The exact same thing happened, with the exact same superstation, during Dish's dispute with Tribune, back when Tribune still owned WPIX. The reasoning speculated here at the time was that it was simply easier for Dish to take the station away from everyone who was receiving it, rather than risk accidentally leaving it authorized on the account of any viewer in the NYC DMA where it does require consent. That dispute dragged on so long (and affected three superstations) so that Dish finally felt that it was worth it to take the effort to restore those stations for superstation subscribers, while taking care to leave them turned off for in-market subscribers. This current dispute is fast approaching the length of the previous dispute at the time that those stations were restored. So, with a little patience, you may soon get WPIX back even if the dispute is still not resolved. Then, when the total number of days that you spent without WPIX is known, you can call Dish asking for a prorated refund of the exact amount that you should be owed for those days without service.
I think they do...charlie was selling illegal distant locals and got slapped pretty hard
Yeah and I had waivers from the local station managers to keep NY and LA locals but that went boom when the court ruled against DISH!
Many moons ago..WPIX carried alot of sports...now its just a CW affliate with an occasional baseball game...not much to really complain about
I have been to that point on my account, where Dish would not offer me anything, either. So trust me when I say that this status does not last forever. You may have to wait a few months without calling Dish or bugging them about anything. Then, after that, you should be able to at least get a prorated refund for a service that is only $2 per month, which was not actually being delivered. I think Dish's concern is that if they agree to credit you for two months of service ($4 total) and then the dispute only lasts one month and one week (for example) then that means that Dish over-credited you, with no easy way to charge you again for the amount that was over-credited. Yes, Dish can be that vindictive and penny-pinching. When the dispute is over, and the exact number of days for which you are owed a credit is a known fact, then it should be easier to convince Dish to give you a refund for that exact amount.
The grandfathering itself is an odd thing, since there is nothing in the copyright license that required Dish to stop selling superstations or to grandfather existing subscribers. It was simply a business decision that came out of the blue, with no real advance notice or warning (except for people who read the announcement on this site) and was implemented on an arbitrary date of Dish's choosing. (It is possible that the owners of the stations demanded these terms, as a condition for allowing continued delivery of their stations to in-market subscribers. The point is that it is still a condition that was privately negotiated, not one that was required by law.)
Okay, I see your point now about the superstation package, for those who have all of the superstations bundled together. There was no guarantee of a specific number of channels in the package, and the bundle price is already a slight discount compared to the cost of buying each station individually. (Also, as you mentioned, there has been no price increase to the package since well before Dish stopped offering it to new subscribers, even though the price of almost everything else has gone up since then.) So, I could see the price of the package staying the same, even with one fewer channel.
The problem is that dish thumbed their nose at the copyright law for distant locals..and the lawsuits that followed
Superstations were never part of those lawsuits. Also, there were no changes to the copyright law or lawsuits against Dish (that I am aware of) at the time when Dish's policy regarding the superstations changed.
Its deeper than that...the superstations have been pulled before during disputes...the question is..why were they discontinued for sale after the last stella or whatever the satellite local reautherization bill was passed?..
Yes, that would be the question. Dish stopped offering the superstations to new subscribers in September 2013 (if memory serves) but the STELAR (I think I have that acronym right) was not passed until late 2014. The previous STELA from 2010 did not make any changes to the status of the superstations. Even if the 2010 version had made those changes, a period of well over three years was a ridiculously long time to wait before implementing them. So, the question remains, what happened? Perhaps there was some behind-the-scenes maneuvering in preparation for the 2014 STELAR. In other words, perhaps Congress was threatening to tighten the regulations on superstations, unless Dish agreed to do so themselves, voluntarily.
Look at the fcc link on supersations..4th or 5th one down
This link? file:///C:/Users/prodr/AppData/Local/Temp/6011155921-1.pdf
