Is Dish heading towards dropping locals?

[Juan]

They give credits...i guess thats not a reduction...as much as $5 a month

AFAIK there is no reduction of the $12 a month for locals, dispute or not.

Sent from my SM-G950U using the SatelliteGuys app!

 

[Juan]

Back in the day..when a market was short a major network affiliate..there was a discount

AFAIK there is no reduction of the $12 a month for locals, dispute or not.

Sent from my SM-G950U using the SatelliteGuys app!

 

[ncted]

Back in the day..when a market was short a major network affiliate..there was a discount

Sent from my SM-G950U using the SatelliteGuys app!

Sometimes they do this, or throw some On Demand movie credits at you.

 

[dare2be]

Sometimes they do this, or throw some On Demand movie credits at you.

Only for those that call in and complain, which is probably miniscule compared to the cost of accepting an uncontested rate hike from the channel owners.

 

[ncted]

Only for those that call in and complain, which is probably miniscule compared to the cost of accepting an uncontested rate hike from the channel owners.

Well, yeah. Gotta spend 20 minutes on the phone to get your $5.

 

[mwdxer1]

That's been brought up before, and so I ask the question... if Dish could fill in (with a nearby local) when a contract dispute happens, what keeps Dish negotiating "in good faith"?

I still think there is a simple solution...
1) Determine which ratings company (or combination) to use.
2) Use 3rd party arbitration to determine a cost/rating point.
3) ALL MVPDs pay per subscriber based on the average rating point/station over the last year (or 3 years or 2, whatever).

This would mean:
A) No blackouts.
B) Incentive to local broadcasters to have better programming (better programming = better ratings = more $$$)

I have always wondered about that myself. If a station or stations want to be difficult then, bring in another from a different DMA for a short period. If the stations realized this would happen they may not want to be so greedy. They hate the idea that someone in their DMA would watch an out of market station as they get no revenue.

Yes, I know most here would say it's easier to do away with retransmission. As Tampa8 says, try holding your breath until that happens. So instead of coming up with unrealistic solutions, how about everyone compromise?

 

[sam_gordon]

I have always wondered about that myself. If a station or stations want to be difficult then, bring in another from a different DMA for a short period. If the stations realized this would happen they may not want to be so greedy. They hate the idea that someone in their DMA would watch an out of market station as they get no revenue.

OK, what's a "short period"? And why would Dish even negotiate with the local channel if they can simply import another one?

 

[StanUbankit]

How good are the OTA antennas in terms of reliability that Dish installs?

I rec the email from Dish in mid April, scheduled an install on 4/23, the antenna works well for my locals (Houston DMA), I"m about 35 miles from the tower array, relatively flat ground near the Texas Gulf Coast. I was skeptical, the antenna is small (I didn't write the model # down) compared to the one I had set up about 13 years ago. The installer used the pole I had in the ground (it's a galvanized top fence rail), ran the cable, pointed the antenna using the app on his phone, scanned the locals and I get all of them. I haven't noticed any dropouts in what I"ve recorded or while watching live. I'm still subscribed to the locals thru Dish, figger on dropping those during the summer, just using the ota to record. The dongle was the 2 tuner that Dish supplied, and there was no cost, just as the email said. My ultimate goal is to acquire a 4 tuner ota hd dvr later this year, cancel Dish when the contract is up early January 2020, supplement the locals (prob about 80% of our recordings) with Netflix in addition to Prime & Hulu that we use now.

 

[mwdxer1]

Bringing in a foreign station as a replacement for a blacked out local would likely result in a lot of subscriber complaints over the foreign station's programming. My current service address happens to be in a dual DMA area, and the Nexstar dispute has taken down the Fox station in the Albany, NY DMA. The alternate Fox station in the Burlington, VT DMA does carry the couple of programs we regularly watch fortunately, but there's also a lot of different programming, including the local news, that we prefer the downed station for. Obviously not the end of the world, but I did fire off an email to Nexstar letting them know I'm not happy about the situation.

When I first went with Dish in 1999, there was only East/West nets, no locals. Also the Super Stations were available. At the time people seemed to be satisfied with that. But if a station wants to serve an area, they should do what the Portland stations have done, put up a lot of translators all over the state. According to the Portland locals (2-6-8-10-12-49) which has local translators. It pays with the advertising as people from the coast drive into Portland to buy cars, trucks, furniture.

 

[NYDutch]

When I first went with Dish in 1999, there was only East/West nets, no locals. Also the Super Stations were available. At the time people seemed to be satisfied with that. But if a station wants to serve an area, they should do what the Portland stations have done, put up a lot of translators all over the state. According to the Portland locals (2-6-8-10-12-49) which has local translators. It pays with the advertising as people from the coast drive into Portland to buy cars, trucks, furniture.

Bennington County, VT is the dual DMA area (Albany, NY & Burlington, MA) where my current service address is. The city of Bennington is about 40 miles from Albany, and about 130 miles from Burlington. I wonder which direction the residents go when Bennington shopping isn't sufficient? And it should be pretty obvious which OTA stations they can get with a modest antenna. So in this case, having the Albany Fox station down certainly affects the advertisers on that station more than the Burlington advertisers likely gain even if they have translators in the Bennington area..

 

[HipKat]

How good are the OTA antennas in terms of reliability that Dish installs?

I'm happy with mine, but I'm within 15 miles of all the local broadcast points. However, the Hoppers may be a different story. I never tried on mine but a fair number of people have said they pick up more locals with the built in TV tuner than the Hopper's tuner

 

[jackson85]

I'm happy with mine, but I'm within 15 miles of all the local broadcast points. However, the Hoppers may be a different story. I never tried on mine but a fair number of people have said they pick up more locals with the built in TV tuner than the Hopper's tuner

I live about 45 Minutes from my locals, so that may be an issue with the OTA. I would have to be completely happy

 

[Claude Greiner]

I don’t get why they would spend a few hundred dollars to pay for a free antenna install so they can drop your bill $13/mo

Unless your considered some high value customer, and they wanted to drop your bill to keep you as a customer and maybe thought they would loose you as a customer if there was a dispute.

I have never known Dish to give up profit. They are a biggest bunch of greedy bas***ds I know.

 

[dare2be]

 

[mwdxer1]

I'm happy with mine, but I'm within 15 miles of all the local broadcast points. However, the Hoppers may be a different story. I never tried on mine but a fair number of people have said they pick up more locals with the built in TV tuner than the Hopper's tuner

I already had one when I got the vip211k years ago. I use a high gain UHF Yagi (91XG). For me it is over kill as I live 12.2 miles from the lp translators. I have no idea how good the ones Dish install, but probably suburban type I would guess.

 

[MikeD-C05]

I rec the email from Dish in mid April, scheduled an install on 4/23, the antenna works well for my locals (Houston DMA), I"m about 35 miles from the tower array, relatively flat ground near the Texas Gulf Coast. I was skeptical, the antenna is small (I didn't write the model # down) compared to the one I had set up about 13 years ago. The installer used the pole I had in the ground (it's a galvanized top fence rail), ran the cable, pointed the antenna using the app on his phone, scanned the locals and I get all of them. I haven't noticed any dropouts in what I"ve recorded or while watching live. I'm still subscribed to the locals thru Dish, figger on dropping those during the summer, just using the ota to record. The dongle was the 2 tuner that Dish supplied, and there was no cost, just as the email said. My ultimate goal is to acquire a 4 tuner ota hd dvr later this year, cancel Dish when the contract is up early January 2020, supplement the locals (prob about 80% of our recordings) with Netflix in addition to Prime & Hulu that we use now.

You could get the new AIR TV 4 tuner version when it comes out in November. DISH makes it and it works with you router and gives you access to your locals via the Air tv app or you can use Sling tv and it integrates all your locals into the Sling Tv guide and you can record with the 1 terabyte external hard drive that comes with it. It will provide free ota guide data for all channels including sub channels. They just talked about it at Team Summit last week. Sounds similar to the Tablo I bought last summer except they don't charge you for guide data.

 

[dare2be]

Sounds similar to the Tablo I bought last summer except they don't charge you for guide data.

Yet.

 

[MikeD-C05]

When I first went with Dish in 1999, there was only East/West nets, no locals. Also the Super Stations were available. At the time people seemed to be satisfied with that. But if a station wants to serve an area, they should do what the Portland stations have done, put up a lot of translators all over the state. According to the Portland locals (2-6-8-10-12-49) which has local translators. It pays with the advertising as people from the coast drive into Portland to buy cars, trucks, furniture.

I loved when you could get both east and west coast and all 5 superstations for like $8.00 a month. When I got my first DISH player pvr in 99 we used it to record 2 networks on east coast and 2 on west coast and the supers we would set for later for UPN for Star Trek Voyager. It was my own primitive version of Primetime Anytime.

 

[Bobby]

I don’t get why they would spend a few hundred dollars to pay for a free antenna install so they can drop your bill $13/mo

Unless your considered some high value customer, and they wanted to drop your bill to keep you as a customer and maybe thought they would loose you as a customer if there was a dispute.

I have never known Dish to give up profit. They are a biggest bunch of greedy bas***ds I know.

It really very simple, once you get past your obvious bias. Dish wants better negotiating power over the OTA stations. If they get the close by subs to go OTA instead of satellite for locals the only subs left are those that live too far away to get a decent OTA signal. With that Dish can tell the stations that you can't reach these people and we have a way to get it there. Your reach to those viewers will now cost you instead of the other way around. Or at the least, it won't be as expensive for Dish and therefore for their subs...

 

[TalonDancer]

No, the part where you said you could see Dish eliminating locals... that's a core part of their business especially now due to underserved rural areas...

As a rural Dish Welcome Pac subscriber... No locals => No Dish. It's really that simple.