Regional Sports issue where Directv is much better

docdaddy

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Sep 2, 2016
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Birmingham, AL
This only applies, I suspect, to those of us who have a regional sports network that covers a couple of pro teams. In my case, it's Fox Sports Midwest. They cover the Cardinals and the Royals.

On Directv, the guide showed Fox Sports Midwest and Fox Sports Kansas City, simultaneously. Thus it was easy to set up timers to record the Royals ahead of time. On Dish, the Cardinals are always on the channel that is FSMW, (412-08) and the Royals are on random "alt" stations. There's no listing for FSKC.

I've checked some other providers in the area and they all carry Fox Sports Kansas City; Dish is the only one that doesn't and instead puts the Royals on a random "Alt" station.

A small issue in perspective, but an irritating one.
 
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Still waiting for Root Sports Southwest here in Houston and I'm sure I'll continue to wait. Are you listening Dish?
 
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This only applies, I suspect, to those of us who have a regional sports network that covers a couple of pro teams. In my case, it's Fox Sports Midwest. They cover the Cardinals and the Royals.

On Directv, the guide showed Fox Sports Midwest and Fox Sports Kansas City, simultaneously. Thus it was easy to set up timers to record the Royals ahead of time. On Dish, the Cardinals are always on the channel that is FSMW, (412-08) and the Royals are on random "alt" stations. There's no listing for FSKC.

I've checked some other providers in the area and they all carry Fox Sports Kansas City; Dish is the only one that doesn't and instead puts the Royals on a random "Alt" station.

A small issue in perspective, but an irritating one.

I agree 100% - here in Chicago we have the Bulls, Sox, Cubs, Hawks, and Fire all on CSN Chicago. On Comcast and some of the streaming options, CSN and CSN Plus are full-time channels. On Dish, it is just CSN. And if there are two teams playing, I have to go through a different channel everyday in the Alt channels. Very difficult! I have thought that it would make perfect sense to keep the VIP channel setup and then do "subchannels", so for CSN Chicago, have it be 429-01 and then two alternate channels, 429-02 and 429-03.
 
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I'm in the same boat with the Charlotte Hornets, who share Fox Sports South with the Atlanta Hawks, and the Hornets always end up on the ALT channels. I get around it (somewhat) with a seek timer by doing a search for the team name, which records all the Hornets games regardless of the channel. To be fair, like everything else right now regarding guide/timers, its been hit or miss lately, but still picks up most games.
 
I agree 100% - here in Chicago we have the Bulls, Sox, Cubs, Hawks, and Fire all on CSN Chicago. On Comcast and some of the streaming options, CSN and CSN Plus are full-time channels. On Dish, it is just CSN. And if there are two teams playing, I have to go through a different channel everyday in the Alt channels. Very difficult! I have thought that it would make perfect sense to keep the VIP channel setup and then do "subchannels", so for CSN Chicago, have it be 429-01 and then two alternate channels, 429-02 and 429-03.
I hear your plight. But, for the New York, Philly, Houston, and places like sports fans who don't get any of their RSNs on Dish, as well as places like Boston, who get only one, you aren't getting much sympathy. Chicago, Detroit, and Denver get the best treatment from Dish.

And to everyone who will pull my "I don't care about CSN New England" posts from before, I still don't care. But, there are Celtics and Revolution fans around here who do.

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I hear your plight. But, for the New York, Philly, Houston, and places like sports fans who don't get any of their RSNs on Dish, as well as places like Boston, who get only one, you aren't getting much sympathy. Chicago, Detroit, and Denver get the best treatment from Dish. And to everyone who will pull my "I don't care about CSN New England" posts from before, I still don't care. But, there are Celtics and Revolution fans around here who do.

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Yeah, Chicago really does get good treatment on Dish overall. Even back when there was much more limited bandwidth, we still got almost all our games in HD and very few games JIP HD. But I hear you - CSN New England was a loss for Dish, even from someone in Chicago. One thing I enjoyed with multi-sports pack during NFL season is flipping to the other RSN's and listening to local NFL coverage. CSN New England had some good Patriots coverage, and it was always interesting to hear the New England perspective.
 
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I hear your plight. But, for the New York, Philly, Houston, and places like sports fans who don't get any of their RSNs on Dish, as well as places like Boston, who get only one, you aren't getting much sympathy. Chicago, Detroit, and Denver get the best treatment from Dish.

And to everyone who will pull my "I don't care about CSN New England" posts from before, I still don't care. But, there are Celtics and Revolution fans around here who do.

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In Detroit's case I think part of the reason is because the Tigers, Red Wings, and Pistons are all on Fox Sports Detroit and this is the RSN for the entire state of Michigan. Fox Sports Detroit covers a lot of people and Dish doesn't need contracts with multiple RSNs to cover all our in market sports teams. We also aren't in market for multiple teams in the same sport so the OP's example where FS Midwest covers both the Cardinals and Royals never happened to us.

Back in the part time HD days, Dish did treat Detroit very well though. I don't follow the Pistons or Red Wings but the Tigers were available in HD for probably 99% of their games even when they were the overflow game on FS Detroit + on one of the HD ALT channels.
 
Yeah, I have to admit in our little nowhere NW corner of IA we get treated well - we get FSSW and both Cardinals and Royals coverage, plus CSN Chicago coverage and FXN Minnesota coverage. Which is why this falls in the minor irritation mode (if I hadn't seen how other providers handle it I wouldn't know to complain. ;) )
 
Yeah, I have to admit in our little nowhere NW corner of IA we get treated well - we get FSSW and both Cardinals and Royals coverage, plus CSN Chicago coverage and FXN Minnesota coverage. Which is why this falls in the minor irritation mode (if I hadn't seen how other providers handle it I wouldn't know to complain. ;) )
That is pretty awesome......Good for you.......Can you imagine if most people had selection like that?.....Like on the east coast?
 
In Detroit's case I think part of the reason is because the Tigers, Red Wings, and Pistons are all on Fox Sports Detroit and this is the RSN for the entire state of Michigan. Fox Sports Detroit covers a lot of people and Dish doesn't need contracts with multiple RSNs to cover all our in market sports teams. We also aren't in market for multiple teams in the same sport so the OP's example where FS Midwest covers both the Cardinals and Royals never happened to us.

Back in the part time HD days, Dish did treat Detroit very well though. I don't follow the Pistons or Red Wings but the Tigers were available in HD for probably 99% of their games even when they were the overflow game on FS Detroit + on one of the HD ALT channels.
That's 100% true. Having one RSN does make it much easier to get carriage. Dish was good to Boston, but at the time, the Celtics were doing the worst of the main four sports leagues and the Revolution didn't pull in enough numbers to warrant Dish paying for CSN New England. In other areas, it's the price the RSNs are demanding in the same market.

You're right. Detroit and Chicago have one RSN, and, get this, actually put their sports team on local television. I'd have a Fred Sanford moment if the Boston teams decided to not be money hungry jackasses and put so many games on free local television again. As for Denver, for whatever reason Root Sports Rocky Mountain and Altitude don't try to jack up their prices to the point where Dish says screw 'em.

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Would Dish Pass/Seek and Record timers catch the Alt channel airings?

When the new guide data is actually working long enough, yes. Those type timers were working very well before the guide data changeover. Since the changeover, not so much.
 
DTV has always done a better job than Dish with RSN's, IMO. I also live in an area that gets both Cards and Royals, and Dish does not give FSKC full time status


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DTV has always done a better job than Dish with RSN's, IMO. I also live in an area that gets both Cards and Royals, and Dish does not give FSKC full time status
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Agree 100%.

On a side note - from my earlier post - it appears that Dish has corrected the issue of the random time the RSN's go off air that started once they had the guide changes. It seems like they all go off air at 2pm Central Time now, regardless of the show. Still scratching my head on why they take the RSN's off line for 8 hours a day unless there is something contractually that says they can only be on 16 hours a day... I say just drop the SD RSN's and make the HD 24/7 as well as add the subfeeds, like Fox Sports KC and Fox Sports Wisconsin :)
 
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Agree 100%.

On a side note - from my earlier post - it appears that Dish has corrected the issue of the random time the RSN's go off air that started once they had the guide changes. It seems like they all go off air at 2pm Central Time now, regardless of the show. Still scratching my head on why they take the RSN's off line for 8 hours a day unless there is something contractually that says they can only be on 16 hours a day... I say just drop the SD RSN's and make the HD 24/7 as well as add the subfeeds, like Fox Sports KC and Fox Sports Wisconsin :)
Of course you meant 2AM, not PM. I'm sure the thinking is that the majority of viewers, by far, are asleep at that time.
 
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Of course you meant 2AM, not PM. I'm sure the thinking is that the majority of viewers, by far, are asleep at that time.

Who is they? Why does it matter if people are asleep or not? The point is that Dish treats full time RSN's as part-time, and even more often in SD, which is crap in comparison to DirectTV. Is there a shortage of transponder space or is Dish just cheap?

Directv uses this edge to it's advantage in much of their marketing, as they should!


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