Locals A La Carte - When did this change?

[Guest]

Well, I called Dish today to switch my locals from Chicago A La Carte to Madison since that is closest, and they said I could not do that. And that there were only 5 locals in the A La Carte Package now. When did this change? I know when I signed up 3 years ago that I could chose whichever locals I wanted. It was paired down about a year later when spotbeams came into play since I could not receive a number of them anymore...but I could still choose out of that bunch.

I'm pretty bummed right now...I was really looking forward to "local" news.

 

[James Long]

If you are outside the Chicago DMA then your reception of those stations is under their "Distant Networks" offering. All networks are not available to all locations under "Distant Networks" ... you have to live outside the Class B coverage of all stations broadcasting that network or get a waiver from your local broadcaster -- or be grandfathered as a subscriber to "Distant Networks" since before the rules changed (years ago).

Madison locals will be just the few local channels that a good antenna could pick up anyways. It is a separate offering from Distant Networks.

JL