2021 Dish Prices

[pattykay]

Is anyone aware of a DMA where Dish does not offer the locals? As far as I know, Dish offers all 210 of them including the few dual DMA areas like two counties in southern Vermont.

That is correct, plus they also serve several areas that do not count as DMA's, such as Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, and non-designated portions of Alaska. (In the Alaska case, Dish just sells those subscribers one of the regular Alaska market packages. As far as I know, it is a market of Dish's choice, not necessarily the subscriber's choice.)

 

[Bobby]

When DISH got their hand slapped years ago for offering distant locals they were required to add every DMA or as a penalty take all locals down. They chose to add every DMA rather than lose a ton of customers who would have gone somewhere else to get their locals.

 

[pattykay]

As a former dealer (out 10 years), I had been under the impression that lease fees were abated on purchased receivers. Or maybe abated just on owned receivers additional to the first one. But if they have been charging owners the same line-item lease fee as non-owners...

Yes, that is correct. The line-item fee has been exactly the same for purchased and leased receivers (of the same model / type) for as long as I can remember. Technically, Dish also charges a lease fee on the first receiver, whether or not you are actually leasing. In the fine print on every Dish bill, there is a disclosure that a $9 per month lease fee for the first receiver is bundled into the core package price. This is especially funny for my bill, with a purchased receiver and the $12 per month Locals Only core package. So, $9 of my bill is going toward this "lease fee" for a receiver that is not even being leased, and I am only paying $3 per month for the local channels.

If there was some rule that they HAD to put ALL markets' locals up, I wasn't aware of it.

That rule went into effect in 2010, around the same time that you stopped being a dealer. Dish actually pushed for that rule as a political solution, in order to get Congress to give Dish a path to get their distants license back. For many years, Congress (especially representatives from areas not served by satellite locals) had been wanting at least one satellite provider to offer locals in every market. They had been openly threatening to make it a requirement for both providers (Dish and Directv) if one of them didn't do it voluntarily. Tying this requirement to the provision to allow Dish to start offering distants again solved both problems. This measure was also supported at the time by Directv, since it allowed them to avoid being required to serve every local market. With the latest reauthorization of the distants license, the requirement was also added to Directv. As a result, Directv lost their distants license, since they still refuse to serve 12 local markets. Directv can still get their distants license back if / when they ever start serving every market. However, Directv struck deals directly with each network, to allow Directv to continue to offer distants in the unserved markets, and even bring back (at least some of) the distants for (at least some of) their previously "grandfathered" distants subscribers. So, Directv does not really need the distants copyright license any longer.

My take was that they were doing it, i.e., going through all of this trouble & expense, simply not to lose business after they had been punished for past misbehavior in (improperly) turning on distant net affils by not being allowed to activate them any more even when local signals weren't good. Far as I knew, they could simply not uplink a market, and thus forego some business, and they did just that in a number of cases.

At this time they started talking about getting authorized to activate "significantly viewed" locals.

In the year leading up to the injunction against Dish providing distants, Dish actually had been rolling out Significantly Viewed locals in many fringe areas around the country. This was, however, likely just an effort to create as much customer outrage as possible when the injunction went into effect. At the time, Significantly Viewed channels were covered by the distant network copyright license, not the locals license. So, Dish was also forced to stop providing the other market's affiliates to Significantly Viewed areas when the injunction was imposed. This situation was not fixed until STELA was passed in 2010, moving Significantly Viewed channels from the distants license to the locals license. In theory, this would have allowed Dish to resume offering Significantly Viewed channels to these areas, even if the injunction had never been lifted. However, Dish never tested that theory. Or at least, they did not want to risk angering the court, while everything related to Dish's offering of distants was still being reviewed with a fine-tooth comb by a court-appointed Special Master (or some title like that). This court oversight was put in place to ensure Dish's compliance with the terms of the agreement to allow them to offer distants again.

In the years following that, Dish's lack of offering Significantly Viewed locals has been chalked up to a desire by Dish to keep things simple when it comes to the locals packages. By not offering them, Dish does not have to worry about serving subscribers in different portions of the same market with different affiliates, and charging them different amounts accordingly. Also, by the time that Dish was finally allowed to offer Significantly Viewed locals again, Directv had already built up a significant lead in that department, successfully offering Significantly Viewed locals in many areas across the country. So, Dish must have decided not to even try to compete against Directv and cable, and rather focus on being the "low-cost" provider with the cheapest locals package possible.

Far as I knew, they could simply not uplink a market, and thus forego some business, and they did just that in a number of cases.

Dish chose not to uplink many of those markets, since while they were still subject to the distants injunction, Dish would not have been allowed to offer a complete locals package there, anyway. The missing markets were all markets where at least one network was missing an in-market affiliate. So, this was part of the deal that Dish struck: give us back the ability to offer distants, and we will serve these remaining markets. Otherwise, they will remain unserved for as long as we are still allowed to not serve them.

So I was waiting for "significantly viewed", where presumably those addresses falling within the broadcast contour for more than one affil of the same net would be eligible to get both. Presumably the way it would work would be that in order to get locals from outside (but adjacent to) the DMA you're placed in, you'd have to also have the locals from within it activated. So you'd have both sets, like on cable. But this never happened.

It is not entirely based on broadcast contour. There is a specific list maintained by the FCC of which out-of-market channels (and in-market channels, for that matter) meet the standard to qualify as Significantly Viewed. Many of those nearby distant stations that had been offered by the local cable providers were not in fact Significantly Viewed by FCC standards, but rather were being carried under the cable distant network license. (Which is completely different from the distant network license for satellite.) Thus, many of those familiar (to cable viewers) locals still would not have been available by satellite, even if Significantly Viewed had been fully implemented. The Significantly Viewed standard was originally written as a way for out-of-market stations to force their way onto local cable systems in areas where their broadcast signal reached. The Significantly Viewed List was later applied to the satellite licenses (see some of that history above) but the satellite locals license is also completely different from the cable locals license. There is no method for Significantly Viewed stations to force their way into the satellite locals packages. There is a method for additional stations to qualify for the List, if they so desire. Most stations do not want to go through the time or effort to do so, especially with no guarantee of being carried. Besides, these days the broadcasters are more interested in blocking out-of-market competition, rather than expanding their own station's reach to other markets.

Additionally, the requirement was not just on the subscriber to pay for the in-market locals, but also on the provider to carry the in-market affiliate first. So, any dispute with the in-market affiliate would mean being forced to remove all affiliates of that network during the dispute. In that case, Dish may have felt that it was not worth offering the out-of-market affiliates at all. This way, they do not have to constantly explain to customers why the out-of-market affiliates are being removed (right when they are needed the most) when Dish is not actually in a dispute with the owners of those other affiliates.

AFAIK it still hasn't happened. Now we're saying here that they ARE activating significantly viewed?

Yes, but only in very rare cases. There are specific counties with special exceptions specifically written into the law. So, Dish offers out-of-market locals there, since what they are expected to offer as locals in those counties is spelled out very clearly. The two counties in southern Vermont that were mentioned earlier are among these examples. Also, during the recent Nexstar dispute, Dish was forced to take away some other Significantly Viewed out-of-market channels temporarily, and there was a special uplink to bring them back when the dispute was resolved.

Uplink Activity Updates » Blog Archive » 12/25/20 at 12:18am ET (v25) – 6 changes seen

Channels Now Available
5199 WGCL (46 HD Local) ATLANTA, GA (CBS) SV* 61.5° 18s56 (South Carolina) HD Greenville/Spartanburg, SC market Hidden – AVAILABLE
6342 KCNC (12 HD Local) DENVER, CO (CBS) SV* 129° 4s19 (NC Colorado) HD Albuquerque/Santa Fe, NM market Hidden – AVAILABLE
8193 WGCL (46 Local) ATLANTA, GA (CBS) SV* 110° 20s6 (West Carolinas) SD Greenville/Spartanburg, SC market Hidden – AVAILABLE
8850 KCNC (12 Local) DENVER, CO (CBS) SV* 110° 12s30 (Central Colorado) SD Albuquerque/Santa Fe, NM market Hidden – AVAILABLE

(Notice Atlanta, GA CBS in Greenville/Spartanburg market, and Denver, CO CBS in Albuquerque/Santa Fe market.)

 

[pattykay]

When DISH got their hand slapped years ago for offering distant locals they were required to add every DMA or as a penalty take all locals down. They chose to add every DMA rather than lose a ton of customers who would have gone somewhere else to get their locals.

Removing all of the existing locals markets was never on the table, and there was never even a threat of an injunction against Dish using the local-into-local license. See some of this history in my post above.

 

[NYDutch]

Yes, but only in very rare cases. There are specific counties with special exceptions specifically written into the law. So, Dish offers out-of-market locals there, since what they are expected to offer as locals in those counties is spelled out very clearly. The two counties in southern Vermont that were mentioned earlier are among these examples.

The two VT counties and I think there's one or two more elsewhere that I can't recall, are served by out of market stations due to a law that was passed providing that DMA's that did not include any available in-state stations could also receive their in-state channels regardless of the significantly viewed status. Dish took the easy route by just including both DMA's involved. Bennington County, VT, for instance, is in the Albany, NY DMA, but under the law also is eligible to receive the Burlington, VT stations. As it happens, some of the Burlington DMA stations are actually located in NY, but Dish does not eliminate them presumably as a matter of practicality. Windham County, VT is similar in that they're in the Boston, MA DMA, but also receive the Burlington DMA stations. That dual DMA status is very handy when we use our Pownal, VT service address and there's a retrans dispute outage underway. So far we've never lost both stations for any network.

 

[Howard Simmons]

Yes, that is correct. The line-item fee has been exactly the same for purchased and leased receivers (of the same model / type) for as long as I can remember. Technically, Dish also charges a lease fee on the first receiver, whether or not you are actually leasing. In the fine print on every Dish bill, there is a disclosure that a $9 per month lease fee for the first receiver is bundled into the core package price. This is especially funny for my bill, with a purchased receiver and the $12 per month Locals Only core package. So, $9 of my bill is going toward this "lease fee" for a receiver that is not even being leased, and I am only paying $3 per month for the local channels.


That rule went into effect in 2010, around the same time that you stopped being a dealer. Dish actually pushed for that rule as a political solution, in order to get Congress to give Dish a path to get their distants license back. For many years, Congress (especially representatives from areas not served by satellite locals) had been wanting at least one satellite provider to offer locals in every market. They had been openly threatening to make it a requirement for both providers (Dish and Directv) if one of them didn't do it voluntarily. Tying this requirement to the provision to allow Dish to start offering distants again solved both problems. This measure was also supported at the time by Directv, since it allowed them to avoid being required to serve every local market. With the latest reauthorization of the distants license, the requirement was also added to Directv. As a result, Directv lost their distants license, since they still refuse to serve 12 local markets. Directv can still get their distants license back if / when they ever start serving every market. However, Directv struck deals directly with each network, to allow Directv to continue to offer distants in the unserved markets, and even bring back (at least some of) the distants for (at least some of) their previously "grandfathered" distants subscribers. So, Directv does not really need the distants copyright license any longer.


In the year leading up to the injunction against Dish providing distants, Dish actually had been rolling out Significantly Viewed locals in many fringe areas around the country. This was, however, likely just an effort to create as much customer outrage as possible when the injunction went into effect. At the time, Significantly Viewed channels were covered by the distant network copyright license, not the locals license. So, Dish was also forced to stop providing the other market's affiliates to Significantly Viewed areas when the injunction was imposed. This situation was not fixed until STELA was passed in 2010, moving Significantly Viewed channels from the distants license to the locals license. In theory, this would have allowed Dish to resume offering Significantly Viewed channels to these areas, even if the injunction had never been lifted. However, Dish never tested that theory. Or at least, they did not want to risk angering the court, while everything related to Dish's offering of distants was still being reviewed with a fine-tooth comb by a court-appointed Special Master (or some title like that). This court oversight was put in place to ensure Dish's compliance with the terms of the agreement to allow them to offer distants again.

In the years following that, Dish's lack of offering Significantly Viewed locals has been chalked up to a desire by Dish to keep things simple when it comes to the locals packages. By not offering them, Dish does not have to worry about serving subscribers in different portions of the same market with different affiliates, and charging them different amounts accordingly. Also, by the time that Dish was finally allowed to offer Significantly Viewed locals again, Directv had already built up a significant lead in that department, successfully offering Significantly Viewed locals in many areas across the country. So, Dish must have decided not to even try to compete against Directv and cable, and rather focus on being the "low-cost" provider with the cheapest locals package possible.


Dish chose not to uplink many of those markets, since while they were still subject to the distants injunction, Dish would not have been allowed to offer a complete locals package there, anyway. The missing markets were all markets where at least one network was missing an in-market affiliate. So, this was part of the deal that Dish struck: give us back the ability to offer distants, and we will serve these remaining markets. Otherwise, they will remain unserved for as long as we are still allowed to not serve them.


It is not entirely based on broadcast contour. There is a specific list maintained by the FCC of which out-of-market channels (and in-market channels, for that matter) meet the standard to qualify as Significantly Viewed. Many of those nearby distant stations that had been offered by the local cable providers were not in fact Significantly Viewed by FCC standards, but rather were being carried under the cable distant network license. (Which is completely different from the distant network license for satellite.) Thus, many of those familiar (to cable viewers) locals still would not have been available by satellite, even if Significantly Viewed had been fully implemented. The Significantly Viewed standard was originally written as a way for out-of-market stations to force their way onto local cable systems in areas where their broadcast signal reached. The Significantly Viewed List was later applied to the satellite licenses (see some of that history above) but the satellite locals license is also completely different from the cable locals license. There is no method for Significantly Viewed stations to force their way into the satellite locals packages. There is a method for additional stations to qualify for the List, if they so desire. Most stations do not want to go through the time or effort to do so, especially with no guarantee of being carried. Besides, these days the broadcasters are more interested in blocking out-of-market competition, rather than expanding their own station's reach to other markets.

Additionally, the requirement was not just on the subscriber to pay for the in-market locals, but also on the provider to carry the in-market affiliate first. So, any dispute with the in-market affiliate would mean being forced to remove all affiliates of that network during the dispute. In that case, Dish may have felt that it was not worth offering the out-of-market affiliates at all. This way, they do not have to constantly explain to customers why the out-of-market affiliates are being removed (right when they are needed the most) when Dish is not actually in a dispute with the owners of those other affiliates.


Yes, but only in very rare cases. There are specific counties with special exceptions specifically written into the law. So, Dish offers out-of-market locals there, since what they are expected to offer as locals in those counties is spelled out very clearly. The two counties in southern Vermont that were mentioned earlier are among these examples. Also, during the recent Nexstar dispute, Dish was forced to take away some other Significantly Viewed out-of-market channels temporarily, and there was a special uplink to bring them back when the dispute was resolved.

Uplink Activity Updates » Blog Archive » 12/25/20 at 12:18am ET (v25) – 6 changes seen

Channels Now Available
5199 WGCL (46 HD Local) ATLANTA, GA (CBS) SV* 61.5° 18s56 (South Carolina) HD Greenville/Spartanburg, SC market Hidden – AVAILABLE
6342 KCNC (12 HD Local) DENVER, CO (CBS) SV* 129° 4s19 (NC Colorado) HD Albuquerque/Santa Fe, NM market Hidden – AVAILABLE
8193 WGCL (46 Local) ATLANTA, GA (CBS) SV* 110° 20s6 (West Carolinas) SD Greenville/Spartanburg, SC market Hidden – AVAILABLE
8850 KCNC (12 Local) DENVER, CO (CBS) SV* 110° 12s30 (Central Colorado) SD Albuquerque/Santa Fe, NM market Hidden – AVAILABLE

(Notice Atlanta, GA CBS in Greenville/Spartanburg market, and Denver, CO CBS in Albuquerque/Santa Fe market.)

Man that was a long post.

 

[pattykay]

Man that was a long post.

Probably not a record for me, though. I was responding to a long post, and I got on a roll. Dish's history with distant networks, locals, etc. has been a passion of mine for a long time.

 

[dvrexpander]

Lets raise prices $5 for 2021 after most customers got hit hard with no jobs, very little work and covid19. Kinda like a kick in the nuts IMO.
When my price lock ends I'll renegotiate like I always do.

 

[Bobby]

Lets raise prices $5 for 2021 after most customers got hit hard with no jobs, very little work and covid19. Kinda like a kick in the nuts IMO.
When my price lock ends I'll renegotiate like I always do.

I doubt that the programmers who supply DISH with their programming under contract decided to not raise their annual increase into their programming because of Covid19. It's built into the multiyear contracts and there is little that can be done about it. If DISH doesn't pay the increase you lose the programming and then you can complain about its lack...

 

[pattykay]

I doubt that the programmers who supply DISH with their programming under contract decided to not raise their annual increase into their programming because of Covid19. It's built into the multiyear contracts and there is little that can be done about it. If DISH doesn't pay the increase you lose the programming and then you can complain about its lack...

We can already complain about the lack of programming, due to production shutdowns due to Covid 19.

 

[Tvland1]

Well it's kinda funny that Orby hasn't had any price increase since the service started.. Your paying through your a** for the sports.Charlie will want you to believe that they pay some big increase on all programming.I still have both Dish RV and Orby and must say for $50 per month on 4 receivers I'm very happy...Heck for $95 per month you can have 16 movie channels and full programming...Oh yeah I know I don't have a bizillion tuners DVR or 4500000k on one channel...but I'm not getting my a** reamed quite as bad as with Charlie..and have something to watch besides infomercials and religious programming...

 

[pattykay]

I still have both Dish RV and Orby and must say for $50 per month on 4 receivers I'm very happy...

This is your combined cost, for both Dish and Orby?

..and have something to watch besides infomercials and religious programming...

I have that infomercial and religious programming package from Dish (Locals Only) and it only cost me $13.03 this month. That is about to go up to somewhere over $15 per month. However, that is still not bad, as long as I can supplement it with a cheap streaming package to get more of the programming I actually want to watch.

 

[Tvland1]

This is your combined cost, for both Dish and Orby?

Dish RV account is on hold..no cost just pay the $68 for month of flexmercials for pre-pay per month..I probably won't activate Dish account again...$50 for Orby with extras package...$4 for DVR fee but I don't use mine..

 

[dweber]

My latest Dish bill that is listed as 1/16/21 stayed the same at $156.07.
I own one of my Hopper3 receivers and lease the other Hopper3 receiver. I also own my Joey3 receiver.
I expected the Hopper3 receiver cost to be reduced from $15 to $10 and the Joey3 receiver cost to be reduced from $7 to $5 since they are purchased receivers. That did not happen.
Here is a screen shot of my bill

Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys

 

[pattykay]

My latest Dish bill that is listed as 1/16/21 stayed the same at $156.07.
I own one of my Hopper3 receivers and lease the other Hopper3 receiver. I also own my Joey3 receiver.
I expected the Hopper3 receiver cost to be reduced from $15 to $10 and the Joey3 receiver cost to be reduced from $7 to $5 since they are purchased receivers. That did not happen.
Here is a screen shot of my bill
View attachment 149633


Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys

A bill from the future? Today is only 1/4/2021. Your billing cycle starts on 1/16/21, and Dish does bill in advance, so the timing of your autopay payment (shown as 1/17/2021) makes sense. They have to give you advance notice of that. However, the changes we have been discussing in this thread do not take effect until bills that are actually generated after 1/14/2021. (Not just for billing cycles that happen to start after that date.) So, you will see the changes on your next bill. By the way, the new fee for your owned Hopper 3 will be only $5. The savings shown in the chart is $10. So, it sounds like you were thinking the reverse of that. Also, there is still the possibility that none of your pricing will change while you are still on your price-lock. That is one of the unanswered questions that we still have not heard anything from Dish about, one way or the other.

 

[dweber]

A bill from the future? Today is only 1/4/2021. Your billing cycle starts on 1/16/21, and Dish does bill in advance, so the timing of your autopay payment (shown as 1/17/2021) makes sense. They have to give you advance notice of that. However, the changes we have been discussing in this thread do not take effect until bills that are actually generated after 1/14/2021. (Not just for billing cycles that happen to start after that date.) So, you will see the changes on your next bill. By the way, the new fee for your owned Hopper 3 will be only $5. The savings shown in the chart is $10. So, it sounds like you were thinking the reverse of that. Also, there is still the possibility that none of your pricing will change while you are still on your price-lock. That is one of the unanswered questions that we still have not heard anything from Dish about, one way or the other.

I was also surprised to see “Bill created on 1/16/21” since today is only 1/4/21. But then I figured that since the bill was for the future period of 1/16/21 to 2/15/21 and the reduction on owned equipment takes place on 1/14/21 that I should get the reduction. Like you I am not sure whether my 2 year price lock will negate the reduction. I tried to call Dish but the wait time was 38 minutes so I hung up. You were correct that my Hopper3 should be $5 not $10. I knew that but messed up.


Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys

 

[pattykay]

I was also surprised to see “Bill created on 1/16/21” since today is only 1/4/21.

Since the screen shot was from the My Account app on the Hopper, I would guess that is a software glitch. If you log into your mydish account on your computer or phone app, then I bet it will show the correct date for when the bill was actually created.

 

[dweber]

Since the screen shot was from the My Account app on the Hopper, I would guess that is a software glitch. If you log into your mydish account on your computer or phone app, then I bet it will show the correct date for when the bill was actually created.

You are correct. The downloaded bill on my IPhone shows a bill creation date of 1/2/21.


Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys

 

[comfortably_numb]

No RSN fee this year because Dish is going to be dropping the remaining RSN's

I've been away from Dish for awhile but my company is considering dropping our complimentary YTTV sub, so I'm considering all options. To be clear, you're saying Dish is dropping ALL RSN's for good? And if so why (all due to cost?)

 

[pattykay]

I've been away from Dish for awhile but my company is considering dropping our complimentary YTTV sub, so I'm considering all options. To be clear, you're saying Dish is dropping ALL RSN's for good? And if so why (all due to cost?)

It is all speculation, of course. However, there have been some pretty solid signs that Dish is heading towards a major dispute with the NBC/Comcast channels. (NBC Sports Chicago is already long gone, since fall 2019.) So, if/when the remaining NBC Sports channels get dropped, that would only leave the AT&T Sportsnet channels, for however much longer their contract lasts. Dish could renew with AT&T for continued carriage of those channels, but why would they? With all of the other RSN's (the vast majority of them) gone, and considering the long-standing bad blood between Dish and AT&T over HBO and Cinemax, it is easy to imagine Dish dropping those channels also, and being completely done with RSN's. This would help make Dish's pricing consistent across the entire country, instead of needing to add Regional Sports surcharges in select areas. Dish has been reluctant to add surcharges for more expensive local channels markets. So, it would also make sense that Dish would be looking to eliminate the (relatively recent) Regional Sports surcharges in the few areas that have them.