How's the Distant Networks vs. locals dilemma going?

SteveinDanville

SatelliteGuys Guru
Original poster
Oct 1, 2003
129
0
I live in the S.F. Bay area, and have had Dish since '97, with distants grandfathered in since the beginning. After getting "the letter", I've been wringing my hands trying to figure out which I want in my heart of hearts. I love being able to watch 10:00 p.m. "primetime" shows at 7:00 p.m., and watch Letterman @ 8:35 p.m. On the other hand, I also like local news, sports and weather (duhhh...). I sent requests for waivers to my 4 local network affiliates on Saturday, and today a fella from the ABC affiliate in S.F. calls and says that they have gotten thousands of waiver requests, and denied every one of them. He said that essentially the wording of the waiver would be "KGO waives the right for KGO to be my exclusive source of ABC content", and he said that will never happen. In addition, he said that I had better be very careful, that I may indeed choose the distants as my choice for network feeds, and come April 17th, they will be cut off anyway. If I get waivers from Fox, CBS and NBC, I'd be fine with it, since I don't really watch any ABC programming (except "Boston Legal"), but what if they all come back with that same type of response? This is nuts...I want my distants; I cannot receive over-the-air signals; and I refuse to let Comcast into my house ever again. Along with this, if I keep my distants only, and lose my locals package with Dish, I also lose about 20 other stations that are also in the local package, so it's quite a big deal to lose your locals...you lose them ALL! Isn't this the age of choice? The ABC local guy told me that this obviously is all about ad revenues and marketing clout. Wonderful; I'm a guy who skips over all the commercials with my PVR721 100% of the time, so for that I've got to make a choice on distants vs. locals? What are you guys doing out there?
 
I can certainly sympathize with your situation. I have had DNS since 1999 and also would hate to give it up. I live in a genuine "white" area and thankfully have not received "the letter". Do you own a, RV or boat or know someone that does? RV waivers could provide a remedy to your situation.


NightRyder
 
NightRyder said:
I can certainly sympathize with your situation. I have had DNS since 1999 and also would hate to give it up. I live in a genuine "white" area and thankfully have not received "the letter". Do you own a, RV or boat or know someone that does? RV waivers could provide a remedy to your situation.


NightRyder
No, I don't have anything like that, or friends that do. I'm going to get hold of Dish and have somebody put in writing that if I opt for my distants, that they will indeed be operating on April 17th and later. Otherwise, I guess I'll just go with my locals and timeshift everything on my 721.
 
When I upgraded to the Super Dish my installer told me that I would lose my east coast distant networks but I could keep my west coast distant ones along with my locals. Turns out when he called in they didn't mention it so I got to keep east, west, and locals. Two of my friends got to keep them as well. Is this a normal thing or did we get lucky?
 
The only reason I keep Satellite is for the DNS which I got by waiver and have never received the "letter". If I had to choose between them and local I would keep DNS and use an antenna for the locals. If I lose DNS I will switch back to cable so I can get cable modem which is the best as I see it. Now that Comcast is getting TiVo I see no benefit in Satellite other than DNS. For a couple of years I kept basic cable for local and got DNS on Satellite long with full package.--wasn't cost effective though.
 
I live in the Bay Area too (Sonoma County) and we can't get locals even with an antenna. I'm keeping my distant networks. How/where do you get waivers to send to the local networks? (though if they're denying all waivers, I guess it won't do much good to try.) I have comcast high speed internet so I'm thinking of getting their lowest package that includes local channels; I pay a premium because I don't have comcast cable, so it might not be much more than I'm paying now. But I definitely want my east coast stations, it IS great watching Dave at 8:35.

Does anyone know if it's possible to get two distant networks or do you have to be grandfathered in for both? I'd go for the LA locals in a minute.

thanks.

Edited to add: I just got off the phone with Dish. We were grandfathered for the east coast networks and they signed us up with the LA distant networks. So no more local SF channels but at least we can still get shows on east coast or west coast time.

I just thought this might be an answer for some of you.
 
Wait so if you have grandfathered status on the DNS you still get to have LA & New York?

I live in the Los Angeles area and I was afraid that if I selected the distants I would lose my Los Angeles Networks, but if selecting the distant networks means I would get to keep all the LA networks , NY networks and only lose Channel 9, 13 and all the smaller stations in the UHF band, I'd be just fine with that.
 
Besides keeping your DNS and checking out the link provide by NightRyder above there are other options. I would not suggest any thing but if some else one pays a second box fee that is not "grandfathered" then ........
 
Wait so if you have grandfathered status on the DNS you still get to have LA & New York?

I live in the Los Angeles area and I was afraid that if I selected the distants I would lose my Los Angeles Networks, but if selecting the distant networks means I would get to keep all the LA networks , NY networks and only lose Channel 9, 13 and all the smaller stations in the UHF band, I'd be just fine with that.

As I understand it, no. Unless you never received the "you must make a choice letter," you must make a choice. But living in LA, you could give up your local LA stations and get the SF stations as a distant network package along with keeping your NY network package.

The main thing we were looking for was being able to watch shows on east coast or west coast time, not keeping our local stations for local coverage. (For instance, we wanted to be able to watch The Amazing Race at 6pm local time and House at 9pm local time on Tuesdays, even though they're both 9pm shows) Sorry if I misled anyone. We're definitely losing our local SF station package since we chose to keep the NY distants.
 
gambler said:
As I understand it, no. Unless you never received the "you must make a choice letter," you must make a choice. But living in LA, you could give up your local LA stations and get the SF stations as a distant network package along with keeping your NY network package.

Um ... close but no.

The distant options don't include SF. Perhaps Atlanta or Chicago, but not SF.

Roadrhino
 
Oh, sorry! The CSR I talked to told me there were two choices for "west" distant networks, LA and SF. I did think it was kind of strange since as far as I know there's only NY for "east."
 
Anybody in California get NBC on east distant networks? they only allow me ABC and CBS. (except for the super stations which I get both eastern time and central time). What I don't like with Dish Network is almost all the cable channels are on eastern time so that my TV Guide from the LA Times never show the correct time for any shows. I'm always tuning in for a show like on SciFI and find I missed it by 3 hours and have to remember which channels are on my time like BBC. Very annoying.
 
You have a working 721?? I thought all those are outdated, and no longer or ever were working properly.
 
satTV said:
You have a working 721?? I thought all those are outdated, and no longer or ever were working properly.
Far from it! The 721 (and 921) are discontinued, but still plenty of them out there working as well as they ever did. For some people, that's "properly", for others, it's not - due to missing features and bugs which will never be added/fixed.

Annie:

I'll guess you don't have an E* DVR with the 9-day guide, but even standard modern receivers have a 1-2 day guide.
 
Annie2005 said:
Anybody in California get NBC on east distant networks? they only allow me ABC and CBS. (except for the super stations which I get both eastern time and central time). What I don't like with Dish Network is almost all the cable channels are on eastern time so that my TV Guide from the LA Times never show the correct time for any shows. I'm always tuning in for a show like on SciFI and find I missed it by 3 hours and have to remember which channels are on my time like BBC. Very annoying.
Yes, I have all four distant networks. I recently decided to keep my distant networks. Guess I won't have any more local news, sports or weather. I just don't want to give up my grandfathered status. By the way, of the four letters I wrote to my four local network affiliates, I only got a response from the ABC affiliate (KGO-7). He phoned me and said that they never have, and never will grant a waiver. I've never gotten even a form letter from any of the other affiliates, KTVU (Fox), KPIX (CBS) or KNTV (NBC). What a warm, fuzzy feeling I get from these jerks.
 
I opted to keep my distants when I received my letter. I have had them for almost 7 years now. I was told though that I could not have both my locals and the distants. The letter stated that if I got a waiver from my locals that I could keep the distants and take the locals as well. I confirmed this with at least 3 customer service reps. My local cbs wouldnt give me the waiver even though it would lead to me subscribing to their station. Anyway I called Dish last week and inquired about taking the locals with my distants, she was very good and was going to turn them on for me. However she told me that it would make it easier for them to shut my distants off if I did.
 
SteveinDanville said:
Yes, I have all four distant networks. I recently decided to keep my distant networks. Guess I won't have any more local news, sports or weather. I just don't want to give up my grandfathered status. By the way, of the four letters I wrote to my four local network affiliates, I only got a response from the ABC affiliate (KGO-7). He phoned me and said that they never have, and never will grant a waiver. I've never gotten even a form letter from any of the other affiliates, KTVU (Fox), KPIX (CBS) or KNTV (NBC). What a warm, fuzzy feeling I get from these jerks.
You sent waiver letters yourself? I always let Dishnetwork check for waivers for me. Do you think I would I have better luck getting NBC waiver if I sent the letter myself? Is there a form letter?
 
I live just outside of LA. I've have DNS and local LA for 9 years. I got "the letter" and took DNS option. I did write a long very sad letter to each LA network station asking for waivers. KNBC said yes, KCBS no, FOX & ABC no answer. But without all locals I will not forward anythink to Dish and open the door to having DNS cut off.
Some how I will get LA locals - I can get some OTA digital signals and there are "other ways" which I do not think should be openly posted.