cleblanc said:
I don't understand why then they provide CBS-HD but think they can't provide the others. What is the difference? They have been providing CBS-HD for any subscriber who had the SD version for years. I would think the same rules would apply to ABC, NBC and FOX.
They do but Dish's deal with CBS is a private contract that basically pre-empts SHVERA rules. That's not to say Dish couldn't strike a similar deal with the other networks or in lieu of that, go the SHVERA route. The bottom line is whoever owns the copywrite gets to decide where the product goes but SHVERA can overide those rights under certain conditions
Shvera gives DBS the right in certain situations to bypass seeking retransmission consent and "D" currently takes advantage of that (to a point) but "E" (as yet) chooses not to.
The reason is most likely money. Nobody that gets Dish's CBS-HD feed is paying any extra for it and if you're currently getting analog DNS from Dish, you're already paying for them, so if Dish added the HD DNS, they wouldn't get any additional money. So there's no incentive for them to do it. In fact, they may be going out of their way not to since when the new HD locals launched in NY / LA, for about half the day, analog DNS subs that had 211s were actually getting the HD DNS until Dish "shut" them off.
Like I said, it boils down to copyright and money. Right now Dish is negoiating with many local afilliates for rights to to HD LiLs and even though they (Dish) may have the right to provide HD DNS, the're probably using that threat as a bargining chip in these negoiations.
Now Dish can't make HD DNS available to qualifing subs in only some areas, so I'm betting once HD LiLs reach a certain "critical mass", Dish will launch HD DNS for all "white area" subs not getting HD LiLs.
Where Dish will make the money is signing more people into the Hd and Locals packages (you're required to buy SD LiLs if you want HD LiLs).
Since HD DNS would basically be only temporary in any DMAs Dish plans to provide HD LiLs plus all the notification proceedures written into SHVERA, make HD DNS more of an expense than Dish wants. I suspect Dish wants narrow it down so that those who qualify for HD DNS will remain qualified for a while.