New Satellite Bill Passes

[chaddux]

You can read a story about it from Reuters.

Will this only affect markets that have locals on two DISH satellites or will all local channels be moved to a new satellite forcing a second dish in all markets?

 

[dfergie]

ahhh but the definition of "locals" sucks.... my local is over 300 miles away

 

[Oceangrace24]

it still has the pass the senate and then be signed into law.. not a done deal yet..

 

[chaddux]

it still has the pass the senate and then be signed into law.. not a done deal yet..

I know. I still want to know how it will affect markets which currently have all locals on a single dish, like mine. I don't need a second dish now and certainly don't want a second dish.

 

[waltinvt]

But what about the "digital white area" ?

All of this pales in comparsion to whether or not there's a "digital white area" clause in the final bill (as it was included in the McCain - Ensign draft in the Senate). That's what's going to give satellite permission to provide the HD signals of distant networks to those that can't get them OTA.

WaltinVt

 

[mikew]

Most likely, they will move several two-dish markets to the side slots.

Example:
Las Vegas shares it's spotbeam with Bakersfield. A second dish is required in Vegas for one channel. Since the Bakersfield DMA is much smaller, they'll probably move all of Bakersfield to 148 and move the Vegas channel over to 110.

Fresno shares it's spotbeam with Santa Barbara. Either SB or Fresno moves to 148 allowing all of the channels to either be on 110 or 148.

Sacramento shares it's spotbeam with Salinas/Monterey. Sacramento gets 110 and Salinas/Monterey gets 148.

If all of your channels are already on one dish, nothing will happen.

 

[dfergie]

Albuqurque has most on 110 with a few religious and spanish on 148...would be no big deal as I have 148 for Cbshd west..