I noticed the same thing. Another thing I noticed is that Dish America Silver is no longer there. It was listed for the 2020 Price Increase chart though a year ago. I am guessing the very few that had Dish America Silver were weened off of it during the past year.
I expect most subscribers that drop locals do so because they have an alternate source for them, either OTA or streaming. My guess would be that those few that drop locals with no alternate source likely do so for purely financial reasons.
Or maybe there are simply no increases this time for either Dish America Silver or Dish America Gold. For example, International Basic and Chinese Basic are still available, but yet not listed on the price increase chart. This is likely because there is no increase for those packages.
Go back to the old method of qualifying for distant networks. Use a predictive model based on expected reception with a simple antenna (half-wave dipole, to be technical) at a height of 30 feet above ground level. Rather than get free affiliates of the networks they can't receive, give subscribers a choice of which affiliate(s) they want to pay for. No OTA signal means that no affiliate of that network has exclusive rights to that subscriber, period.
No, but the broadcasters did sue them, to stop the unchecked proliferation of distant network subscribers. Offering locals by satellite was the only other way for the satellite providers to integrate the broadcast networks into the guide at the time, while still "legitimately" qualifying subscribers for them.
...for the right price.
Then, the balloon popped.
That used to be me. I simply added the satellite locals on days when one of my favorite shows came on, and then dropped the locals again to save money. This meant micro-managing my Dish account, adding and removing the locals many times per month, but it was still cheaper than paying for a package that always includes locals. Now, I have switched to the new Locals Only option, which is much simpler. I am sure I can stumble across some other programming on the locals, that I would not otherwise have sought out, to make it worth paying for them full-time. And, I still save money compared to what I had been paying for my previous combination of Dish packages.
I was thinking along the same lines, since the Locals Only package is going up by $3 (making it $15) yet the locals add-on for all other packages is staying at $12. Unfortunately, that means that even subscribers who choose to drop the locals (from the packages where they are actually allowed to drop locals) are still paying that additional $3 bundled into their package, for locals that they are not actually receiving. This may make some sense if the local broadcasters insist on getting paid for every Dish subscriber in their market, whether or not the subscriber chooses to receive the locals. It could be that non-subscribers are charged a lower rate than local package subscribers are charged. So, Dish passes that $3 charge on to every subscriber in the price of the core package. Then, those who actually choose to receive the locals pay the additional $12, to finish paying for the higher per-subscriber rate for actual subscribers.
Has something changed? If it's "must carry", then broadcaster can't charge retrans fees, right? If you're saying Dish "must carry" them in order to appeal to customers, then you're proving my point... BOTH sides (Dish & Broadcasters) benefit from the agreement.
If Dish chooses to carry a local market, then they are only required to carry the "must carry" (free) channels. However, they are also then required to negotiate for carriage with all of the other broadcasters in the market, which do charge money. Now, here's the kicker: Dish is also required to serve every market with locals, in order to retain their distant network license (which is needed in order to provide "fill-in" network affiliates in markets that lack an in-market affiliate). So, if Dish chooses not to serve any particular local market, that then creates a domino effect which would force Dish to decimate the locals package in many other markets across the country also. So, this makes all of the local channels a kind of "de facto" must carry service. Dish could choose to simply not carry any locals anywhere. However, if they start all over again, once they start negotiating for locals carriage anywhere (with station owners that also own stations in other markets) then it snowballs into a requirement to offer a complete locals package in those other markets, which then requires more negotiations with other station owners, etc.
The increases are typically related to the increased retrans agreement costs. Even the ones that aren't up for renewal usually include annual rate increases.
Regarding the words in red... are they required to carry EVERY local in a market, or does carrying a single channel qualify as "serving" the market?
Hey, I'm a super cheap tightwad who actually had the grandfathered rate for one year, and the last increase to $30.99 was too much for me. I have repeatedly posted my solution to getting programming from Dish even cheaper than Welcome Pack. (Just look at my posts early in this thread.) Now, I have Locals Only, all in for only $13.03, including tax and surcharges. If (when?) Dish discontinues Locals Only and tries to force me back up to a higher package, they had better give me a steep discount on that package to get me to stay with them. Otherwise, the end of Locals Only will also likely be the end of my Dish subscription.
If there is only one must carry station in the market, then yes that would work temporarily. That actually happened once, when Dish was first subject to the requirement to serve every market. In Salisbury, MD Dish could not come to an agreement with any of the retransmission consent broadcasters. So, Dish launched service there with only one PBS station and a fill-in distant NBC (once Dish got their then-temporary distants license back). The in-market broadcasters complained to the FCC, trying to block the distant station. However, Dish met the requirement to negotiate in "good faith" even though they had not yet actually reached any agreements. So, the market counted as served, and Dish got their longer-term distants license restored.
I am not saying that they must come to an agreement, but they must continue to negotiate for carriage. Otherwise, Dish can be found to not be acting in good faith. Of course, once negotiations continue long enough, an agreement will likely actually be reached.
So the bottom line is Dish needs to continue to negotiate, but that still doesn't mean everyone is a "must carry".
That is understood, but Directv's increases seem more inline with the average increase based on the programming provided. Dish just slapped $5 on each package. Welcome Pack is getting very pricey.
For almost the first ten years of that package's existence, Dish held the increases to a bare minimum. Most years, there was no increase. Then, out of the blue, there would be a $5 increase (presumably the accumulated increase that would have happened at $1 per month each year if there had been an annual increase). Then, there would be five more years without an increase. Now, it has gotten to the point where the increase is $5 every year. I think we are finally seeing the true price of Dish keeping that package cost artificially low for so long. Dish needs to have larger-than-normal increases, to make up for the money they lost all of those years when they could have been charging more, but didn't. (Not that I actually believe any of this. I am simply trying to come up with an explanation for Dish's rationale.)
