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This is really childish...

- The presence of one channel in the lineup does not crowd out other channels. There are 20 HD channel slots currently that are not Available to Dish-HD customers. Why? Because Dish does not yet have an agreement with the channel. That is the main reason for a channel not being available on Dish Network. Dish has enough bandwidth for any HD channel that will agree to a price that fits within the Dish HD Only Package constraints.

- The other aspect of this is that it is admirable forward-looking thinking by WFN to launch in an HD slot. If you liked fishing, you would appreciate that. If like soccer, and would be very happy to see Fox Soccer Channel or Setanta Sports USA Channel in an HD slot, because it would indicate that there might be some HD programming "soon".

kstuart said:

Because Dish does not yet have an agreement with the channel. That is the main reason for a channel not being available on Dish Network. Dish has enough bandwidth for any HD channel that will agree to a price that fits within the Dish HD Only Package constraints.

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This is true (mostly), and shows the down-side of the HD Only package. HD Essentials and HD Ultimate work differently than HD Only, and eventually they are going to be limited by it.

Lets say you have a channel that costs 50 cents a month per subscriber. That channel launches an HD feed. In most cases, the HD Feed does NOT cost an extra 50 cents. It's maybe 55 cents for the two of them together. In some cases such as Starz, the HD feeds are FREE to SD subscribers.

So, for HD Essentials and HD Ultimate, it costs an extra 5 cents to add this channel. But it costs 50 cents (or maybe 55) to add it to HD Only.

Right now, there are 30 or so basic channels with HD feeds that could be added to HD Ultimate and HD Essentials for a very low cost. (Oh wait, they don't have ROOM to add 30 feeds...gee that means bandwidth is limited, doesn't it? And that doesn't count all the premiums.)

BUT, to add 30 channels to HD Only might make it unprofitable. I'm sure they built in some extra room for growth. But they're not going to jack up the price $10 a few months after they start offering it. So even when they solve the bandwidth problem, there will be other issues due to this pricing structure.

I bet next winter, we see yet another tier added. Or, they start to add things to Essentials that don't go to HD Only. (Which then people will cry because they don't understand economics and they thing HD Only means HD ALL)

kstuart said:

- The other aspect of this is that it is admirable forward-looking thinking by WFN to launch in an HD slot. If you liked fishing, you would appreciate that. If like soccer, and would be very happy to see Fox Soccer Channel or Setanta Sports USA Channel in an HD slot, because it would indicate that there might be some HD programming "soon".

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I actually do agree with this. Note that I didn't start this thread. I support the spirit of it, but not the specifics. I just think they should have waited until either the HD feed was available, or they got the new birds lit.

You guys say there's plenty of room, but they could add 20 HD channels at any times, and if the one YOU wanted was 21st on the list...

do we even care if people think a thread is dumb? Don't f**kin respond then ya jackass!

M Sparks said:

Right now, there are 30 or so basic channels with HD feeds that could be added to HD Ultimate and HD Essentials for a very low cost. (Oh wait, they don't have ROOM to add 30 feeds...gee that means bandwidth is limited, doesn't it? And that doesn't count all the premiums.).

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First off, you have it backwards.

There are lots of channels with HD feeds with no HD content (like VH-1) that would be helpful only to HD Only subscribers (who otherwise can't view the channel at all). It would be of no benefit to HD Essentials subscribers, who already get the HD content on MHD.

Second, about 30 National HD channels is the current space available. There are a lot of slots uplinked that are not Available to customers because the negotiations are ongoing.

three year bump: looks like the OP's wish came true, three years later. Dish removed WFN HD and replaced it with a SD version.

Haha, nice resurrection.

3 years. Now that's what I call a bump.