Can someone explain this to me? (Dish vs Spectrum Locals)

[bobsie]

What I would like to understand (but don't) is why Dish gives me a local NBC station from the Saginaw/Flint Michigan area yet the local cable (Spectrum) has all their locals from the west side of upper lower Michigan plus the locals from where I live (Alpena, MI) which provides a lot more options.

When it comes to news and weather forecasts, the Dish NBC station does not even come close to being useful. The only plus to it is that that NBC station has recently begun broadcasting by Dish in HD while all the upper lower Michigan stations on Spectrum have all been HD since HD was a thing. At least now I can watch NASCAR races in HD when carried on the NBC station instead of the poor PQ SD picture of the past (fuzzy little box in the middle of my 55" 4K TV). Other than that, there is nothing "local" about the station. The west side stations include news and weather that is local to my actual area and are actually closer in distance to my area than the NBC station provided by Dish as a "local."

Our local TV station here carries CBS in full HD and Fox and ABC in 720P HD and SD respectively on sub-channels. Spectrum also carries the same thing plus ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox from the west side of the state (all HD as previously stated).

I have been with Dish for many, many years (August 2006) and without a contract/commitment for over 5 years. It is hard to resist the urge to switch to Spectrum especially since I had it (Charter) before I became a Dish customer.

Can anyone explain to me why one service carries different locals than another service even though both are serving the same local area?

 

[sxmfan2018]

can you pick up the locals via OTA that might be an option. i asked if spectrum had a basic broadcast package and they don't

 

[Bobby]

Dish is locked into your DMA while cable companies are not. Just another travesty with how the laws are set up. Cable companies have a huge lobby to keep their rules looser....

 

[comfortably_numb]

Just like Bobby said, satellite transmissions of local channels are governed by a different, (terribly unfortunate) set of rules than cableco's.

 

[sam_gordon]

Wouldn't a simple solution be to "move" into the Saginaw DMA? If your profile is correct, and you're in Alpena, there's only two counties in that DMA. "Moving" a couple of counties south should get you what you want, shouldn't?

 

[comfortably_numb]

I seem to remember a thread from before, where we suggested a "move" for him, but it wasn't feasible for some reason.

 

[eddie willers]

"west side of upper lower Michigan"

That made me laugh.