HD Locals not likely to come to DISH soon

[wkomorow]

Dish has not been able to reach agreement with a few programming groups for their HD. I do feel for those not getting any HD locals, but a number of markets launched are left with only 3 or 2 of the 4. In the Albany area, there are two groups in particular that seem to not have reached agreement are Freedom Corp and Newport TV. Discussions with my local stations suggest they are unlikely to be on Dish anytime soon. Their stations are:

Freedom

West Palm Beach - CBS
Grand Rapids - CBS
Albany - CBS
Chattanooga - ABC
Lansing - ABC
Medford OR - CBS
Beaumont, TX - CBS

Newport TV:
Cincinnati - CBS
Salt Lake City - ABC
San Antonio - NBC
Harrisburg - CBS
Memphis - ABC
Jacksonville FOX, CBS
Fresno - CBS
Albany - FOX
Little Rock - FOX
Tulsa - FOX
Mobile - NBC
Wichita - FOX
Rochester - ABC
Syracuse - ABC
Eugene - NBC
Bakersfield - NBC
Binghamton - ABC
Elmire - NBC
Jackson, TN - FOX
Watertown, NY - ABC
Fairbanks, AK - NBC

Are there other station groups that are holding up their HD rights from Dish?

 

[KE4EST]

Post us some links as to where you are getting your info.

Also I was wondering about Chattanooga abc, I figured that is why they were not up linked.

 

[wkomorow]

When the Albany DMA went live with only two of the 4 networks, I began to do some investigations. I wrote and called the stations not up and was basically told that they will not be in HD on Dish anytime soon and suggested that it would be best if I invested in an OTA antenna (ridiculous given our terrain). I was told the issue was Dish. I then went to find out the ownership of these stations, and discovered that several of the markets with stations owned by these two companies launched but their stations did not. Are any of these stations in HD on Dish? West Palm Beach launched in March and CBS is still not available.

So my source of information is that my local stations are saying they will not be in HD soon. None of the other stations owned by their parent companies are in HD on Dish, leading me to the conclusion that the above stations are unlikely to be on Dish soon. According to their Website, Freedom Corp had a bad year and is drawing a line in the sand defending their revenue see http://www.freedom.com/ceo/ . Newport Television is also facing financial issues http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6571495.html?nid=4266&source=title&rid= .Those with contacts with Dish might be able to confirm that agreement has not been made.

I am surprised that no one has discussed this issue before given the pattern of stations not being launched.

My question is are there other programming groups that seem to be holding up their approval for HD on Dish?

I also would like to urge anyone in these DMAs that have launched and are lacking some of their channels write to Freedom and Newport TV to urge them to reach an agreement with Dish and allow us to see our programing in HD.

 

[KE4EST]

Same way with the terrain here. OTA is out of the question. I hope something happens soon. I may email here and find out what I can get about my local ABC.

 

[playmaker7206]

I live in San Antonio, TX, and still can't figure out why NBC has been in HD with direct TV, TWC, and AT&T Uverse for almost 2 years. The only logical explanation I can think of is that DISH won't pay the $$ requested. San Antonio is the #7-8 largest city , and an OTA antenna is out of the question. Between the lack of NBC and Spike in HD, i am waiting until late August to switch to Direct TV and pay the $13/month cancellation fee.

The next season of Ultimate Fighter starts in September, and NBC Sunday night football starts soon and it is worth $13/month to have both of these channels in HD.

 

[wkomorow]

Obviously, Dish and these two groups could make nice at any time. But I think it is important to see the pattern of which channels are not launching and to contact the parent companies. I am also writing to CBS (I don't think writing to FOX would do any good). On the positive side, one would expect that if agreement is reached several markets would complete their HD offerings on Dish.

I would expect the issue was money, but I think that Newport is associated with Variety TV and they may be fighting for carriage.

Didn't Dish just reach agreement with a programming group leading to several missing stations being added a week or two ago?

 

[smokey982]

Also I was wondering about Chattanooga abc, I figured that is why they were not up linked.

The NBC and CW networks in Chattanooga are not currently available either. It looks like you are from Noth Carolina, why would you care about Chattanooga locals? The only reason I ask is because I'm from the Chattanooga area.

 

[BlackHitachi]

Dish has not been able to reach agreement with a few programming groups for their HD. I do feel for those not getting any HD locals, but a number of markets launched are left with only 3 or 2 of the 4. In the Albany area, there are two groups in particular that seem to not have reached agreement are Freedom Corp and Newport TV. Discussions with my local stations suggest they are unlikely to be on Dish anytime soon. Their stations are:

Freedom

West Palm Beach - CBS
Grand Rapids - CBS
Albany - CBS
Chattanooga - ABC
Lansing - ABC
Medford OR - CBS
Beaumont, TX - CBS

Newport TV:
Cincinnati - CBS
Salt Lake City - ABC
San Antonio - NBC
Harrisburg - CBS
Memphis - ABC
Jacksonville FOX, CBS
Fresno - CBS
Albany - FOX
Little Rock - FOX
Tulsa - FOX
Mobile - NBC
Wichita - FOX
Rochester - ABC
Syracuse - ABC
Eugene - NBC
Bakersfield - NBC
Binghamton - ABC
Elmire - NBC
Jackson, TN - FOX
Watertown, NY - ABC
Fairbanks, AK - NBC

Are there other station groups that are holding up their HD rights from Dish?

Can you also tell if this is happening to Direc tv also!?

 

[wkomorow]

I know that for the Albany DMA, both WXXA (Newport) and WRGB (Freedom) have been available on Direct for many months. playmaker7206 notes that the NBC (Newport) is on San Antonio Direct, so unless someone knows of any of these channels that are not on Direct when the rest of the market went live, I would say no Direct and the cable companies have made agreements. West Palm Beach CBS is also available just checked the Direct TV site.

 

[NoCenterIceNoDishNetwork]

Buffalo - ABC

 

[wkomorow]

Have not researched it but WKBW is owned by Granite. Also owned by Granite - Fresno NBC, Syracuse CBS (which did not launch with other Syracuse HD stations), Fort Wayne NBC and ABC, Binghamton CBS, Peoria NBC, Duloth NBC, CBS. It is possible there is an issue with Granite also since the eastern bigger DMAs that have launched lack Granite owned HD stations.

 

[js6425]

Our Milwaukee CBS affiliate, owned by Wiegel Broadcasting, is not in HD and the other 3 are. This is the same case as DirecTV. I think the company wants dish and directv to carry their new channel MeTV, and then they'll budge, but I don't know...

 

[pacuff]

My question is what happens in Feb 09 at the DTV final transition? Won't all these DMA HD holdouts acquiesce and allow carriage at that time regardless of other considerations, otherwise it would open up the possibility of national networks being substituted for local affiliate, thus loss of advertisement revenues?

 

[jmjunkin]

I just emailed a guy at Newport TV that I emailed back on May 13 and asked for an update. I am in San Antonio and missing their NBC affiliate. When I emailed him the first time he said they were working on and agreement. I will post what I find out, if anything.

 

[wkomorow]

That would be great; please let us know. No one from Newport has returned my email. Salt Lake went live in March so that DMA has been without its Newport station for four months - one would imagine that negotiations had been ongoing long before then.

 

[bkushner]

I live in San Antonio, TX, and still can't figure out why NBC has been in HD with direct TV, TWC, and AT&T Uverse for almost 2 years. The only logical explanation I can think of is that DISH won't pay the $$ requested. San Antonio is the #7-8 largest city , and an OTA antenna is out of the question. Between the lack of NBC and Spike in HD, i am waiting until late August to switch to Direct TV and pay the $13/month cancellation fee.

The next season of Ultimate Fighter starts in September, and NBC Sunday night football starts soon and it is worth $13/month to have both of these channels in HD.

Philadelphia Direct locals gives you the CW in HD as well!

 

[MikeD-C05]

This is all about MONEY . THe above stations want more $$$ to have them turned on with DISH. CHarlie will only pay so much for each market and if they don't agree they won't turn them on. So Charlie's cheap and the stations are greedy. Here is the deal though. IF you have the 722 or the 622 or the new 722 k that will come out by years end, you can use your ota antenna and get the stations that won't allow you to see them on the sat. You will still get the guide information from DISH and it will be in HD. The new 722k will allow you to record 2 sat and 2 ota at the same time so this seems to be the solution for the areas that the Freedom Broadcasting Corp wants to deny their signal to.

 

[dennispap]

Evidently there must be a problem with the New Orleans stations, as we were on the list for 2006 and still no hd locals. Now we arent even on the list. Thanks to katrina, most of New orleans went to satellite, dish or directv. Directv has had the hd locals for about a year now. 2 of my neighbors switched from dish to directv because of no hd locals.

 

[wkomorow]

Mike -

I am in the process of getting an antenna, but people do not understand that when you are at the base of a mountain and the transmitters are 50 miles on the other side of the mountain, OTA is not practical. Most of the signals I can get are tropospheric scatter or double edge diffraction. There are some "repeaters" here in the valley, but we are not central to the Albany NY market and most of the repeaters are very low power and still analog (WCDC is digital with a transmitter on top of a local mountain and in HD but is already available in HD on Dish); many of the repeaters will not cut over to digital until feb and even then there may be no HD.

I do not blame Dish. Dish has been able to reach agreement with hundreds of stations for HD, but not Freedom, Newport and it looks like Granite. My purpose in starting this thread was to show the pattern of which stations were not coming in HD to dish as dish activates local HD markets and second to get people in the DMAs affected to write to these parent companies reminding them that they were granted licenses in the public interest and urge them to make nice with Dish.

I agree the issue is probably money, but it could be retransmission rights for their CW channels in HD or even Variety TV. It could even be that Newport is holding consent until Dish agrees to add the Cincinnati market in HD. I just do not know.

 

[Smoky]

The NBC and CW networks in Chattanooga are not currently available either. It looks like you are from Noth Carolina, why would you care about Chattanooga locals? The only reason I ask is because I'm from the Chattanooga area.

He's in Cherokee County, NC, its in the Chattanooga DMA. Funny thing is the County next to it, Clay County,NC is in the Atlanta DMA and the County that borders both those Counties, Macon County,NC is in the Asheville,NC-GreenvilleSC- Spartenburg,SC DMA. All are in the mountains so OTA is hit or miss. Never understood why these DMA areas are split like this.