And remember that each local needs to be negotiated with the station owner, received by a new HD receiver or fibre link, transmitted via a new ground link or sat. retransmission link to the main uplink facility, then spotbeam configured on the sat. (Actually, the last one maybe the easiest with these new Spaceways.) Lots of work, new equipment, and long leadtimes for some of this stuff.
Obviously, D* has been working on each station owner for some time, and part of Directv8's job maybe the retransmission, and then D* has been working with Level3 for fibre capacity across the country. So they ain't been sittin' still.
Hope you can get some OTA until then,
Tom