When I said "the markets with no disputes" I was including all disputes, not just Nexstar. Remember that Dish was also having simultaneous disputes with several other broadcast station owners, including Apollo, Mission, Lilly, and probably some others that I am forgetting. I was trying to find markets with no current disputes at the time, and with no immediately upcoming disputes.
You are absolutely correct, and I never said that it was due to Nexstar. You asked if this thread was about Nexstar, and I replied that it originally was. The context of the discussion then expanded to also include other disputes, as you would see if you re-read the thread.
I asked James Long why the separate OTA guide data streams (as opposed to the ones that are linked to the satellite-delivered station's guide data) do not show up in his list. He provided an explanation that there is a technical reason why the markets for those OTA guide data feeds do not get mapped to his list. I don't feel like looking it up, but he posted it over on dbstalk, in their thread about the Nexstar dispute, if you want the explanation.
The lack of a link from the satellite-delivered station's guide data to the matching OTA channel (based on TSID, which these days may not match what the station is actually broadcasting. But I digress. The point is that Dish is trying to link the guide data.) is a legitimate means of predicting an upcoming dispute. Dish does not make these changes willy-nilly on a whim. If Dish bothers to remove the link to the satellite-delivered station's guide data, and goes to the trouble to uplink a separate guide data stream for OTA viewers, it means that Dish is actively preparing for a dispute. Furthermore, it means that Dish is anticipating that the stations will likely be dropped in the next couple of months, if not sooner. (Sometimes, there are contract extensions that push the actual drop date back farther than that, but the original contract expiration date is always within a relatively short time after Dish makes these changes.) It was exactly such an uplink that led to my post that started this thread, which actually did turn out to be correct. There is no way of knowing whether Dish actually has a long-term contract with a broadcast station owner, until they go to the effort to reverse the type of guide data changes that were linked in the first post. So, as long as the OTA guide data for those other Fort Myers stations is not mapped to the satellite-delivered version's guide data (and thus does not show up in James Long's local channels list) there is still a looming possibility that those stations will be dropped.
