AMC 14 Satellite Launch Failure - What now for Dish?

[Scott Greczkowski]

How is it that DirectTV is broadcasting something like 11 HD channels at 110 and over 50 SD channels from 119? Doesn't that bandwidth belong to Dish? (I am looking at The List.)

DirecTV holds licences for certain transponders at 110 and 119. DirecTV actually has their own satellites at those locations.

I dont understand why DirecTV don't just rent space from Dish at 110 / 119 as it costs a lot to put a satellite up there just for a few transponders.

 

[rad]

That was my understanding of AMC-14. It was to replace an old bird and help facilitate the move to Mpeg4.

As for the new channels? They will go live in April. It has been posted before, much of the delay in expanded HD content had to do with contract issues. Many of the new "HD exclusive" channels that D* carried were because D* owned the servers. Do not take my word for it. Check the message boards for SciFi and Speed. Ownership was set to transfer in March 08. After that date, the networks were free to license their content to other carries.

According to documents filed with the FCC, E* began to move a new fully functional satellite on March 15th, set to arrive in its final orbit by April 15, 2008. The expanded lineup - National and Local - is being moved in to position right now. Let's just hope it arrives before April 15th.

DirecTV does NOT own Sci-Fi or have any ownership interest in it, NBC Universal owns it, along with a number of other channels, like Bravo, USA and CNBC which have HD channels up on D*.

Yes, News Corporation, which used to own D*, also owns a number of channels, Speed being one of them and Fox Business news but that doesn't explain all the other channels that D* has that E* doesn't. So your line about D* exclusive rights is not correct for the majority of the channels and since we don't have access to the contracts and negotations we don't know.

If the reason is contract negotiation why is it that Dish is almost always behind the ball on adding channels due to contract negotiations? D* announced contract agreements for many of the channels they added last fall back in January 2007. So the content providers were working with D* 9 months before launch on D* to get the contracts in place, what was Charlie doing all this time? Cable companies, including Comcast the largest MSO can come to an agreement. TWC and Cablevision can come to an agreement to carry many of these new channels and are adding them to their systems.

What I'm really curious about is with E* not adding any new satellites, and only picking up the two transponders at 61.5 that SA gives up the end of the month, is why now can all the new HD LIL markets be uplinked and turned up in a few weeks? E12/Rainbow1's been there for a long time with it's spot beams, why wasn't E* using them before to add more HD LIL's, like the cities that they said they'd add in 2006 which didn't happen and are now on the latest list for 2008? Why can they add them now when they couldn't before?

 

[rad]

I dont understand why DirecTV don't just rent space from Dish at 110 / 119 as it costs a lot to put a satellite up there just for a few transponders.

If I understand the FCC rules D* needs to have the satellite in place or they loose the licenses for those three transponders, so they'd go up for bid again. Maybe by the time someone pays for those (which might not be E* who wins) the price might be higher then just to keep an older satellite there.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

What I'm really curious about is with E* not adding any new satellites, and only picking up the two transponders at 61.5 that SA gives up the end of the month, is why now can all the new HD LIL markets be uplinked and turned up in a few weeks? E12/Rainbow1's been there for a long time with it's spot beams, why wasn't E* using them before to add more HD LIL's, like the cities that they said they'd add in 2006 which didn't happen and are now on the latest list for 2008? Why can they add them now when they couldn't before?

This one is easy to answer.

61.5 was full with lots of international channels, dish had to move the majority of these international channels to other locations such as 118.7 and 129 to clear transponders so that Dish could get Rainbow 1's spotbeams ready and usuable.

If you take a look what was on 61.5 last year at this time and look at whats there now you will see that 61.5 has a lot of room now.

That explains why they didn't try using the spotbeams until now. My question is how was the VOOM service ever planning on using those spotbeams?

 

[rad]

This one is easy to answer.

61.5 was full with lots of international channels, dish had to move the majority of these international channels to other locations such as 118.7 and 129 to clear transponders so that Dish could get Rainbow 1's spotbeams ready and usuable.

If you take a look what was on 61.5 last year at this time and look at whats there now you will see that 61.5 has a lot of room now.

That explains why they didn't try using the spotbeams until now. My question is how was the VOOM service ever planning on using those spotbeams?

OK, understand. Next question is then why didn't they do this earlier? Looking back on the site it looks like E*'s been putting up some internationals at 118.7 for almost 2 years now.

 

[jayn_j]

If I understand the FCC rules D* needs to have the satellite in place or they loose the licenses for those three transponders, so they'd go up for bid again. Maybe by the time someone pays for those (which might not be E* who wins) the price might be higher then just to keep an older satellite there.

I don't think so. D* needs to be USING the transponder frequencies to continue to claim them. Nobody cares who owns the hardware used to accomplish that.

 

[rad]

I don't think so. D* needs to be USING the transponder frequencies to continue to claim them. Nobody cares who owns the hardware used to accomplish that.

Could be, not an expert. All I know is I've seen mention of companies loosing their licenses unless they used the frequencies.

 

[nelson61]

The FCC will cut them some slack. All they ask is that an honest effort is made to meet the schedules. For example, the FCC gave Rainbow their security deposits back when they defaulted on completion and sold to Dish. The FCC explanation was that Rainbow make a good faith effort and lost a pile of money trying to meet their obligations.

Could be, not an expert. All I know is I've seen mention of companies loosing their licenses unless they used the frequencies.

 

[bayoufats]

I would think with the FCC facing the Feb 2009 Digital conversion problems that they would be fairly generous and relative agreeable to helping Dish out with thier problem. After all Dish is already all digital so the FCC won't want to cause them any problems, the FCC has their hands full with all the local channels changing over, and also dealing with educating the public. They should let Dish do what they need to do, as long as it is reasonable.

 

[reallyniceguy]

Lol just another update.. dish csrs and even ert department are STILL not informed about this.. interesting.. lol

 

[Tyralak]

I would think with the FCC facing the Feb 2009 Digital conversion problems that they would be fairly generous and relative agreeable to helping Dish out with thier problem. After all Dish is already all digital so the FCC won't want to cause them any problems, the FCC has their hands full with all the local channels changing over, and also dealing with educating the public. They should let Dish do what they need to do, as long as it is reasonable.

This just shows how badly this digital changeover business has been explained. It wouldn't have anything to do with Dish, even if Dish was all analog. The digital conversion affects BROADCAST ONLY. Period. It doesn't have anything to do with cable of satellite. Only OTA broadcasters.

 

[John Kotches]

This just shows how badly this digital changeover business has been explained. It wouldn't have anything to do with Dish, even if Dish was all analog. The digital conversion affects BROADCAST ONLY. Period. It doesn't have anything to do with cable of satellite. Only OTA broadcasters.

It's nice that you're so emphatic. You're also wrong. Why are you wrong?
Must carry becomes must carry digital.

So the HD locals like PBS and CW that are broadcasting in HD but aren't part of the HD locals are going to need to be part of each HD locals package. So we've just gone from 4 to 6 HD broadcasters in the vast majority of markets. You've nowlowered your market capacity as you also have to carry any other channels that are broadcasting in SD digital. On the + side, you do get to drop the SD versions, they might add up to 1 HD channel. So you have 1 HD channel + N number of SD digitals that could convert over to HD at any time with available content.

Dish will get some transponder space back with the shutoff of the analog SD locals. Depending on where on the satellite farm these TPs are it might be only a modest drop in capacity.

If the services provider is smart, they'll allocate based on all channels becoming HD so they want have to do transponder shuffling.

Please feel free to provide the counter argument to me.

 

[bayoufats]

Yes Tyralak I know that but what I menat is that the FCC has it's hands full with the Digital conversion, it isn't look for any other fights right now especially with a provider that is already Digital therefore is not involved with all the problems the FCC has with the conversion, and educating the Americam public about it. So I think they will more or less rubber stamp any thing within reason that Dish wants to do regarding it's satellite fleet.

 

[darrencp22]

I wonder if this thread has outlived its purpose now. It seems the stategy is to keep the bird and have it repositioned into proper orbit and lose some if it's life. Doesnt seem like too much of any impact any longer besides some delays.

 

[kvnfl]

DirecTV does NOT own Sci-Fi or have any ownership interest in it, NBC Universal owns it, along with a number of other channels, like Bravo, USA and CNBC which have HD channels up on D*.

I was referring specifically to SciFi HD and SPEED HD channels being owned by D* and that is why D* could refer to them as "HD Exclusives." Neither SciFi nor SPEED had HD capabilities for the roll out of "their" HD channels. Check out their message boards. SPEED HD is having difficulties providing HD content - lack of sources, equipment and knowledge.

 

[nitstalker]

Not to rain on some people's parade here but:

There are lots of other launch facilities that are not 'booked up' if they had a ground spare, they could get it up if they wanted. (Wallops Island Va is just one)

Dish is not hinging their entire business on this one satellite. They have a plan B if the satellite were to fail, etc (and a plan c, d,e,...) Surely they already know what they are going to do with the bird, and how it will fit into the business model.

Charlie said himself on CNN that Dish is behind because of the lack of HD Channels. They will do whatever it takes to get themselves back in the game. We will see some new HD, and most likely it will be before the end of the next quarter. They dont have to make 'us' happy, but they do have to keep their investors happy.

I doubt that they will reveal any info on this special chat today, other than to maybe inform of the failure, and release some kind of statement. I doubt they will release their plan b now till they start instituting it.

I do look for us to start seeing some type of activity up there though as to what their plan b is going to be.

Well now that I got down from my soap box I say we are all doomed!!!!!

 

[darrencp22]

Dish is not hinging their entire business on this one satellite.

Seriously? How you figure?

 

[rad]

I was referring specifically to SciFi HD and SPEED HD channels being owned by D* and that is why D* could refer to them as "HD Exclusives." Neither SciFi nor SPEED had HD capabilities for the roll out of "their" HD channels. Check out their message boards. SPEED HD is having difficulties providing HD content - lack of sources, equipment and knowledge.

Again, yes Speed is owned by Fox, SciFi IS NOT OWNED BY D*. And yes, the message boards were all saying that SciFi had HD capabilities at rollout and when presented the proof that they did, such as the link to the page at https://www.nbcunetworks.com/Webpage/Techspecs/ViewPublicTechSpecs.aspx?NetworkId=MjE= which showed the satellite and transponder that SciFi HD was on. Even when people were reporting that they were watching HD programming on SciFi HD non D* subscribers were saying no they weren't. Hell, people were reporting that they were getting e-mails from SciFi's PR department saying there was no HD channel while we're watching it.

As for SpeedHD, don't know what you mean by having difficulties providing HD content. Since their official launch I've seen plenty of HD programming there. Even before the 'official' launch of the HD channel for Speed Week at Daytona SpeedHD was showing some HD programming, some BMX shows come to mind.

 

[TalonDancer]

I wonder if this thread has outlived its purpose now. It seems the stategy is to keep the bird and have it repositioned into proper orbit and lose some if it's life. Doesnt seem like too much of any impact any longer besides some delays.

One of the main things that feeds the speculation since AMC-14's failure to reach planned orbit (yet) is that most of us (at least non-pub members) still don't know much about the specifics of how AMC -14 was going to help Dish "add more HD channels". Hence now, most of us don't really know what, if anything, will be "delayed" now . Is it the HD Locals, HD Nationals, etc. or both?

Sure, Dish can continue to up-link new and existing HD Locals onto Rainbow 1 (61.5). But can they still re-point (or Replace dish 1000s etc.) for subs to access those channels without AMC-14 in place?

Talon Dancer

 

[Tyralak]

Yes Tyralak I know that but what I menat is that the FCC has it's hands full with the Digital conversion, it isn't look for any other fights right now especially with a provider that is already Digital therefore is not involved with all the problems the FCC has with the conversion, and educating the Americam public about it. So I think they will more or less rubber stamp any thing within reason that Dish wants to do regarding it's satellite fleet.

Ok, I see what you meant. Sorry.