why won't Dish fix their idiotic guide issues?

[MikeD-C05]

Yep...Vague descriptions.

My wife has had the DVR scheduled to record "This Is Us" and "New Amsterdam" since they started airing. Both didn't record, instead, she got recordings of "Green Acers" and "Hogans Heroes" although both were showing the correct scheduled DVR picture of the program ( This Is Us S6 * Ep3 NEW Recorded 1/18)!!!

She was furious especially because she is addicted to "This Is Us"

I would think that even 50 year old episodes of Green Acres and Hogan's Heroes would be better anyway.

 

[LQQK]

I would think that even 50 year old episodes of Green Acres and Hogan's Heroes would be better anyway.

I agree!

 

[MikeD-C05]

I think that the hope is that by beating on a dead horse, other horses will see it and alter their behavior. However, DISH has shown absolutely no interest in correcting the problems.

For example, one of the issues is that when a station changes it's call numbers for OTA, such as going from channel 4.1 to channel 6.3, DISH just leaves the station at channel 4 for satellite. So, when you see the OTA program guide, actual channel 6.3 has no guide data and channel 4.1 has the guide data for 6.3.

I've brought that exact problem to DISH's attention multiple times on the phone, in chat, and with the DIRT team here. I've been told every time that it would be forwarded to DISH Engineering and taken care of. Over a year later, it's still wrong.

I've found DISH to be a very responsive and helpful company in many ways. On the guide issues, it really seems that they just don't care and are content to have a small percentage of disgruntled customers. They appear to put minimum effort and expense into this part of their product.

Sure is different when DISH was still an up and coming new company. I used to be able to call the engineer over locals to get ota guide information added to the channels uploaded in my area that were without guide information and even tweak the sound and picture quality issues while on the phone. Now when you call like I did last summer and try to address them again for the very locals you are talking about, they said they would " get to it when they get to it." Then over night while I slept they changed my locals to some weird place in northern Louisiana I've never heard of, like retaliation for telling them about issues in our area and near by Lake Charles, La. That was the main reason I went with streaming Sling tv and the 4 tuner Tv Anywhere ota dvr. I've not seen the problems with guide information ,but this is DISH that owns both companies and when I check on certain shows that should be recording on ABC for some reason , they don't always show scheduled, even if they are in the guide as NEW . So I changed the timer from new episodes to new and reruns so I won't miss the shows. I guess as long as you deal with DISH ,either satellite or streaming Sling tv ,you still have to deal with sloppy work at their company and they just don't care about making the customer experience a good one like they used to.

 

[patmurphey]

Dish is not the source of information for the guide, hence

 

[LQQK]

Dish is not the source of information for the guide, hence

Doesn't matter who they source, I pay Dish for what they offered for my Money!➼

 

[BarnRat]

Doesn't matter who they source, I pay Dish for what they offered for my Money!➼

Exactly! Thank you.

Dish could pay me whatever they are paying their sub-contractor. I would just list the movie's name, year, and the actors. Nothing more. And this would be just as good as the current crap infos that state "Based on a novel by Orville Wanker."

 

[renegade734]

My guide on WTVG shows WGTQ schedule

Didn't see that on my receivers. At least it would be ABC listings.

I don't want to say too much, but WTOL-11.1 stayed CBS and in English all weekend, but it's Thursday, and it might change to Telemundo-Arizona again.

 

[ekilgus]

I kind of hate to say this but as problematic as the guide was, what it is now is even worse.

 

[patmurphey]

The guide provider is at the mercy of the cable channel companies.

Life is too short to keep agonizing over something that can't be fixed by the party you are blaming...

 

[ekilgus]

The guide provider is at the mercy of the cable channel companies.

Life is too short to keep agonizing over something that can't be fixed by the party you are blaming...

But they can indeed fix this problem by using a better guide provider. The better ones don't seem to have this "at the mercy of the cable channel companies" problem.

 

[BlurRidgePro]

I was spoiled by Tivo, which did not have these guide problems. Sadly, Tivo had other problems...like a stable business model.

 

[sam_gordon]

The guide provider is at the mercy of the cable channel companies.

If that was the case, every MVPD would have the same issue. Apparently not the case.

 

[BarnRat]

If that was the case, every MVPD would have the same issue. Apparently not the case.

Dish doesn't care about these "trivial" complaints that we have.

Can you imagine a general contractor telling a customer that they can't do anything about what a sub-contractor does? Or worse yet: if the general contractor doesn't care what the sub-contractor does. To carry this further, if a customer has a problem with something a sub-contractor screwed up, the customer goes directly to the general contractor and he (the general contractor) should fix the problem.

Someone here already stated this: whoever packages up (bundles) a product and sells it -- they are responsible for all the pieces.

In the 23 years that I've been a loyal Dish customer, I've only seen these guide issues in the last few years.

 

[ekilgus]

It's been a long time and my memory may not be accurate but years ago when there were no EPG issues, I think Dish got their guide information from a company called Tribune. If memory serves, they switched to an inferior guide to save money.

 

[sam_gordon]

Dish doesn't care about these "trivial" complaints that we have.

Can you imagine a general contractor telling a customer that they can't do anything about what a sub-contractor does? Or worse yet: if the general contractor doesn't care what the sub-contractor does. To carry this further, if a customer has a problem with something a sub-contractor screwed up, the customer goes directly to the general contractor and he (the general contractor) should fix the problem.

Someone here already stated this: whoever packages up (bundles) a product and sells it -- they are responsible for all the pieces.

In the 23 years that I've been a loyal Dish customer, I've only seen these guide issues in the last few years.

um, yea. I was responding to a poster who wants to put the blame on the channel providers/networks. That does make some sense. After all, if the network/local provides bad guide data, it doesn't matter who Dish gets their info from, it would be bad. BUT, other MVPDs don't have the same problems as Dish. I highly doubt networks/locals send one version of guide data to Dish and a "better" version to everyone else.

 

[zippyfrog]

i am noticing these guide issues today. For The Simpsons, the description is "Homer and Marge Simpson raise Bart, Lisa, and baby Maggie in Springfield" and says the episode is from 1989. Family Guy's description is "The adventures of an eccentric family living in New England' and says it is from 1999. So bland and doesn't tie to the episode that is on.

 

[BarnRat]

My favorite guide info from this week is: "Based on a true story." That's it.

I guess Dish is going towards the cheapest option: Use "Based on a true story" for movies that are and "Not based on a true story" for everything else.

 

[ekilgus]

This newest EPG is so bad they must be paying Dish to use it. And to think we used to complain about the previous one.

 

[TheKrell]

This newest EPG is so bad they must be paying Dish to use it.

I have been thoroughly enjoying Around the World in 80 Days, broadcast commercial free on PBS. Of course last night's episode failed to record at all until I noticed this halfway through. Why? They used to have the title "Around the World" which was what my timer was set for. Then they made it the full title, and the recording went into a separate folder, once. The second program with the full title didn't record. So I set another timer. Bah, humbug.

 

[olds403]

Yeah, noticing the "improved" guide as well. I don't think it is better, just different. Now I see descriptions that say "from the novel by XYZ", that is great if I read that novel, but tells me nothing about the actual movie in the program guide. I guess if they are paying by the character, the new descriptions are saving them money.