DirectTV lies does not justify Dish's also telling lies. A lie is a lie. Now you make them sound like Hillary Clinton and Obama.
RSN's are not Nationals and that is the truth, whether you think it is whining or not.
The
only purpose of the "number of National HD channels" count is marketing and advertising.
If DirecTV uses a specific method of counting and says "We have 100" and Dish uses your method and says "We have 50", then Joe Sixpack is going to think DirecTV have lots more
even if the difference is only the method of counting.
A good example is Hard Disk Drives. A quote "500 gb" drive, when it is all formatted has 465gb of usable space (which J6P constantly complains about in customer reviews of hard drives).
So, if Western Digital called it a "500gb" drive and Segate called theres a "465gb" drive, then J6P would always buy the Western Digital drive "because it has more space".
So,
advertisers have to use the same method of measurement.
In reality, it only matters if they have
the channel you want. For example, right now DirecTV has more national HD channels - but if your favorite channel is Travel Channel, and you really want it in HD - then Dish is better for you. And, same applies for channels on D* and not on E*.