Sinclair warns of 112 channels being dropped by DISH next Monday (8/16)

I thought Dish had a Locast app. Am I confabulating? I guess Dish would still have to give out Roku's to those who still use older receivers... Are there any SD receivers left in the field?
DISH does have the locast app, as does DIRECTV.

Sinclair stations are playing a loosing game.
 
I'm still using an antiquated receiver with 128 KB RAM with the optional dual tape drive to save tv shows on cassette.
You mean like this contraption? I see only one tape drive in the picture. ;)

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Uh-oh, my parents are on Dish and Sinclair owns their local ABC *and* Fox affiliates. They watch local and national news on ABC every day, plus other stuff on both channels. They've long been unhappy with what they're paying for service (as well as occasional rain fade). This may be what prompts them to switch.
Locast .
 
No. It's been going on for a long time. I looked it up at the time and it was a widespread issue with the OTA adapter. I just found this thread. Recording OTA On H3 Playback Pixelated

I guess I need a new OTA adapter.
The local network's fees are horrible. I wonder how many years Dish, Direct, or Cable will continue to carry locals? With streaming and OTA options, they may not need to. The networks may be digging themselves into being totally dropped. I know some streaming services do not even carry locals.If those figures are correct (Over a Billion for Sinclair) in fees, can the other network stations be that far behind? Just to think at one time, the stations were on Dish for free. The viewer has to ask, does the network owners really care about the Dish viewers? I would think not, as if they did, Sinclair would continue to leave their channels on Dish, while they fight it out. What is to hurt on that? By dropping them, some viewers may not come back to Sinclair after that stations are restored. I don't blame the local stations. They are in the middle. What corporate says, they have to do.Even when it comes to what diginets they carry locally.
 
While I’m not affected by this situation, I can say that the ‘channels’ are giving more reasons to abandon them. The lack of new, original and interesting things on most channels these days just makes paying for them more unacceptable.

With that in mind I quit all of them and only use on demand services these days, some with ads, some without ads.

With this occurring now, at a time of fewer good shows on live TV is a good thing for Dish and not so good for Sinclair. Add in Sinclair’s financial condition and while Charlie might not be in the catbird’s seat, but he is very close to it IMO.
 
The local network's fees are horrible. I wonder how many years Dish, Direct, or Cable will continue to carry locals? With streaming and OTA options, they may not need to. The networks may be digging themselves into being totally dropped. I know some streaming services do not even carry locals.
I don't think the market is too big for cable TV service without locals. And for those who want that, there are a variety of options at various price points. Sling, Philo and Frndly TV are the three streaming cable TV services that lack locals. Sling has just over 2.4 million. Philo had surpassed 800,000 as of last Nov. Frndly TV hit 440,000 as of the end of last year. And then you can get Dish without locals and pay less.

Any major MVPD would be shooting themselves in the foot to drop locals. Having them optional (as Dish has somehow managed to do) is one thing but completely losing them would be a very bad move. The vast majority of people willing to pay for cable TV want those channels integrated into the service. If they're willing to do without them, then they already have multiple options that they can switch to and pay less. Many will skip channel-based TV completely and simply use Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+, YouTube, etc.
 
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I wish the people who think Locast is a panacea would at least visit their website and see how few areas it actually serves.
There is truth to what you say, but, where they do serve is a very large population. If one is lucky enough to be in a serving area it offers an outlet for those that find themselves in the greed category.
 
I wish the people who think Locast is a panacea would at least visit their website and see how few areas it actually serves.
Locast currently serves 36 TV markets around the country, covering ~55% (~179,440,715 people) of the population. They've been regularly adding new markets as finances permit, including three new markets since the end of June.
 
Locast currently serves 36 TV markets around the country, covering ~55% (~179,440,715 people) of the population. They've been regularly adding new markets as finances permit, including three new markets since the end of June.
Population is absolutely a valid way of looking at it, but another way of looking at it is 36 markets is less than half the number affected in this one example. For that minority able to access it, yes, it is a valid solution.
 
There's also the issue that live TV alone isn't that appealing because so many cable TV subscribers are used to recording everything to DVR and watching when convenient (with the ability to FF through ads). The Locast app doesn't have a built-in cloud DVR and, as far as I know, even though DTV and Dish receivers have a Locast app, you can't record its live streams to the receiver's DVR. (Yes, I know that are nichey ways to record Locast locally via Channels or Plex, or to the cloud via Streamium/Fitzy, but those solutions are not for the average consumer.)
 
Nashville is not served by Locast at this time, that could change some time in the future. So, you are out of it anyway unless you use a VPN.

Tell me about this LoCast app. Nashville is not listed as a city served by LoCast.
You do not need a VPN to get any Locast City you want if You use a chrome browser that includes the new EDGE browser and includes Windows or an android device . As They say There's an app for that .
 
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Population is absolutely a valid way of looking at it, but another way of looking at it is 36 markets is less than half the number affected in this one example. For that minority able to access it, yes, it is a valid solution.
And those knowledgeable enough to use a VPN can also get the closest market to them. Or any other Locast served market of course, where their VPN maintains servers.
 
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And those knowledgeable enough to use a VPN can also get the closest market to them. Or any other Locast served market of course, where their VPN maintains servers.
No VPN needed unless you must use The Hopper App .
 

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