Status on Major Market locals

[Brett]

With Dish freeing conus space on 110, the merger called off, whats the status on Baltimore locals? (And Hartford, or some other higher ranked markets) I'm still confused why Dish chose Harrisburg and Burlington VT to put on prime North East spotbeam positions. Directv is using conus (non spot beam) positions right now to put locals up, there has to be space for Dish to put up the 7 Baltimore stations.

<<NBC is owned by Hearst, ABC is owned by Scripps Howard, UPN is owned by NewsCorp, CBS is owned by CBS, Fox/WB is owned by Sinclair, PBS is MPT>> The station groups are not the problem.

[JBKing]

...and TNGTony,

When will my city be available on dbs, and when that happens, will I lose my distants???? ;) :D

<sound of Tony's teeth gnashing....>

[TNGTony]

LOL!

[dmets]

It is driving me crazy that DirecTV has Columbus locals but Dish does not....

Columbus is like market 30 or 32. WTF! I understand the idea that Dish is going after small town america but this stinks. I have to pay to get lifeline cable. Drives me nuts....

CHARLIE, GET THE COLUMBUS LOCALS!!!

Dustin

[TNGTony]

dmets,

As I have mentioned every time some one brings up Columbus

1) There is no room at the inn right now. The Ohio spot beam is full beyond capasity with Cleveland, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Buffalo.

2) Columbus would have been added in 1999, but you can thank WBNS for helping E* to choose Cincinnati instead.

See ya
Tony

[Jacob S]

Dont forget they are too full to get Charleston, WV as well. Looks like they need another spotbeam satellite to get the rest of these locals up, even though we have a low DMA #, and its hard to tell when that will be if ever. It would be a shame to never have our locals up even though we do have a low DMA #. I figure if one satellite company will not offer it that the other will. Those markets that Dish will offer that has a high DMA # DirecTv will more likely not offer and vice versa.

[Mike123abc]

If they are able to buy R/L DBS they will have another spot satellite they could pick up 50+ markets with it. There is a lot of speculation on Wall Street that R/L DBS wants to sell. Of course these markets would require 2 dishes (one pointing at 61.5).

[Jacob S]

Not if they launch it to 110 instead if that is allowed.

[Mike123abc]

They might be able to put it at 110 but there are some limitations that may prohibit it...

1) 110 is about 48.5 degrees from 61.5, that is a major difference in tilt for the onboard antennas for the spot beams, it might be hard to get the markets they need covered from 110. Also, the uplink reciever dishes would suffer from the same problem.

2) Dish does not have the uplink capacity for it at 110 without more uplink centers. Dish has 29 uplink frequencies that they use at 2 centers now. So they have 58 effective uplink freqencies. They are using 25 on spots and 24 for CONUS right now. Maybe they could pick up an uplink center from R/L DBS to get more capacity. At 61.5 dish could use 60 uplinks (64 if they get the 2 unassigned assigned to them) with their existing 2 centers.

3) If Dish wants to put a bunch of HDTV or other national feeds up they would need 110 space. Smaller markets pointing at 61.5 would be easier than all markets needing to point there for HDTV if it catches on.

[Stu]

It is driving me crazy that DirecTV has Columbus locals but Dish does not....

Columbus is like market 30 or 32. WTF! I understand the idea that Dish is going after small town america but this stinks. I have to pay to get lifeline cable. Drives me nuts....

CHARLIE, GET THE COLUMBUS LOCALS!!!



Ditto for Norfolk VA........ DirecTV has the locals here..... but not DISH........

I'm not holding my breath for Dish to have Norolk up anytime soon.....:shrug:

[Jacob S]

Whether Dish gets it or Cablevision launches, it will be good either way, although I would like to get locals up here.

[Chris Freeland]

Originally posted by Jacob S
Whether Dish gets it or Cablevision launches, it will be good either way, although I would like to get locals up here.

I agree, I think in the long run it would benefit more people if R/L DBS would sell to E* , then they could add more locals rather then additional duplication of local channels. I do not believe the 11 TP frequencies that R/L DBS owns is enough to be a viable competitor to E*, D* and cable, nor do I believe that a niche DBS service can be profitable. I think Cablevision would be better off to sell their R/L DBS assets to E* and concentrate on their core cable tv business.

[Jacob S]

Could Dish own a lot of stock in that company and help with certain operations such as not duplicating the locals that are available on that slot and then those that they would not offer have a dish at 110 or 119 to pick the ones that Dish has? Maybe this would not be a good route to go or not even legal.

All of the cities that the company would offer would be on the east coast so I could see a better chance of those that do not have their city today on the east coast to being carried by this company in a way, because they would be concentrating on the east coast.