More and more of the content of networks are showing up for sale and even free a day after they are broadcast on the internet. Once this becomes mainstream will hundreds of local stations broadcasting the same thing be necessary?

IF the networks want to bypass the local system then just put up national stations for each one and charge you a premium price like Hbo /showtime/starz/ cinemax etc. Then all you would need for your local news is an atenna for reception. IF the sat companies had been smart they would have included the analog tuners in all their sat receivers from the start and they could have avoided all the locals issues and we could have kept pristine picture quality.

BUt I digress. Somehow I think this is all going to push Dish into a merger or buyout from Rupert and then we will still have distant networks. But like I said Charlie could finish the rest of the locals in sd and this wouldn't matter whether we had distant locals. But just in case I still sent my email .
 
MikeD-C05 said:
Would this even be a problem if Dish would finish the other 40 dmas left in the country? IF they would to that one thing then distants wouldn't even matter. I think instead of fighting about this with the courts they should go ahead and put the other 40 dmas us on the satellite.

I thought the whole reason why we had distants was because there were no locals back when we started with Dish in 97. INstead we had Primetime 24 with locals from NewYork and Los Angeles. I think that 9 years is sufficient time for Dish to get all the locals done in the country. Dish has more than enough bandwith to do this. If they have bandwith to start the digital /hd locals then they could finish the sd ones. Then this whole argument wouldn't matter.

Charlie is fighting against the affiliate system as it has been written since the 50's. He is saying if you can buy a newspaper from anywhere in the country , then you should be able to watch a station from anywhere in the country. Now I agree with him on this point but this is about money here. He wants to sell you as many stations as you want because he can charge you more money.

The way things are going this whole system of affilitates won't matter anyway in the future. More and more of the content of networks are showing up for sale and even free a day after they are broadcast on the internet. Once this becomes mainstream will hundreds of local stations broadcasting the same thing be necessary?

IF the networks want to bypass the local system then just put up national stations for each one and charge you a premium price like Hbo /showtime/starz/ cinemax etc. Then all you would need for your local news is an atenna for reception. IF the sat companies had been smart they would have included the analog tuners in all their sat receivers from the start and they could have avoided all the locals issues and we could have kept pristine picture quality.

BUt I digress. Somehow I think this is all going to push Dish into a merger or buyout from Rupert and then we will still have distant networks. But like I said Charlie could finish the rest of the locals in sd and this wouldn't matter whether we had distant locals. But just in case I still sent my email .
local OTA news up here it would be a first in many years. People forget not everyone gets OTA stations.
 
I just noticed that my Adelphia IP Address is being blocked from accessing the savemychannels.com website, which just happend to be the same address I used to send my e-mail. I can get to it just fine from my work and three other web proxies. So much for free speech. Good luck to anyone who sides with Dish Network on this one...:hatsoff:
 

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Personally, I think anyone should be able to receive any station from anywhere. Very simple. And, until we are free to do that, then the broadcasters have too much control. These a-holes are even starting to fight against the Slingbox, one of the greatest inventions EVER.

The newspaper analogy is correct. We can aslo receive radio broadcasts from around the country via the stations' websites. So, why not TV? Waivers shouldn't even be required.

The next time one of these satellite bills comes up before the legislature, we all need to write, and request total freedom of choice.
 
riffjim4069 said:
"I am a Dish Network customer who does not receive distant network channels. I don't want customers to lose those channels and access to their entertainment. However, the Courts have ruled that Dish Network has repeatedly and willfully violated the spirit, intent, and letter of the law concerning distant network carriage and should receive maximum penalty for their actions.
I support the Court Order as it currently stands!
You were the kid that reminded the teacher to hand out homework assignments if she had forgotten, weren't you?
 
I am confused as a Dish Network customer since May 1998 I remember Thanksgiving 1998 where they were forced to turn off lots of distant network signals because of some court case in Florida.

Now I got to keep mine and at the time I was living in Norfolk / Virginia Beach VA and clearly remember Charlie telling people in a Charlie Chat that as they started to put more and more locals on the satellite if we got around to adding your locals you would then loose your NY and LA TV stations.


I Moved to Beckley WV in November 2003 and in 2004 Norfolk locals went on the Dish. Mayby I am understanding this wrong but it sounds like perhaps Charlie did not take off the distant network signals in markets where he put locals on. If I am wrong some one please correct me on this?

In Beckley WV the cable company gets an out of market, NBC, ABC, FOX and WB so I dont see my self having a problem here. In fact we have 2 NBC station one from Bluefiled WV/VA and the other from Charleston WV. We are on the long end of the Bluefield Market but closer to Charleston which is another DMA. We also get ABC and FOX from Charleston to go along with the local ABC (which has no problem with other ABC stations in the area)

Now Suddenlink Cable which just purchased all WV cable systems from Charter Communications is having a retransmision consent problem with Sinclair Broadcasting who demanded WCHS 8 and WVAH FOX 11 from Charleston be pulled from cable systems in southwestern WV. Cable company did as ordered and did not replace WCHS as we had a local ABC station WOAY 4 (a really mom and pop operation). As for FOX they signed up for FOXNET and began providing it on the LARGE parts of the cable systems outside the Charleton-Huntington DMA. Sinclair Broadcasting in a fit or rage went to FOX and demanded FOX NET be pulled no earlier than 1 minute before the first pitch of the MLB All Star Game. FOX told them that Beckley was a "seperate DMA" and the viewers have a right to watch FOX programing from another source if you dont want to provide and thats how it goes.

So in short until Dish puts up all the locals those of us in unserved areas should not have a problem. No UPN or WB available over the area, no FOX available over the air, NBC is poor and CBS is considreed a grade B siganl but its very weak as a UHF station. Only thing I am probably getting away with is ABC. Dish pulled national PBS whgen I moved here as the local PBS was very strong and it is.

I did contact all the Senators and Congressman though.

Funny thing is here in WVA many people get distant networks threw Dish and local stations threw cable and no one localy has a problem with it not even the cable comapany as they get paid for basic cable (which is better than nothing) and Dish and DirecTV customers get satellite stations.

No one seems to complains in this part of the wokld.

I did not recieve any email from Dish Network and cant find any info on there web sites and no warning placards are on the channels that they talked about 250, 240 ect.

Bob
 
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Scott Greczkowski said:
Yes Dish messed up, that I dont disagree with, I dont agree with the "we will take out ball and go home" approach by the broadcasters.

I think should be fined heavily for their actions, but distant networks should not be taken away.

One of my fears is if Distants are gone from Dish then the broadcasters will find a way in the future to get them off of DirecTV and the only network they will have is FOX.

Fine and sanction Echostar all you want but do not take choice away from the consumer.
i also feel dish should be fined
they fined me $169. dollars and some change one month when audit team found out i had 5 outside dma's rather than the 2 alloweed by dishnetwork.com
if dish fines there customers for there mistakes that isnt right maybe charlie ergen himself should be fined at least 1.69 million over this matter
well see how he likes it
turn about is fair play
i feel cheated as i was forced to pay a bs fine by the sudit dept cause i had 5 distant cites rather than 2
i dont feel the feds should take the feeds away but dish should play by the rules

when i go to http://www.SaveMyChannels.com
i get error 403
 
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riffjim4069 said:
.............I support the Court Order as it currently stands!
So those of us in rural America who have played by the rules and have the necessary waivers should be shut off? What about the hundreds/thousands of dollars spent on satellite equipment that only works with Dish Network? A better answer would have been to fine EchoStar (had the law permitted that option).:mad: