Dispute between Dish and Gray Media Group looming?

[pattykay]

Uplink Activity Updates » Blog Archive » 12/18/19 at 3:16pm ET (v27) – 594 changes seen

Dish just removed the OTA guide mapping from the satellite-delivered versions of a whole bunch of local stations, and uplinked separate OTA guide data streams for those stations instead. From what I can tell, this means that Dish is gearing up for a potential dispute with Gray Media Group, the owner of my local CBS and CW affiliates.

 

[n0qcu]

Uplink Activity Updates » Blog Archive » 12/18/19 at 3:16pm ET (v27) – 594 changes seen

Dish just removed the OTA guide mapping from the satellite-delivered versions of a whole bunch of local stations, and uplinked separate OTA guide data streams for those stations instead. From what I can tell, this means that Dish is gearing up for a potential dispute with Gray Media Group, the owner of my local CBS and CW affiliates.

That explains why the guide is finally correct for my OTA H&I channel

 

[zippyfrog]

What I noticed in that listing is that there is a Rockford channel there, which WTVO is owned by Mission Broadcasting. So it appears to be the Mission Broadcasting channels as well as the Gray Media channels.

 

[AZ.]

Gray took over a bunch of Raython stations like a year ago.

 

[pattykay]

Gray took over a bunch of Raython stations like a year ago.

Yes, that is what happened in my market. Gray took over WOIO and WUAB (both formerly owned by Raycom) on January 2 this year. Unfortunately, if these stations get removed from Dish, I do not have OTA as a backup at my location. I guess I will have to use streaming, which is what I was planning to do anyway to watch CW programming if Dish lets me drop the locals from my Welcome Pack subscription.

 

[bluenerd]

Damn. Wish my area had a Gray station. Wouldn't mind an OTA adapter but at two tuners the only way that is happening is if I get one free.

 

[pattykay]

Damn. Wish my area had a Gray station. Wouldn't mind an OTA adapter but at two tuners the only way that is happening is if I get one free.

Well, I can't quite give it to you for free, but make me a reasonable offer plus the cost of shipping, and I can send you one. I am downsizing my Dish system. Let me know if you are interested.

 

[Howard Simmons]

Well, I can't quite give it to you for free, but make me a reasonable offer plus the cost of shipping, and I can send you one. I am downsizing my Dish system. Let me know if you are interested.

Just sell it to him for a dollar and let him pay for shipping and handling.

 

[Yespage]

Uplink Activity Updates » Blog Archive » 12/18/19 at 3:16pm ET (v27) – 594 changes seen

Dish just removed the OTA guide mapping from the satellite-delivered versions of a whole bunch of local stations, and uplinked separate OTA guide data streams for those stations instead. From what I can tell, this means that Dish is gearing up for a potential dispute with Gray Media Group, the owner of my local CBS and CW affiliates.

Bitch bitch bitch.

...


Oh wait, these channels are in my area. *mobilizes for war!*

Maybe I can use this to get one of fancy antennas from Dish.

 

[pattykay]

Just sell it to him for a dollar and let him pay for shipping and handling.

bluenerd never got back to me, so I will open up the offer to anyone who wants an OTA adapter. First come, first served. While supplies last. (I only have a couple of them.)

 

[pattykay]

Bitch bitch bitch.

...

No, if I wanted to bitch, I would be complaining about the loss of The Blaze and ION.

 

[bluenerd]

bluenerd never got back to me, so I will open up the offer to anyone who wants an OTA adapter. First come, first served. While supplies last. (I only have a couple of them.)

Thank you for the offer, but I'm going to let it go to others and wait for someone to pick a fight with Dish.

 

[pattykay]

Uplink Activity Updates » Blog Archive » 12/18/19 at 3:16pm ET (v27) – 594 changes seen

Dish just removed the OTA guide mapping from the satellite-delivered versions of a whole bunch of local stations, and uplinked separate OTA guide data streams for those stations instead. From what I can tell, this means that Dish is gearing up for a potential dispute with Gray Media Group, the owner of my local CBS and CW affiliates.

Oh, great! Based on today's uplink report...

Uplink Activity Updates » Blog Archive » 3/11/20 at 3:14pm ET (v30) – 245 changes seen

...it looks like Dish is now also preparing for a dispute with the Scripps-owned stations, which would impact the local ABC affiliate in Cleveland. I hope that both of these disputes do not hit at the same time. The loss of CBS, CW, and ABC would be rough.

 

[DJ Lon]

Any news on the Scripps stations negotiations? I've seen nothing on our local channel's website, no crawls on programming and Dish Promise is silent

 

[pattykay]

Any news on the Scripps stations negotiations? I've seen nothing on our local channel's website, no crawls on programming and Dish Promise is silent

So far, just that one uplink report, showing that Dish is no longer linking the guide data for the satellite-delivered version of the stations to their OTA channels, and uplinking separate guide data streams for the OTA channels instead. This is our "canary in the coalmine" early-warning system for potential local channel disputes, and these actions can take place several months before the channels are actually removed, if they ever are removed. Sometimes, these negotiations get resolved quietly without the channels actually being pulled. In that case, the only sign that we would have that the negotiations were successfully completed would be an uplink report reversing the type of change seen in the uplink report linked above. (Removing the separate guide data streams for OTA channels, and restoring their guide data link to the satellite-delivered version of the stations.)

As far as the potential upcoming Gray Media dispute, someone reported in another thread that Dish has a test channel with a message about Gray putting customers in the middle of the negotiations. So, while the channels have not been pulled yet, it does not look like the negotiations are going very well so far.

 

[pattykay]

Hmmm... in the most recent uplink reports (March 14 and 15) Dish has been resolving some of their other previously ongoing local carriage disputes. I hate to be a pessimist [ just kidding, I am happy being pessimistic ] but I think this is because Dish does not want to have too many different local carriage disputes going on at the same time. So, the resolution of those disputes may be a bad sign for the progress of the negotiations in the other potential upcoming disputes.

 

[navychop]

I am optimistic there will be plenty to be pessimistic about in these carriage disputes.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[pattykay]

Hmmm... in the most recent uplink reports (March 14 and 15) Dish has been resolving some of their other previously ongoing local carriage disputes. I hate to be a pessimist [ just kidding, I am happy being pessimistic ] but I think this is because Dish does not want to have too many different local carriage disputes going on at the same time. So, the resolution of those disputes may be a bad sign for the progress of the negotiations in the other potential upcoming disputes.

So, since I posted last night, even more local channel disputes have been resolved, and there are now a bunch of new free preview channels. (Possibly intended to be "replacement" channels?) I am thinking that at least one really major dispute is about to start soon.

 

[pattykay]

I guess I should have read the headlines on the main forum page. It looks like all of these dispute resolutions are just temporary truces in order to provide coronavirus coverage. (In other words, Dish taking advantage of a national emergency.) The timing of the free preview channels, and which channels were chosen, still seems to be weird, though. If Dish wanted to make sure that customers stay informed with breaking news about the coronavirus, you would think that they would put the national news channels such as CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News Channel in free preview. This would also help provide election coverage, since many states have primary elections this week. (It is nowhere near as big as Super Tuesday was, but still fairly significant nonetheless.)

 

[Bobby]

That's if they actually hold the primary on Tuesday. Many states are already moving their dates further down the road.