BTN Grandfathered?

[Hall]

As others have remembered, Big 10 Network was offered to all subscribers for a short while as a free preview. After some date (as I recall, the start of football season), the availability of it changed. Since I'm in the Big 10's region, I wasn't impacted like people outside of it are. Basically, people in this region kept it, but it also sounds like you had to have a package level or higher (I have had either AT200 or AT250 for quite a while).

 

[Scherrman]

So it looks like there could be quite a few people who have been getting it for free. Lucky

 

[Hall]

The Big 10 Network's website is pretty clear....

BTN is available!

Good news! DISH Network subscribers within the Big Ten’s nine state footprint with America's Top 120 Plus and above get BTN on channel 410 and 405 (Hopper). BTN HD is available on channel 410 and 405 (Hopper) to DISH HD subscribers. Subscribers outside the nine Big Ten states, or who are in the Louisville or Philadelphia area, must subscribe to DISH’s Multi-Sport package to receive BTN. Please call DISH Network at 1-800-333-DISH for details.

 

[king3pj]

I think they occasionally make mistakes somehow. I dropped my parents account from AT250 to AT200 when the price increases hit this year. My dad likes Encore Westerns but this was the only channel they would really miss by dropping. To our surprise Encore Westerns stayed in their guide and continued to work after the drop. None of the other Encore channels were available, just that one.

This worked for about 5 months after they switched packages and he continued to watch it almost daily. They ended up canceling HBO after a promo for that ran out. Once they dropped HBO their hoppers must have received a hit or something because Encore Westerns disappeared from the my channels guide and no longer works for them.

Moral of the story, if you are getting a channel you aren't supposed to and you want to keep it don't make any changes to your account.

 

[Scherrman]

I think they occasionally make mistakes somehow. I dropped my parents account from AT250 to AT200 when the price increases hit this year. My dad likes Encore Westerns but this was the only channel they would really miss by dropping. To our surprise Encore Westerns stayed in their guide and continued to work after the drop. None of the other Encore channels were available, just that one.

This worked for about 5 months after they switched packages and he continued to watch it almost daily. They ended up canceling HBO after a promo for that ran out. Once they dropped HBO their hoppers must have received a hit or something because Encore Westerns disappeared from the my channels guide and no longer works for them.

Moral of the story, if you are getting a channel you aren't supposed to and you want to keep it don't make any changes to your account.

I agree but that only works if you know you are getting a channel for free when you're not suppose to. My customer just thought he was suppose to be getting it and now that he bought a new TV and upgraded it went away. If he new that he would not have done it. It took a lot for me to explain how he was getting it for free and saved hundreds instead of paying what he was suppose to.

 

[dare2be]

I'm going to go through the channels on AT250 to see how many of them I still get now that I dropped to AT200. I know 203 BITV (SD) is one of them.

 

[Hall]

Did he go from a non-HD receiver to and HD one, presuming he bought a new HDTV from you ?

 

[Scherrman]

Did he go from a non-HD receiver to and HD one, presuming he bought a new HDTV from you ?

Yep, went from a 322 to a 222k.

 

[oldengineer]

So it looks like there could be quite a few people who have been getting it for free. Lucky

And we subs in the Philly and Louisville RSN have to pay for it. My big rant about Dish. I can see Louisville because they probably service KY but Philly? Now that Rutgers has joined the B1G they can't use the excuse that NJ subs aren't in a BTN Network state.

 

[Scherrman]

And we subs in the Philly and Louisville RSN have to pay for it. My big rant about Dish. I can see Louisville because they probably service KY but Philly? Now that Rutgers has joined the B1G they can't use the excuse that NJ subs aren't in a BTN Network state.

Is the BTN available to NJ people now or are they still getting demographics figured out?

 

[oldengineer]

Is the BTN available to NJ people now or are they still getting demographics figured out?

I called this morning and there's been no change yet. I thought that they were trying to milk some extra bucks from the area because of the size but I think that Chicago, Indianapolis and other big cities get it so I don't know why they pick on us other than the fact that some of NJ is in our RSN. In addition to no BTN Philly RSN subs still don't get any RSN channels because Comcast is still blocking access to Philly CSN so we have to pay $9 for BTN and Red Zone in season. It's a ripoff. I called this morning and got 3 months free and when that expires I'll call again. The other sat svc doesn't exclude us from BTN so I don't think there's any legal reason for Dish to act like they do.

 

[Scherrman]

I called this morning and there's been no change yet. I thought that they were trying to milk some extra bucks from the area because of the size but I think that Chicago, Indianapolis and other big cities get it so I don't know why they pick on us other than the fact that some of NJ is in our RSN. In addition to no BTN Philly RSN subs still don't get any RSN channels because Comcast is still blocking access to Philly CSN so we have to pay $9 for BTN and Red Zone in season. It's a ripoff. I called this morning and got 3 months free and when that expires I'll call again. The other sat svc doesn't exclude us from BTN so I don't think there's any legal reason for Dish to act like they do.

That does suck. I'm not sure if this is something that Dish has control over or not though.

 

[tobsandmags]

I seem to recall they added the state of Nebraska to the BTN footprint just before the start of football season. I did a search but didn't find anything, but I remember posts from back in 2011 about it.