Why do we have to pay for locals with Dish?

navychop · Jul 2, 2014

IF the non-networks keep producing more and more of what people want to watch, they will grab an ever greater share of the market, at the networks expense. As the networks' share of the market declines, so will their influence. Heck one bad season or two and the nets may find it hard to cover expenses and have to do a major retrenching onto a smaller scale.

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mike123abc · Jul 2, 2014

navychop said:
IF the non-networks keep producing more and more of what people want to watch, they will grab an ever greater share of the market, at the networks expense. As the networks' share of the market declines, so will their influence. Heck one bad season or two and the nets may find it hard to cover expenses and have to do a major retrenching onto a smaller scale.

That could be true if the OTA channels were independent, but one has to remember that the OTA networks also own the cable networks. They can force carriage either way as ABC recently demonstrated by flexing its ESPN/Disney/ABC muscles all at once...

MikeD-C05 · Jul 2, 2014

mike123abc said:
Exactly the industry will keep raising rates until they start to seriously lose subs. The networks have already indicated that they are going to go for huge fee increases over the next few years and that will be passed off to the consumer. But, even then it may not make a difference. Land line prices were not dropped to compete with cell phones, even as cell phones were doing away with the entire land line industry. Will the television industry learn a lesson from the cell phone/land line example or will they continue on until there are just a few subs paying a fortune?

Doubtful that they would learn from recent history. IF they are like most companies and most people they will say : IT won't happen to us/me. Most people in this country don't even know their history and that is why we keep committing the same mistakes both in life as well as politically with their votes.

MikeD-C05 · Jul 2, 2014

mike123abc said:
That could be true if the OTA channels were independent, but one has to remember that the OTA networks also own the cable networks. They can force carriage either way as ABC recently demonstrated by flexing its ESPN/Disney/ABC muscles all at once...

The networks could always go Cable only and show sd over their ota channels instead of HD. OR they show older programming and infomercials. There was some threat about CBS and FOX doing this if they lost the AEREO supreme court case. They could still do this if they wanted to force even higher carriage fees and kill ota transmission entirely. After all who would want to pay for or watch ota if it was showing nothing but SD versions of old programming and infomercials? IF they did this it would hasten the end of ota transmission entirely.

Hall · Jul 2, 2014

mike123abc said:
They can force carriage either way as ABC recently demonstrated by flexing its ESPN/Disney/ABC muscles all at once...

The dispute that Dish had with Disney/ESPN/ABC had ZERO impact on my local ABC affiliate's carriage on Dish.

77TA · Jul 2, 2014

MikeD-C05 said:
The networks could always go Cable only and show sd over their ota channels instead of HD. OR they show older programming and infomercials. There was some threat about CBS and FOX doing this if they lost the AEREO supreme court case. They could still do this if they wanted to force even higher carriage fees and kill ota transmission entirely. After all who would want to pay for or watch ota if it was showing nothing but SD versions of old programming and infomercials? IF they did this it would hasten the end of ota transmission entirely.

They could do this, but “I think” they realize the reason they win the ratings war every week is there accessibility for free ota. If they went to cable only they would have the same ratings as cable shows. Since ratings dictate what they charge advertisers they would lose far more in ad dollars than they would gain in retransmission fees. Think about it, cbs at one time was paying 3 actors on “Two and a Half Men” about 2 million for a 22 minute episode with 8 minutes of commercials. That doesn’t include what the other actors, producers, directors, network, and affiliates made. They charge advertisers enough to cover all that because of the ratings. If the ratings dropped to that of any other cable only channel, everyone involved would have their pay cut to the level they would make on a cable channel

mitchflorida · Jul 2, 2014

Another interesting twist is that Comcast is now giving local channels and HBO away for free if you buy their Internet Product.

I would drop dish local service in a heartbeat and then use Comcast for locals. Waiting on Dish to give us the option.

Scherrman · Jul 2, 2014

mitchflorida said:
Another interesting twist is that Comcast is now giving local channels and HBO away for free if you buy their Internet Product.

I would drop dish local service in a heartbeat and then use Comcast for locals. Waiting on Dish to give us the option.

How long does that last before they jack your rates up? Cable companies are notorious for doubling their prices when it comes to bundled deals.

mike123abc · Jul 2, 2014

Hall said:
The dispute that Dish had with Disney/ESPN/ABC had ZERO impact on my local ABC affiliate's carriage on Dish.

That may be true, but if Dish were to cut off all the ABCs except for the ABC O&A ones, I bet that ABC would react. ABC makes money with national ads, and they are national because all the affiliates are broadcasting them.

Hall · Jul 2, 2014

Dish would have to break contracts with something in the order of (150)+ local ABC affiliates. ABC only owns (8) stations in the US.

knotle · Jul 2, 2014

Just wondering how people opted out of locals and have a grandfathered account. I opted out because i have outside antennas for locals. I do realize though if i ever change packages i will have to pay for locals.

bobvick · Jul 2, 2014

knotle said:
Just wondering how people opted out of locals and have a grandfathered account. I opted out because i have outside antennas for locals. I do realize though if i ever change packages i will have to pay for locals.

Just curious, how much do you save? Is it $5?

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Scherrman · Jul 3, 2014

bobvick said:
Just curious, how much do you save? Is it $5?

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It use to be $5. When that was an option we had very few customers that actually declined the locals. In fact a lot of people complained that they had to pay more for locals. This is another big reason why Dish just offered them automatically. Far less complaining once Dish just included the locals into the price.

Laddyboy · Jul 3, 2014

Scherrman said:
It use to be $5. When that was an option we had very few customers that actually declined the locals. In fact a lot of people complained that they had to pay more for locals. This is another big reason why Dish just offered them automatically. Far less complaining once Dish just included the locals into the price.

The package price is $5 less. Those of us grandfathered didn't sub to locals at the time Dish started requiring them.

mitchflorida · Jul 3, 2014

Call up Dish and tell them you want the locals only package for $5, with no extras. I wonder what they would say.

ChadT41 · Jul 3, 2014

There is no locals only package. Minimum package is welcome package. I'm sure they will meet you with the same response.

knotle · Jul 3, 2014

bobvick said:
Just curious, how much do you save? Is it $5?

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Yes it's $5 off the regular package price.

jerryez · Jul 3, 2014

The local affiliates sell local advertising and therefore would not let the networks drop them. They have lobbiest in Washington to prevent Congress from letting the Networks go National. That is why Dish has so many spotbeams at a very high cost. I am sure they make no money on locals.

Tampa8 · Jul 3, 2014

mitchflorida said:
Call up Dish and tell them you want the locals only package for $5, with no extras. I wonder what they would say.

YOU call them. Why are you being so ridiculous? While you're at it call them for the Disney channel only package.

smithduluth · Jul 4, 2014

Our PBS affiliate has 4 channels, our ABC affiliate has 2, but Dish only carries the first channel of each. I'm glad I'm grandfathered so I don't have to pay $60 a year for less local channels than my OTA module provides.

Why do we have to pay for locals with Dish?

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