Dish in retransmission dispute with WIAT CBS 42 Birmingham, AL

[mwgiii]

The CBS station here is running a crawl every 15 minutes or so saying CBS 42 will no longer be carried by Dish unless an agreement is reached soon. No specific deadline is given. The crawl directs you to email Melisa Ordonez @ Dish and gives out a phone number. It also directs you to the CBS 42 website.

Here is the link from the website:
Keep CBS 42 on DISH - CBS 42 Birmingham, AL News Weather Sports

CBS 42 is owned by New Vision TV. No clue if it is just Birmingham or all of the New Vision stations are having this problem. Here is the list of the New Vision properties: Properties | New Vision Television

 

[Claude Greiner]

Yawn, same old crap as I see with every other station Dish got into a disageement with. Scare all your viewers that Dish will drop the channel and tell them to call Dish and bug the crap out of them so that maybe Dish will agree to pay a higher rate for the channel.

If people would just leave things alone, and not threaten to switch providers everytime something like this happens, we would all be paying lower rates.

 

[mwgiii]

I completely agree Claude.

 

[satellite speaker]

Agree Claude

Sent from my verizon oc'd thunderbolt using SatelliteGuys

 

[CK SatGuy]

The CBS station here is running a crawl every 15 minutes or so saying CBS 42 will no longer be carried by Dish unless an agreement is reached soon. No specific deadline is given. The crawl directs you to email Melisa Ordonez @ Dish and gives out a phone number. It also directs you to the CBS 42 website.

Here is the link from the website:
Keep CBS 42 on DISH - CBS 42 Birmingham, AL News Weather Sports

CBS 42 is owned by New Vision TV. No clue if it is just Birmingham or all of the New Vision stations are having this problem. Here is the list of the New Vision properties: Properties | New Vision Television

Most likely it's all of New Vision stations and the deadline is most likely Dec 31.

 

[king3pj]

Yawn, same old crap as I see with every other station Dish got into a disageement with. Scare all your viewers that Dish will drop the channel and tell them to call Dish and bug the crap out of them so that maybe Dish will agree to pay a higher rate for the channel.

If people would just leave things alone, and not threaten to switch providers everytime something like this happens, we would all be paying lower rates.

I get all of my local channels in HD through Dish so I don't have a dog in this fight but I don't blame anyone for complaining to Dish or switching providers when they lose channels.

I watch a lot of the programming CBS puts out. I watch everything from How I Met Your Mother and Big Bang Theory to NFL football, college football and basketball including march madness on CBS. I'm not positive on this but I believe I heard that they are the most watched network. That is besides the point though. Everyone should have access to the big 4 networks.

I understand that this doesn't affect you, or me for that matter, but your Yawn, people shouldn't switch providers over this kind of stuff statement is a little ridiculous to me. Why give your hard earned money to a provider that doesn't offer the programing you want when their are plenty of other providers out there willing to give it to you?

In the end I don't care about Dish taking a stand to supposedly save us from higher rates. The other providers seem to be pretty close in pricing for similar packages. I would rather pay the extra 25 cents a month to get core programing than save the extra quarter and go without.

I know there are many that disagree with me, and that's what a forum is all about. It would be a pretty boring discussion if everyone agreed all the time and we only talked facts.

 

[Claude Greiner]

In the end I don't care about Dish taking a stand to supposedly save us from higher rates. The other providers seem to be pretty close in pricing for similar packages. I would rather pay the extra 25 cents a month to get core programing than save the extra quarter and go without.

Thats the whole issue. You see value paying 25 cents extra for a group of channels, and another customer wants to pay 25 cents extra for another group of channels that you never watch. You start adding up all those quarters, and all of a sudden you see your bill increase $4-$5 and now your considering jumping ship to another provider.

Its a no win situation for Dish. They drop the channel, people get pist off and leave. They get forced to raise the rates, and people get pist off and leave.

Its not like we are dealing with a popular cable channel such as the History Channel, or the Discovery channel. Its a broadcast local channel. With Digital OTA, a small set of rabbit ears will probably pick it up just fine and provide an even better picture than you have with Dish. Depending on how far you are from the towers, you might even be able to pick it up by bending a paper clip and putting it in your antenna in connecton on the back of your TV.

If you got a 612, 622, 722, 211, or 222, the OTA Modual is built in the receiver. With the paperclip, you could have it on OTA in a matter of minutes.

If you got a 722K, 922, or a 222K it does require an OTA Modual which is normally $34, but you could probably get Dish to send to you for free if you call and ask due to the situation in your area and if you tell them your considering swiching providers.

Finally, don't count this dispute to last forever. Typically they last a few days, or in some extreme cases as long as a month.

 

[MikeD-C05]

I have never understood why DISH didn't just put in dual ota tuners in their receivers ,complete with guide information, so sub could get their locals, without ever having to put all those local channels up on the satellites. Then there would be no disputes for carriage of the locals and no disputes. For those subs who couldn't get ota , they could have distants from New York or L.A. . Of course DISH would have had to follow the rules and not give them out to everyone like they did before that got them into legal trouble, but it would of worked. DISH could of come out with an embedded ota antenna on or in the satellite dish itself and it would of been seemless installation for the subs. I would of done this before spending all that money putting up more satellites, and having these yearly carriage disputes .

 

[yelraek]

I sure hope they come a quick agreement and do not drag this out. I don't have access to OTA and have to depend on Dish for all my locals. I watch CBS42 the most.

 

[pjsjeep]

How do you use a paperclip or a coat hanger in the OTA mod on the 722?

 

[Jim5506]

If your towers are near, unfold a paperclip and insert it in the antenna input, works quite well as a UHF antenna, similar to rabbit ears, the coat hanger must be made into an antenna with balun, ect.

 

[The Fat Man]

I've said this before and it got me chewed up and spat out, but enough with broadcast companies demanding retransmission fees. If you live in a certain radius of the broadcast signal, no provider should be paying to retransmit your signal. In fact, the station should be paying cable/satellite companies money for taking an otherwise crappy signal to many, and making it more visable to viewers. I don't care that the providers are making a profit off their signal, if you don't want people to make money off you, the don't give your signal away for free. I told the story about the cafeteria worker who gave a student his free lunch. The student didn't want it and gave it to his friend, at which the worker ran out of the lunch line and demanded that the receiving student pay for the lunch. I interviened telling her that once that student left that line, he could either throw it out, start a food fight with it, eat it, give it to someone; no matter what, once she gave it to him, it was now his to choose what to do with. That's the same philosohy I have with retransmission fees. You gave it away, that's it!

And on the other side, providers shouldn't have the right to charge for broadcast channels, should they not be paying for it. I also, don't want to hear of bandwith limitations. It's about time that these companies, that make a lot of profit, show good faith with their customers by giving something back. I get it, they pay so we should pay, but if they didn't charge us, they would have stronger fights in these arguments.

In the end it's all greed. Broadcast stations should only be making money off comercials. That's the buisness. I'm gong to be the stubbon mule from the Family Guy cut scene on this one. "Kevin Bacon, not in Footloose." Broadcast stations have no right charging providers, and providers have no right charging for access to these channels, if you don't want your subs seeing them, then don't retransmit them. STOP SCREWING AVERAGE JOE AMERICA!

 

[Barry Erick]

You forget that DISH makes money off retransmitting these stations. That is why the broadcasters charge for this. OTA.. no one is making money giving you the signal. Fo te loss of off air receivers, the broadcasters get paid for providing these signals to the satellite and cable systems. In some cases the broadcaster pays a monthy rate to get the signal to the pickup points, especially if they use fiber to send and receive the signal at the picup point. I am retired, but where I worked, the cable company provided the fiber to their sight for retrans but dish provided the antenna and pays rent at the retrans point for some stations and for the station where the retrans center is loacated, a hd signal with embedded audio goes right in where DISH compresses it to mix with the other stations. A few stations fiber it in, Same for Directv. But the bottom line is these people are hapy to pay the broadcaster for it as they want the customer and without one local they will lose to the one with it. But by charging for the local, wheter in a "Local Price" or the Service price, you'd want a share, too.

 

[SQUEEZON]

Tonight we started receiving a notice about KOIN_TV in Portland Oregon (CBS) that a dispute was going on and service could be disconnected.

 

[topcat5]

IMO, if you live where you can get the channel via an antenna, I would put one up. Most of the local channels are also broadcasting several subchannels that Dish does not provide. For example in my local area, the CBS affiliate also transmits ThisTV & Bounce.

 

[Tampa8]

You forget that DISH makes money off retransmitting these stations.

I challenge that, unless you mean pennies. I'm paying (even though Dish says it's free - I'm not saying it is) $5.99 for 7 channels. At .85 a channel and taking into the equation all overhead associated with locals, I don't see much profit. I bet a disproportionate amount of time is spent on dealing with them. It is ridiculous the networks charge for people who can get it over the air. If that's the case they should lose their guaranteed exclusivity. This is not a Dish or Direct problem, it squarely on the networks and FCC. You tell them they have to carry all the channels in a DMA if they carry one, then tell them oh, you have to negotiate with each one or be held hostage.

Whatever small amount Dish gets as any profit, does not change the fact that they are in business. You would like those channels to be free. Get an antenna, and they will be free. It's Dish who is providing the guide and recording capabilities, not the networks. I feel that is what I am paying for. Not to mention Dish has integrated the OTA so that those channels can become a third tuner and be recorded. No small thing. But you want that for free......

 

[The Fat Man]

Barry, I didn't forget anything. You need to keep reading. I stated that I feel that providers shouldn't make profit off these channels either.