DISH responds to PBS Injunction
- Thread starter Scott Greczkowski
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no. PBS rules state if there is a PBS in your market you are exempt from the national feed
PBS rule
If there is no big 4 station in a market they can either give you the National feed (as D* has done in some markets) or a neighboring DMA (as both companies do for the next DMA by me Mankato, MN...only CBS & Fox. SO both companies give you NBC & ABC from Minneapolis...PBS is the National feed)
Well, doesn't that put dish over a barrel. They have to carry the channel, and can charge whatever they want.
Fact is, PBS gets it's airwaves for free, so Dish should get to retransmit for free.
Also, we only need 1 PBS per demo. It made sense in the '60s to have multiple so everyone could get signal, but not today. Heck, with the great variety of programs out there, I'm not sure public television makes sense at all today, but that is probably a question for Sonicbabble.
Air wave 4 free
Where do you get that any station pays anything for the freq they transmit on?
Where do you get that any station pays anything for the freq they transmit on?
Thanks Mike123abc for posting a link to the 2008 document that states the prior time frame for satellite carriers "HD carry one, carry all” FCC ruling.
But of course it begs the question....Did Dish ever publicly state that they intended to comply with this part of the ruling? IOW did Dish ever commit to providing PBS in HD in Local HD markets in accordance with this time-frame (i.e. 30% by February 17, 2011, 60% by February 17, 2012, and 100% by February 17, 2013)?
I ask because the Dish press release after the passage of STELA was....
"ENGLEWOOD, Colo., May 12, 2010 – DISH Network L.L.C. issued the following statement today about the passage of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act of 2010:
"DISH Network congratulates Congress on passing the landmark Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act of 2010 (STELA), clearing the way for DISH Network to become the first pay-TV provider to make local broadcast stations available in every television market in the United States."
...which 'congratulates' Congress on the part of the bill which Dish quickly implemented and is silent on the part about which Dish subsequently sought an injunction so as to avoid compliance.
Talon Dancer
But of course it begs the question....Did Dish ever publicly state that they intended to comply with this part of the ruling? IOW did Dish ever commit to providing PBS in HD in Local HD markets in accordance with this time-frame (i.e. 30% by February 17, 2011, 60% by February 17, 2012, and 100% by February 17, 2013)?
I ask because the Dish press release after the passage of STELA was....
"ENGLEWOOD, Colo., May 12, 2010 – DISH Network L.L.C. issued the following statement today about the passage of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act of 2010:
"DISH Network congratulates Congress on passing the landmark Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act of 2010 (STELA), clearing the way for DISH Network to become the first pay-TV provider to make local broadcast stations available in every television market in the United States."
...which 'congratulates' Congress on the part of the bill which Dish quickly implemented and is silent on the part about which Dish subsequently sought an injunction so as to avoid compliance.
Talon Dancer
How about which products or services you offer for sell? PBS has, for the most part, programs that can't find enough viewers to survive in the free market. They survive only because of government force, the threat of fines and maybe jail is needed to keep them on the air. If not carrying PBS was a deal breaker for too many customers then this tread would not exist, the fact is that not enough people care or watch PBS.
Well, you must live in an area where PBS is the PITS. Here, in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton DMA, we have a very powerful PBS> Broadcasting on 4 digital channels and PBS AND LOCAL produced HD. It is the Indie stations most people want. THey do live HD from couty fairs. They produce live and recorded HD in their studio of artists and home grown talent who appear on their award winning FM. I know other markets do not have anything near that, but for the markets that do, it is very important that they get on Directv and Dish with the HD that the public is paying for. I am sure, when the allocations for dish were set up, Charlie had negative thoughts about pBS like most people.
I am sure the locals ratings are down since digital only took over and many people went with satellite and never hooked up OTA. Heck, with directv you can't unless you buy an option.
WIth the government cutting PBS budgets (PA killed all payments to its PBS stations) these stations NEED satelitte coverage to continue.
They should give coverage to PBS-HD before they give coverage to a sub channel (-2) like they are doing with some stations.
How to gain more space: For those with Sub channels (which take up some of the channels bandwidth ota) , decrease the bandwidth on dish if they are sneaking in a sub channel.
What Charlie might do is put up the PBS channels in HD but squeeze the bitrate down to SD quality.
The First Amendment protects the citizens from the GOVERNMENT only!!
I really wish people especially those in positions such as Ergen would stop the nonsense about First Amendment rights.
Yes, PBS is a publicly funded entity. However, PBS is not part of the legislative, Judicial or Executive branches of the federal government.
Charlie Ergen is protesting that the government should not violate the First Amendment by specifying what he can or cannot say (i.e., broadcast PBS messages).
STELA is saying, in effect, that if Dish provides some speech in HD, it must provide all speech in HD, including by a speeded-up date PBS. Notwithstanding a previous comment in this thread, it is my understanding that DirecTV is not affected by STELA in the same way with regard to PBS coverage, i.e., DirecTV is not required to carry all PBS stations by December 31, 2011. Instead, DirecTV is still bound by the original HD carriage date of December 31, 2013.
If anyone wishes to contest this, they should please provide the specific cite that proves their point. My interpretation is well known to all except apparently for a few on this thread.
Thanks to all for an excellent and intertaining discourse!
Best regards,
Fitzie
STELA is saying, in effect, that if Dish provides some speech in HD, it must provide all speech in HD, including by a speeded-up date PBS. Notwithstanding a previous comment in this thread, it is my understanding that DirecTV is not affected by STELA in the same way with regard to PBS coverage, i.e., DirecTV is not required to carry all PBS stations by December 31, 2011. Instead, DirecTV is still bound by the original HD carriage date of December 31, 2013.
If anyone wishes to contest this, they should please provide the specific cite that proves their point. My interpretation is well known to all except apparently for a few on this thread.
Thanks to all for an excellent and intertaining discourse!
Best regards,
Fitzie
What Charlie might do is put up the PBS channels in HD but squeeze the bitrate down to SD quality.
Yes, Dish could try that but even there I think there would be capacity issues so that other channels would also have to be squeezed, thus resulting in the "HD-Lite" that DirecTV was so famous for 3-4 years ago. Dish might do that, but then all our channels would be downgraded. Relief could not be expected until mid-2013, when the capacity for carriage in accordance with Dish's pre-established plan is available.
The (female) legislator who introduced the PBS requirement into STELA commented that if DISH could carry an adult channel (e.g., Playboy), it was nonsense to think it could not carry all PBS channels by the STELA specified date. What she ignores is that a few adult channels carried on a national CONUS feed does not equate to 354 local PBS channels, plus hundreds (or thousands) of PBS sub-channels to be carried in SD. Her reasoning is totally in-valid, and she can only be considered a selfish, self-centered, west coast liberal with no concern whatsoever for the "fly-over" states.
If this court decision prevails (and I thoroughly expect Dish to appeal all the way up the line) what will probably happen is that Dish will have to make some hard choices about which local markets currently carried in HD will have to be discontinued from HD carriage, so that they will not be subject to the STELA PBS carriage rule. My guess is that the first to be on that discontinuance list will be the locals carried on a CONUS feed, such as those here in central america (Lexington, Louisville, Huntington, WV, Charleston WV, etc). and other areas of the Eastern Arc. Presumably, the Western Arc will have sufficient spot beam capability to shoe-horn in the PBS stations, although some local areas scheduled for HD may be delayed until 2013. Following that, I expect some local HD carriage on spot-beams in the EA will also be discontinued, since PBS carriage in the most populous areas (like New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, Hartford, etc.) will absorb much of the spot beam capacity currently used for smaller cities.
While I like PBS, and currently watch it in SD, I would not like to lose ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox in HD so that viewers in Boston, NY, and Hartford can get their PBS in HD!
But that's just my view. If you live in the named areas, yours may differ.
Regards,
Fitzie
HUH? Surely you mean that Charlie Ergen is protesting that the government should not violate the First Amendment by specifying at what resolution he can or cannot say something -- i.e. SD vs HD.
Or maybe Dish/Charlie has only recently thought of using the First Amendment gambit to avoid compliance, since in most DMAs Dish/Charlie is already "broadcasting PBS messages" in SD already. Seems a little late to get all constitutional to me.
FWIW what offends me the most is Dish/Charlie's press release where HE presumes to speak for me, his customer, on this matter with the completely self-serving statement "We believe that our customers should be the ones who decide what they want to watch on TV and how they want to watch it." As if Dish provides their customers with a choice of watching PBS in HD. And further more, he wraps himself in the Constitution protecting HIS First Amendment rights at my expense.
Talon Dancer
The original owners may have got their space free, but most stations have changed hands many times, and that was not free.
Plus, PBS is government funded. To me, that should mean it can be made available for free on a variety of mediums, not just OTA.
I can't see Charlie using that argument though, I mean we're talking about the man who encrypts NASA TV here!
I similarly don't see Charlie using the argument that PBS HD is available free for anyone on AMC 21.
As for the timing, I know you think we make this stuff up, well we don't. I have been following most all events concerning Dish for years and years.
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-08-86A1.pdf shows the original timing.
In addition, I was very clear, I said in my post "My best guess" concerning your #2 above. It is derived from reading some of the replies dish made in the suit. But again, you think we make this all up.
If you want to tell me Charlie exaggerates to make a point to the Court, well yes. But he has a point about the timing like it or not.
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Interesting enough, amidst all the angst about how the lack of spot beam TPs will cause DISH to drop HD if it is required to comply with STELA, DISH currently carries ALL of the Austin DMA HD stations (except PBS) on TWO different sats -- one in the Eastern Arc (61.5) and the other in the Western Arc (129). So in case of the Austin DMA, Dish has more than ample spot beams to provide PBS in HD but they don't.
Talon Dancer
p.s. I understand that Dish maintains SD/HD locals on both EA and WA sats in order to improve/provide reception for people with line of sight issues. But this is very unlikely to be the reason for DISH maintaining the Austin DMA HD on both 61.5 and 129. Some history... Dish added the Austin DMA HD locals to the sat at 61.5 when the sat at 129 lacked TPs needed for the Austin DMA. And AFAIK Dish has never provided the Austin DMA SD locals on 61.5. FWIW I was one of the first Dish subs who reported (on this forum) getting an additional sat dish pointed at 61.5 when Dish finally added HD for the Austin DMA. Dish later added Austin HD to 129, when the sat at 129 was replaced with one that supported the required spot beams. As a result I can receive Austin HD stations (except PBS) from either 61.5 or 129. So Dish bring on PBS in HD - I'm ready
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If there were something else more worthy of hd, I'd certainly go for that instead of pbs hd. Put the indies in high def maybe? It's no skin of my arse either way until the rates jump because of some liberal congressional nonsense. I get two pbs off the air anyway amounting to 7 channels.
