Channels 7566 KREX TV 5 (CBS) and 7568 KFQX TV 4 (Fox) have been off the air since for several days due to a fire. Dish has (as of 11pm today Eastern, just in time for the 9pm news Mountain time) remapped these channel numbers to show the Denver CBS and Fox channels in Grand Junction.
* Editor's note: This is a bigger deal than many people realize. Dish Network is barred form offering distant network channels to ANYONE for ANY reason via court injunction. Dish lost a long-running law suit brought against them by.... (drum roll)... CBS and Fox (among others)!!!! It gets a little complicated, but in short, Dish couldn't just flip on the stations without a signed deal with all the stations involved. The Denver channels need to give consent, the Grand Junction stations need to waive their exclusivity, and if there is any syndicated programming on the Denver channels also available on the three remaining Grand Junction channels, Dish has to make a deal with them! The court injunction does not prevent Dish from reaching a deal to get license to rebroadcast a signal to a distant market, but it does ban Dish from using the government-granted license as a short cut. Basically, instead of dealing with one group, they had to deal with as many as 6 to get this deal done.
Stupid, stupid laws.
