TVJapan no longer available on Dish from April 2nd

[salyavin]

We got an email from TV Japan saying they would no longer be available on Dish. I called up TV Japan and they said they made a new contract with Direct TV that starts the 2nd week of April and will no longer be available on Dish network from about 11am April 2nd.

Bummer for us as Dish has a lot going for it. I can watch Dish Anywhere literally anywhere I have network, I watched Dish network in Japan even on my phone Dish lets me cut locals and use an OTA adapter. Dish lets me have smaller, cheaper channel packages than others. This helps me keep TV in this era of increasing streaming. Sadly DLibrary Japan does not have many programs.

As much as I prefer Dish to others we will have to leave it due to TV Japan no longer being available. Big pain for the Japanese community who uses this, as small as they are.

Wonder what kind of contract deal it was. This of course does not affect cable and IPTV offerings surprising as DirectTV is usually weaker in international offerings vs Dish.

 

[salyavin]

We happen to be moving in three months and will have centurylink gigabit internet. I may compare PRISM vs DirectTV.

 

[Claude Greiner]

Wow. I wonder if it was Dish being too cheap this time or the program provider being too greedy?

This is going to cost Dish customers for sure

 

[mwdxer1]

Does TVJapan stream? I know there is an app for NHK (English) on the Roku for free as I have it. The Roku has a lot of International channels on it, some free, others aren't.

 

[salyavin]

They posted notice of termination in English here: Notice of Termination of Existing Satellite Service | Quality Japanese Channel 24/7
They do not mention DirectTV. Not sure why they cannot just be on both. They may end up on DirectTV Go. Direct TV will not list it till the second week of April.

TVJapan owns Dlibrary Japan http://dlibraryjapan.net the problem with it is a very limited selection of programs. I mean extremely limited. That slider list in the middle is a complete list (I contacted them to ask). No news, a number of those shows are broadcast years ago on TVJapan, only a portion of current drama, no Sumo, most variety shows like Honma Dekka are not there. They themselves told me it is no replacement for TVJapan. For the tiny number of programs it carrys say compared to crunchyroll (let alone netflix, amazon, even britbox or acorn) it is expensive at 9.95 a month. Wifey wants TV Japan.

NHK World (that English channel you watch) is streamed for free world wide and over the air here but that is in English and is programs aimed at foreigners who are interested in Japan not Japanese. I do watch it sometimes and actually met some of the staff who flew here from Tokyo when they started OTA transmission. Japanese language programs are not legally available to stream like that. Closest is the crunchyroll and dlibrary japan services.

It will be a bit confusing for some. For example here we have Hitachi staff that rotate through on 3-5 year stints and bring their family, the family usually speaks little English and information is passed from the person leaving to the new person. That will cause confusion I think. Yea it is only TV that is true but it does help some keep a connection back home. If they are not on the email list it will be quite a surprise for some. Yes there is youtube and torrents (too technical for many) and such.

Dish will lose subscribers but to be honest I doubt they will notice much. Admittedly it's four or five years since I saw their numbers back when I last saw them it was 70some thousand across all platforms. Maybe they have 100k now? Dish maybe has a few 10s of thousands of those as some get it via cable or IP TV (Uverse or Prism). Dish used to be the only way to get it when they started so it could be more 40 or 50k maybe they will lose?

 

[Tampa8]

TVJapan was the first HD channel on 118 and it looked fantastic.

 

[navychop]

I’m sure Dish knows exactly how many watch it, and have calculated a good estimate of how many will leave.

 

[salyavin]

I am sure they have a good idea. They will know the exact subscriber count and most of how much it is watched. Receivers not connected to the internet won't give feedback I suspect. We are certainly not talking hundreds of thousands of people so I really doubt it will be a big hit for Dish a few 10s of thousands of people (assuming I am right) would be smaller than other losses they have. I'd love to know contract terms that caused this move particularly since Dish has always been strong on the international stuff.

 

[mdram]

i dont understand how single station makes or brakes a service for anyone

 

[salyavin]

When you watch that one station a lot of the time and do not have other programming in your home language it sure does. For others I am sure it does too a mega NFL fan who loses that would likely drop. I think some were threatening to leave over that AMC network that had Walking Dead I think it was and people got free roku boxes. Some get mad about locals. People who watch programming in some other home language it is a big deal. One can get it on other services so it causes one to leave Dish and go somewhere else as I must. Not huge numbers. I am glad I am not in a 2 year contract or anything. This may have not be Dish's decision not sure but I cannot stay with Dish regardless. I like the hopper, like OTA adapter and ability to drop locals. I like people can get small channel packages to cut a lot of stuff they may never watch. Dish has a lot to like for a TV provider.

 

[dare2be]

I called up TV Japan and they said they made a new contract with Direct TV that starts the 2nd week of April and will no longer be available on Dish network

If that is true it sounds like another exclusive contract that DTV made similar to what they did with Sunday Ticket.

Scourge.

 

[salyavin]

Interesting. I guess I would think TVJapan is too tiny to bother with exclusive contracts. It could be related to their DirectTV Go streaming service which I see has international offerings.

 

[salyavin]

Dish added 623-03 which says: "Thank you for your interest in Japanese programming on DISH. We look forward to providing you with new Japanese programming soon!" Who else could it be? TV Japan from NHK is in some form or another global (under a few names). Only others I know are like crunchyroll. Maybe I will learn something new beginning of next month.

 

[Foxbat]

I used to watch TVJapan back when it was on 62.5?W (not that I understood very much). We have a number of Japanese team members at my company (a Joint Venture between a Japanese company and an American one) and many of them got Dish because of TVJapan. I'll have to ask them what they plan on doing.

 

[Claude Greiner]

Lots of hotels have Tv Japan believe it or not

 

[the mack]

Lots of hotels have Tv Japan believe it or not

Yea almost every hotel I stayed at in Japan have Tv Japan.

 

[salyavin]

Hmm on communities.dish.com a user responded:
"TVJapan made an exclusive to directv Satellite contract. That’s literally all the details anyone can know, as they stay confidential."
Maybe dare2be is right. Of course TVJapan is still on cable services like Comcast and what they call IPTV services like PRISM.

 

[navychop]

Exclusive satco contract. Maybe someone at DTV wanted to tweak Dish’s nose and TVJapan was more than happy to take their money? Or Dish bid it up to cost DTV more bucks?

Enquiring minds, in this case, don’t really care.

 

[ChadT41]

That was me that said it, and it was more to bring to this site. I do not know the situation, in full, and sounds like you’ve gotten better advice from those here. I shouldn’t have said it so surely, as I don’t know the details myself. I should have included that all my info for it is coming from here.

 

[shin_hibiki]

Yikes, I really should have been more on top of this. Been with Dish for 13 uninterrupted years, but I'll have to see how fast I can get cable over here this week. On the other hand, SXM may gain me as a subscriber.