knoxville, Tn. locals

[jyancey]

Anyone have any info on Knoxville, Tn locals. A couple of months ago when I would request distant locals for customers in this area the csr's were telling me they were getting pop-up windows that Knoxville was on the way. Now they tell me they have no info on Knoxville. All I can get from Dish is the standard letter they send to everyone that ask about locals. DirecTV has had them since Sept.

Thanks,
JYancey

[TNGTony]

Okay...Knoxville WAS on Dish's hit list and still may be, but here is what may be the problem:

Channel 6 is owned by Young Broadcasting. Dish and Young had a knock-down, drag-out fight including FCC petitions about Channel 2 in Nashville and KRON in San Fransisco. Reopening negociations may be a BIG problem. Channel 2 Nashville still wants to force their local cable news channel onto Dish and I think they have a different one in Knoxville.

Channel 8 is owned by Gray Communications. Dish and Gray are currently fighting it out over the CBS affiliate in Colorado Springs. Gray is withholding CBS from that market.

Channel 10 is owned by Gannett, channel 20 is owned by Acme (Wille E Cayote's favorite) and 43 is owned by Raycomm. These should not be a problem. Dish has a carriage deal with many other stations from these companies.

So it may be the other two stations that cooled Dish's heels. Again this is only an educated guess.

See ya
Tony

[Taz]

I to have ask....ask....ask...& ask about the Knoxville Tennessee Local channels and I have been told by one network out of Knoxville (ABC Channel 6) that they had done signed contracts with Dish and it was just them putting the locals up on satellite. I was told by the head one there that Dish Network was in the area checking on putting the locals on long before Directv was but that Directv came in and got it done and dish still hasn't said anything else to the stations I talked with. but I also did email a Dish Network person I think is in head of the contracts with putting up the locals and here was his reply from Dish Network when I ask if the Knoxville locals would be put up soon.............




There are no plans for an imminent launch of Knoxville. We do not have a spot beam over the DMA in which to carry locals here which means we would have to allocate conus bandwidth which is in short supply. I would not look for anything before next Summer at the earliest............ Eric S.

[jyancey]

Thanks guys. It is very frustrating when people are asking about getting a dish and want to know when the local channels will be up. I have had friends and neighbors call wanting a dish and telling me they are willing to wait if I can tell them an approximate time. I have finally started telling them to go with DirecTV because I can't get anything at all from my phone calls and emails to Dish.

jyancey