HD Locals not likely to come to DISH soon

[wkomorow]

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.

I wonder if it was because of the Viacom/Belo dispute and now that it is resolved, there is no room on spot beam? Just a guess

 

[wkomorow]

DMAs are outdated marketing divisions. The reality is that in our digital world, we should be able to receive via satellite neighboring DMA which make more sense. Spotbeam coverage would limit the stations we could receive but these are technical and not political limitations. If I lived just over the border in VT and had Direct, I will be getting the Burlington stations as well as the Albany stations. Mr. Leahey made VT immune to the limitations of the latest satellite copyright act. If I had cable, I would be getting Boston and Springfield stations.

 

[Yes616]

DMAs are outdated marketing divisions. The reality is that in our digital world, we should be able to receive via satellite neighboring DMA which make more sense. Spotbeam coverage would limit the stations we could receive but these are technical and not political limitations. If I lived just over the border in VT and had Direct, I will be getting the Burlington stations as well as the Albany stations. Mr. Leahey made VT immune to the limitations of the latest satellite copyright act. If I had cable, I would be getting Boston and Springfield stations.

I agree 100%!! I am considered to be in the NYC DMA but 100 miles (via car) or 85 miles LOS to the northwest of the city. There is very little regard to my local area as far as news, weather, etc. goes.

I would love to be able to get the Scranton / Wilkes-Barre area stations as at least I would have a better local weather forecast. Other than on the computer, my best source for weather is a weather radio station that operates from Honesdale, PA (originating broadcast cames from Binghamton, NY).

Cable used to give us the Scranton area channels (1 from Binghamton as well) but removed them to add more cable channels. TWC (The Weather Channel) on local cable is the pits around here as the main cable system (Time-Warner) is based 35 miles to my southeast and over 1000 feet lower in elevation so my local forecast is basically for the Hudson Valley and not the Catskill Mountains (where I am actually located). Because of this big difference in elevation, TWC locals on the 8's forecasts rain at times then I wake up to a foot of snow! Pathetic.

 

[jerryez]

Here is Newports email address:

E-mail: info@newporttv.com

 

[wkomorow]

For Freedom: info@link.freedom.com - contact person is Doreen Wade - President of Freedom Broadcasting.

For Newport Craig Miller (correct spelling is Millar) is Senior VP for Operations

 

[jmjunkin]

For Freedom: info@link.freedom.com - contact person is Doreen Wade - President of Freedom Broadcasting.

For Newport Craig Miller is Senior VP for Operations

It is Craig Millar I believe. He is the guy I talked with the first time and just emailed again late last night.

 

[wkomorow]

It is Craig Millar I believe. He is the guy I talked with the first time and just emailed again late last night.

100% correct - never trust my spellling

 

[jerryez]

So, what did Craig (whatever) have to say about an agreement with Dish?

 

[wkomorow]

I have only heard from my local stations (which have told me no time soon); no one from Freedom or from Newport has ever returned one of my emails. It would be interesting to know what the real issues are - maybe it is just money - maybe not.

 

[KAB]

I have only heard from my local stations (which have told me no time soon); no one from Freedom or from Newport has ever returned one of my emails. It would be interesting to know what the real issues are - maybe it is just money - maybe not.

It's ALWAYS just money!!!

 

[wkomorow]

It's ALWAYS just money!!!

Long-term, I agree; but short-term is may be about carriage of sub or sister stations. Newport also owns Variety TV and may be looking for a satellite outlook - I do not know - just throwing it out there. My thinking is that Dish has made agreements with a number of local stations for HD, so there must be a formula that hundreds of stations have accepted as reasonable - why would Newport, Freedom or Granite not. I just do not know. On the other hand - both Fredom and Newport seem to have financial problems.

 

[Apologist]

D* has had my Harrisburg locals for two years now. How come Charlie can't get the job done?

 

[Massmur]

In Ft. Myers, FL, NBC and ABC HD are not up. Fox and CBS are up. I don't know what's going on here. A query to Dish brought no response.

 

[wkomorow]

In Ft. Myers, FL, NBC and ABC HD are not up. Fox and CBS are up. I don't know what's going on here. A query to Dish brought no response.

They are both owned/operated by Waterman Broadcasting. Here is contact info:

Waterman Broadcasting Online - Adminstration

 

[dmendenjr]

D* has had my Harrisburg locals for two years now. How come Charlie can't get the job done?

Up until June it was Tribune (Fox 43) and Newport (CBS 21 /CW15) that were not playing ball. With e* and Tribune now playing nice; the only hold out would be newport. I don't know for certain; but I would be willing to bet that Newport wants both WHP (cbs) and WLYH (cw) carried.

But the bigger issue here is the lack of spot beam in the Harrisburg region. If the maps I've seen posted around here are accurate, then Harrisburg DMA is on the border of the Philly/NYC beam and the Balt/Washington beam. If you live northwest of H-burg, you are outside both spots; I think they have to be able to provide the entire DMA the HDLiL's (not just 50-70% of the market). Since they are no longer putting HDLiL's on CONUS and since there is not currently a spot that covers the entire area I doubt they will be lit round here for another few years... most of the blame going toward the lost spot beams of AMC14.

 

[jmjunkin]

So, what did Craig (whatever) have to say about an agreement with Dish?

He told me that since the sale of the stations had been finalized they were working on a carriage deals with DISH. That is basically all he said. Newport acquisition of the Clear Channel stations has only been final for a 4 months or so. I emailed the guy in May and just emailed him again late friday night. We will see if he emails me with an update.

 

[Apologist]

Up until June it was Tribune (Fox 43) and Newport (CBS 21 /CW15) that were not playing ball. With e* and Tribune now playing nice; the only hold out would be newport. I don't know for certain; but I would be willing to bet that Newport wants both WHP (cbs) and WLYH (cw) carried.

But the bigger issue here is the lack of spot beam in the Harrisburg region. If the maps I've seen posted around here are accurate, then Harrisburg DMA is on the border of the Philly/NYC beam and the Balt/Washington beam. If you live northwest of H-burg, you are outside both spots; I think they have to be able to provide the entire DMA the HDLiL's (not just 50-70% of the market). Since they are no longer putting HDLiL's on CONUS and since there is not currently a spot that covers the entire area I doubt they will be lit round here for another few years... most of the blame going toward the lost spot beams of AMC14.

Thanks for the info. Well that might just make me switch to D*. I can't hold the wife off on getting her a plasma in the LR. I have a projector in the HT and get Balt locals via an antenna in the attic. She would be pissed with a stretched image from locals.

 

[wkomorow]

Up until June it was Tribune (Fox 43) and Newport (CBS 21 /CW15) that were not playing ball. With e* and Tribune now playing nice; the only hold out would be newport. I don't know for certain; but I would be willing to bet that Newport wants both WHP (cbs) and WLYH (cw) carried.

But the bigger issue here is the lack of spot beam in the Harrisburg region. If the maps I've seen posted around here are accurate, then Harrisburg DMA is on the border of the Philly/NYC beam and the Balt/Washington beam. If you live northwest of H-burg, you are outside both spots; I think they have to be able to provide the entire DMA the HDLiL's (not just 50-70% of the market). Since they are no longer putting HDLiL's on CONUS and since there is not currently a spot that covers the entire area I doubt they will be lit round here for another few years... most of the blame going toward the lost spot beams of AMC14.

It is a much different issue because the Harrisburg DMA is split among spots, but there are DMAs in which some of the communities in the DMA are outside the spot. Parts of southern Berkshire county is in the Albany DMA but some of those communities are outside Direct 7S spotbeam and can not get them via Direct.

See:
CBS6 Albany - search for Southern Columbia.

 

[kvnfl]

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.

Have you tried OTA? According the antennae selector web site, my location was "fringe" for two markets. Before investing in a huge outdoor antennae, I went to Walmart and bought an amplified indoor antennae for about $30. Figured if it did not work Walmart would take it back. Plugged it into the TV and ran an automated search. Five minutes later the TV tuner pick up 43 HD channels from four different markets.

The tuner on my 722 sucks. It picks up local stations, but the picture pixellates all the time.

My indoor antennae is a Phillips MANT 540. Wanted a Trek TVa, but could not find one locally or online at the time.

 

[BrianHD]

It's going to come down to a group of E* customers boycotting local businesses that advertise on these stations who are unwilling to let satellite carry their channels. Of course you have to let the business know you will be boycotting them. That might change some minds.