Kountzer said:
What's with the good samaritan channel? All they show is pictures. Some of my favorite channels that SA has gotten rid of had much better programming than that, channels like The Dream Network, Pastor Glenn Plumber's CTN, daystar. What's the deal with daystar and dish anyway?
~ Kountzer ~
The Good Samaritan Channel has adult instructional programming mostly during the work day. Overnight and during the weekends they do not have any programming. The programs are not religious in nature. Right now the program on GSN is "Behavior Management". At 11:30am EDT is "Prohibition of Abuse and Neglect", At 1:30 there is a program called "Therapy Coverage and Doc." at 3:30pm is "Living with Grief" At 7pm is "G.E.D. Reading" Then there is another instructional program at 10pm EDT.
The "deal" between Dish and Daystar is non-existent. Most may already be familiar with the goings on dealing with Daystar, FamilyNet and Educating Everyone on Dish, but I'll repeat a brief history here to answer the question.
This is long winded but there are many factors that contributed to the saga:
Cast of Characters:
Dominion, Sky Angel
Dish Network
Congress
FCC
Daystar
FamilyNet
Educating Everyone
First of all the basics:
Dish Network owns 11 transponder licenses at 61.5°
Dominion Sky Angel owns 8 transponder licenses at 61.5°
Rainbow (Voom) owns 11 transponder licenses at 61.5° (now selling to Dish upon FCC approval - not necessarily a done deal)
Rainbow has temporary authority to use 2 vacant transponders at 61.5°
Total 32 transponders (there are no more, that's it)
Dish wanted more than just the 11 transponders at 61.5°. Dominion did not have a satellite to launch (no money!) and they needed a way to deliver their programming. So...Dish and Dominion Sky Angel signed a long-term agreement for the life of E*3 at 61.5° or 10 years (whichever comes first). Dominion would be allowed to use Dish's satellite, uplink facility and billing services. In exchanged, they would "give" Dish the right to use 6 of their 8 transponders.
The contract details have never been fully released, but as part of the deal, Sky Angel has an "exclusive" (as in to exclude all others) right to channels that are mostly Christian in nature with the exception of the Christian channels already on Dish (EWTN and TBN). Also as part of the deal, Angel One would be placed in the clear at 119°.
So...fast-forward a few years. Dish is forced by FCC mandate to add "
Public Interest Channels" and later by a different order forced to add "
Must Carry" channels. Some one at Dish or Daystar, (I don't know which) gets a bright idea! What if, instead of carrying all the local channels from Daystar around the country taking up valuable bandwidth, they make a deal to have Daystar available to all subscribers on AT60 or DL2 and up nationwide?
Daystar had been put up as a PI channel at 61.5° but this deal moved it to 110°. I'm not certain, but FamilyNet had a similar history. Educating Everyone had mostly Shepherd's Chapel for programming.
Sky Angel was not amused. They asked Dish to remove the channels from national distribution in order to keep to the contract signed years ago. Dish told SA to take a flying leap.
Dish claimed that:
FamilyNet was not really a "Christian" channel. It was a general entertainment channel.
Educating Everyone only sold its time to the highest non-profit bidder. So what if it was all religious programming. It wasn't "really" a Christian channel.
Daystar was a federally mandated Public Interest channel and Dish had no control over the content so the exclusivity did not apply since it conflicted with Federal law.
Fast forward a couple of years and the COURTS tell Dish to adhere to the contract. The judge basically laughs at the FamilyNet argument and admonishes both Dish and FamilyNet for even trying such a stupid argument.
Dish drops FamilyNet, EE as ordered but fights to keep Daystar with the PI argument.
Dish and Daystar lose in binding arbitration. Dish then makes Daystar on channel 9408 only available to areas of the country with local Daystar affiliates. When they remove Daystar from national distribution, they put up a slate available nationally explaining they were forced to drop the channel by Sky Angel. The slate was accompanied by elevator music, but if you listened to it, it was a rendition of "Ain't Misbehavin'". I thought it was hilarious!
HOWEVER...this isn't good enough for "must carry". In a DIFFERENT action, the FCC and congress begin to investigate the practice of such a deal to carry only the national feed of a channel instead of must carry AND at the same time call it a PI channel. (Killing several birds with one stone). Before the investigation has a chance to take off, the deal between Daystar and Dish crumbles and Dish is forced to carry all the local Daystar channels as "must carry" rather than one Daystar channel.
Before anyone asks about TBN, the reason it counts as PI and there is no must carry for the O&O channels is because a must carry request for local O&O TBN stations never happened. The deal for national TBN distribution came about way, way before any of these other mandates.
I'm sure this is now clear as mud.
Anyway, in the interim, Sky Angel and Daystar had a lot of bad blood. The messages on Daystar were not too kind. From here on out the story of channels being "dropped" or "leaving" SA is pure speculation.
So all wrapped up, the deal with Daystar is that it had no business being nationally distributed by Dish. The contract between Dish and SA had been signed years earlier and had many years to run! If Dish did not like the terms of the contract, they should not have entered into the agreement in the first place.
See ya
Tony
