Will digital transition affect carriage agreements?

[david_jr]

I am wondering if the analog shutoff will affect retransmission agreements with DISH and some of these media companies (Fisher, Freedom, etc.). DISH carries all of my locals in SD, but only 2 in HD. We are # 57 DMA in US. When analog is shutoff will agreements revert to HD or will we still have to wait for new agreements? In some of these it seems neither side is in a hurry to settle. Tired of waiting really. HD locals have been on here for almost a year with no settlement in sight.

 

[space86]

June 12th the analog shutoff new date, I wonder if they will push the date
back any further?

 

[Laddyboy]

I am wondering if the analog shutoff will affect retransmission agreements with DISH and some of these media companies (Fisher, Freedom, etc.). DISH carries all of my locals in SD, but only 2 in HD. We are # 57 DMA in US. When analog is shutoff will agreements revert to HD or will we still have to wait for new agreements? In some of these it seems neither side is in a hurry to settle. Tired of waiting really. HD locals have been on here for almost a year with no settlement in sight.

I think the holdouts are in financial distress and think they can reap a financial windfall, relatively speaking, by holding out until E* agrees to their terms. It seems fairly clear that E* isn't going to set a precedent by agreeing to significantly higher carriage fees. The behavior of the communication companies is sort of a good indicator as to how they got themselves into financial jeopardy in the first place.

 

[GNASH]

I am wondering if the analog shutoff will affect retransmission agreements with DISH and some of these media companies (Fisher, Freedom, etc.). DISH carries all of my locals in SD, but only 2 in HD. We are # 57 DMA in US. When analog is shutoff will agreements revert to HD or will we still have to wait for new agreements? In some of these it seems neither side is in a hurry to settle. Tired of waiting really. HD locals have been on here for almost a year with no settlement in sight.

Based on what I have seen, Digital Transition will have no impact on HD Carriage. All of our locals are the digital feed. (The last test the station ran, I checked and all passed on the Satellite Channels). We can NOT receive any of the HD's at our house as they are only available on the 61.5 bird which we can't see.

One of our Big 4 (CBS) is an HD hold-out, but we still are seeing the Digital SD channel.

Hope that answers the question,
Geoff

 

[whatchel1]

Little effect

I doubt the transition will have much effect. In the areas I know of E* takes all the signals off digital feed. They pretty much got ready for the original date. As far as on the ground that's a different story. Some stations have basically told the gov to stick it, they are going anyway. examples are where I live now 2 are going The others are not. In Seattle, WA they are all going on the 17th. In Amarillo,TX it is another some are and some are not. Lubbock, TX is another mixed bag. In San Francisco my brother says all are going. So we now have this major boondoggle going on with the transition.

 

[david_jr]

Do you mean that DISH is receiving the 1080i/720p digital channels and downrezzing them to 480i for SD channels? If so why would they have to pay more to show the HD? They do not charge any extra for locals in HD. If you subscribe to local package and you get HD, you get the HD channels too. You don't pay any extra for them other than the total HD package fee, which is 10 bucks I believe. The thought of the stations asking for more money to show the HD in addition to the SD is quite aggravating. Basically DISH gets no morew money to carry the HD local so they have no real incentive to settle and the station could potentially get more money by settling, but they want even more so they don't settle. OTA is driving me crazy here with the constant dropouts and watching the SD is painful when the HD is so much better. Thanks for the input though.

 

[navychop]

There will still be SD for a few years to come. Yes, they'll downrez HD to SD, and milk it for all it's worth for as many years as they can. Eventually, that well will run dry, and there will be no "HD tier."