DISH Network Sues the FCC

[whatchel1]

What conversion are you talking about.

Kind of makes one wonder why no markets on the WA have been started on the MPEG4 conversion since we are one full year into the digital conversion?
They are now providing SD channels for many stations which go not provide SD channels. It is almost like they are asking to be required to carry subchannels.

The digital conversion I know of had nothing to do w/ sat. It was digital conversion for OTA only. What digital conversion are you talking about?

 

[SamCdbs]

Hmm.

DirecTV has local PBS stations in HD.

Comcast has local PBS stations in HD.

Time Warner has local PBS stations in HD.

Brighthouse has local PBS stations in HD.

Thank you for confirming that there is no reason for this silly rule. If you are in the 0.1% (evidence: Nielsen) that care about PBS, then you have plenty of options. If you are not, the DISH is standing up for you.

 

[MikeD-C05]

Well lets see DISH has ALL dmas up on the satellite now. The first sat provider to do so. Now how many of you think that accomplishment would of happened if they had to add PBS in hd to all their dmas? I would rather see DISH finish the country's locals in HD ,than see a single PBS hd channel added to any market.

 

[cditty]

Well lets see DISH has ALL dmas up on the satellite now. The first sat provider to do so. Now how many of you think that accomplishment would of happened if they had to add PBS in hd to all their dmas? I would rather see DISH finish the country's locals in HD ,than see a single PBS hd channel added to any market.

Amen. I know the PBS lovers may not like this, but they are such a small percentage of local Dma viewing.

I would much rather have every dma in hd with one national PBS for all. It would be real hd then, instead of 5 sub channels.

 

[JohnH]

The digital conversion I know of had nothing to do w/ sat. It was digital conversion for OTA only. What digital conversion are you talking about?

There is only one dogital conversion to talk about. It very much affected satellite. Where do you think ABC HD, CBS HD. NBC HD, FOX HD, CW HD, MY HD, ION HD and PBS HD(to name a few) came from. The point is very few of those channels are broadcasting an SD feed. So why is sattellite still downverting before uplinking them? WA should going the same way as EA at least as far as the locals go,

 

[goaliebob99]

Hmm.

DirecTV has local PBS stations in HD.

Comcast has local PBS stations in HD.

Time Warner has local PBS stations in HD.

Brighthouse has local PBS stations in HD.

Boy does that story sound awfully familiar to HD RSN's! While, I agree to a point about finishing out the country with local's, Dish had more than enough time to prepare for this and transition WA to Mpeg4. Loosing satellites has nothing to do with what is beamed up there now, and if it was beamed in a more efficient way that would give them the bandwidth to do HDRSN's and PBSHD (IE what the competition is doing) Really it seems like dish is very asleep at the wheel with no one driving it, and recently its started to all crash down. Kind of reminds me of the scene in Forrest Gump where Forrest jumps off of the boat because he's so happy to see Lt. Dan. And then the boat crashes into the pier. Well this time its not Forrest that's jumping off the boat, but its dish network customers! I know of at least 10 people who have jumped ship in the past month and have wondered why they didn't do it sooner. Things need to get fixed, yea yea same song, same tune different day.... You all know the drill!

 

[multnomah]

Thank you for confirming that there is no reason for this silly rule. If you are in the 0.1% (evidence: Nielsen) that care about PBS, then you have plenty of options. If you are not, the DISH is standing up for you.

Where did you get that number? It sounds bogus to me.

I spent some time Googling and was not able to find any mention of such a low number.

A 2008 news article I found reported that rhe PBS Nielsen share for that year was 1.7 million for an average week -- compare to ESPN (2.4 million) and the big four (6 - 12 million each ). That's not earthshaking, but it's a far cry from .1%.

I don't mean to imply that I place any faith in the accuracy of Nielsen numbers; but I am suspicious of your figures.

 

[Greg Bimson]

Well lets see DISH has ALL dmas up on the satellite now. The first sat provider to do so.

Wow. What an accomplishment.

Now how many of you think that accomplishment would of happened if they had to add PBS in hd to all their dmas?

How many of you think that accomplishment would have happened because the government GAVE something to Dish Network for meeting that goal? You know, interference with the free market?

Funny how that was forgotten. Or any belief that Dish Network made all markets available because they were being generous.

A 2008 news article I found reported that rhe PBS Nielsen share for that year was 1.7 million for an average week -- compare to ESPN (2.4 million) and the big four (6 - 12 million each ). That's not earthshaking, but it's a far cry from .1%.

Easy. Make up numbers to support your theory!

What should be earthshaking is that the ESPN suite receives over $3 a month per customer, and it appears they may AVERAGE only 50 percent more than PBS viewership. Yet PBS cannot charge for their signal. Something about a government regulation regarding a non-commercial station (which is another government regulation).

 

[MikeD-C05]

What ever Gregg.

 

[Greg Bimson]

My point may have been missed. The complaint is that Dish Network may have to sacrifice bandwidth for HD versions of non-commercial stations, because of a government mandate.

The argument regarding local channel availability for all markets, that Dish Network is "the first sat provider to do so", is a bit disingenuous. The law allowed Dish Network access to the distant network license if they rebroadcast all local markets in the US. Dish Network has no impetus to provide every market with the big-four networks in HD. They only completed the availability of all markets in SD because they wanted access to the distant network license. Dish Network sacrificed some bandwidth in order to get the government's handout.

Once STELA was passed, the only true requirement was that HD non-commerical stations need to be added to packages if no agreement is reached, with half of the available HD markets to have their HD non-comms added by the end of 2011 and the other half added by the end of 2012. Of course, also within STELA was the carrot that if Dish Network provided local service to every market in the US, that they'd get access to the distant network license.

Upon the President's signature of the bill into law, Dish Network was jumping out of the gate to give locals to the entire country. Meanwhile, Dish Network has been stringing along APTS for a couple of years to provide non-comm and PBS channels to local markets, and obviously has no desire to provide those non-comm channels in HD.

 

[mike123abc]

They probably could easily do the requirement of 50% for 2011. The problem is probably the 2012 for eastern Arc if their 77 satellite gets delayed and the replacement for E12 at 61.5.

WA has all the satellites in place now. They should be able to do all the stations on WA markets to meet the 50% requirement. They probably are close to 75% when they get E15 up later this month on EA assuming they use more spot TPs on E12.

Of course there is all the cost they have to pay to get added backhaul for the secondary stations in HD.

 

[Derwin0]

Hmm.

DirecTV has local PBS stations in HD.

Not in my market (Harrisburg, PA). Don't carry the local CW either.

Comcast has local PBS stations in HD.
Time Warner has local PBS stations in HD.
Brighthouse has local PBS stations in HD.

Cable doesn't have the limitations that Satellite has, since they typically only need to carry 1 PBS station.

 

[dissident]

if they can't handle bringing in all locals in HD they shouldn't be forcing people to pay $5 per month to have them. $5 for 4 channels isn't much of a deal.

 

[whatchel1]

Changing History

There is only one dogital conversion to talk about. It very much affected satellite. Where do you think ABC HD, CBS HD. NBC HD, FOX HD, CW HD, MY HD, ION HD and PBS HD(to name a few) came from. The point is very few of those channels are broadcasting an SD feed. So why is sattellite still downverting before uplinking them? WA should going the same way as EA at least as far as the locals go,

Sorry but this info isn't related to the carriage of the stations on sat in HD. The vast majority of the OTA stations had be running their digital transmitters well before the conversion. I know I helped to install 2 myself. All the conversion did was allow the broadcasters to turn off their analog transmitters and run only the digital. In some cases the stations at that point took back the analog frequency and moved their digital transmitter to it from the temporary frequency that they had been using. So a large percent of the markets were available to providers well before the conversion.

 

[mike123abc]

There is only one dogital conversion to talk about. It very much affected satellite. Where do you think ABC HD, CBS HD. NBC HD, FOX HD, CW HD, MY HD, ION HD and PBS HD(to name a few) came from. The point is very few of those channels are broadcasting an SD feed. So why is sattellite still downverting before uplinking them? WA should going the same way as EA at least as far as the locals go,

It would be nice if they converted WA to MPEG-4, but I suppose that Dish does not want to pay 3-5 billion up front for the change (assuming 20-30 million SD boxes to be converted, average price $150 considering service calls for dish replacements to cover 129). They are probably going to wait a few more years and let the turnover and dishin it up cover most the costs. Going to 8PSK is going to cost them a pretty penny as it is.

 

[Greg Bimson]

The point is very few of those channels are broadcasting an SD feed. So why is sattellite still downverting before uplinking them?

I'd believe that it has to do with a contractual requirement.

Some of these "SD feeds" were probably fibered to Dish Network's Local Receive Facilities, and they probably still exist. Some were picked up OTA, so Dish Network and the station probably agreed to allow a downconvert of the HD channel as the SD feed.

 

[JohnH]

They need to start the conversion to MPEG4 now, one or two markets at a time, doing the locals only.
They will never be able to do an enmasse conversion of WA to MPEG4 until many of the local markets have been converted.

Greg, as they convert a local market that has HD locals they can remove the redundant SD feeds. That is the way EA is already and it was done more or less one market at a time.

Does anyone think a negotiated deal with PBS will require any less HD stations than STELA? Does this portion of STELA not impose the same requirements on DIRECTV?

 

[Greg Bimson]

Greg, as they convert a local market that has HD locals they can remove the redundant SD feeds. That is the way EA is already and it was done more or less one market at a time.

So there are no longer any SD locals coming off spot-beams? I could swear not everyone is pointing at EA, but I'm no expert on that. Aren't there subscribers that still have 625's or 4900's that could be pointing at only 110 and 119? I haven't been keeping up.

Does anyone think a negotiated deal with PBS will require any less HD stations than STELA? Does this portion of STELA not impose the same requirements on DIRECTV?

The way the law works, an agreement with APTS would trump the law's effect. DirecTV signed their agreement with APTS back in December 2007, so the law has no effect on DirecTV.

 

[JohnH]

You are correct, the 110/119 locals still have SD counterparts for the HD locals. They need to start working on that. The Eastern Arc(EA) is noy part of that and it already has the extra SDs removed and it is all MPEG4.
So. How many PBS HD markets does DIRECTV have to carry and when?

 

[Greg Bimson]

So. How many PBS HD markets does DIRECTV have to carry and when?

I don't know. What I would believe is that if DirecTV isn't living up to their end of the agreement, APTS would probably haul DirecTV into court.

DirecTV is carrying PBS in 46 of the top 50 markets and 90 of the top 100 markets in HD. They may not be carrying all PBS stations in the market in HD, but it isn't known if that is part of the deal.