New superstation?

[FTA Michael]

Sounds like Charlie's trying to grow a TBS/WGN competitor.

"Denver-based Echostar announced today that it will add the programming of Denver TV station KTVD to its national channel lineup.

"The station has contracts to broadcast games of baseball's Colorado Rockies, the NBA's Denver Nuggets, and the NHL's Colorado Avalanche. The new channel will carry ... over 90% of the station's other programming.

" 'We're happy to use this innovative method to deliver more quality sports programming to our Dish Network customers,' said Echostar Senior Vice President of Programming Michael Schwimmer."

Full story: http://www.timesstar.com/Stories/0,1413,125~1511~2055618,00.html

[TonyM]

real funny April Fool's joke, carload :)

There can't be anymore Superstations :)

[BobMurdoch]

D'OH!

[JohnH]

They are already distributed nationally on 4dtv, but somehow the story here don't jive with the story in the link or so it seems. :D

[BobJ2004]

Admin,

Please delete this thread. It is a waist of my lunch time.

[Geronimo]

I think that you would have to delete the day from the calendar.

[Chris Blount]

Admin,

Please delete this thread. It is a waist of my lunch time.

Sorry, it's my fault. I started it last night. :)

[garypen]

@#$%! April Fool's Day!

It was just believable enough to be true. Now...if someone posted that Dish downloaded updates overnight for the 811 and 921 that corrected every issue, and they now worked perfectly, I would have suspected something.

[ypsiguy]

Charlie should start his own channel, or buy a couple of them. It would increase his negotiating power with other companies like Viacom or Fox. I think Cablevision owns Fuse, AMC and Voom if I'm correct. Maybe a good takeover target for him.

[garypen]

Cablevision's cable channels are not really very good. AMC has mostly crap, since Time-Warner, Disney, and Viacom own most movie content. Fuse is a low budget MTV wannabee. They sold Sportschannel. They sold Bravo.

I can only imagine what an E owned or partnered channel wil look like. Oh yeah. It would look like Bingo TV.

[Adam Richey]

Fuse may be low budget, but they are anything but an MTV-wannabe. They are actually doing what MTV DOESN'T do. They play music the majority of the time on their schedule, and GOOD music. I know I'm probably in the minority of people that don't like rap and hip hop, but that is ALL any of the MTV channels play except an hour of rock somewhere during the day.

[garypen]

You are correct. Artistically, they are better than MTV. I wasn't really clear, I guess. Maybe I should have said wanabee-what-MTV-was-20-years-ago. However, the channel does look a little cheasy from a production standpoint.

Is IFC a Rainbow (Cablevision) channel? It's quite good, too. NO production value needed, since all they show is movies. The fact that they're indies, means there's a lot of quality content out there that isn't owned by the big studios (Disney, Warner/MGM, Viacom.) It may not be that way forever. But, in the mean time, I'm glad I get IFC.

I doubt very much that Dish has the ability or mentality to properly create any programming channels. One look at DishFYI, BingoTV, or Charlie Chat pretty much says it all.

[ehren]

That was bad, really bad. I "WAS" dreaming of 3 more Phillies telecasts.

Where is KTVD on 4dtv? Can you subscribe monthly?

[ypsiguy]

Fuse may be low budget, but they are anything but an MTV-wannabe. They are actually doing what MTV DOESN'T do. They play music the majority of the time on their schedule, and GOOD music. I know I'm probably in the minority of people that don't like rap and hip hop, but that is ALL any of the MTV channels play except an hour of rock somewhere during the day.
Ditto, man. Fuse is a lot better than MTV. They remind me of MTV from 1981 or so, when MTV had the guts to be controversial (sp?). MTV is just annoying crap now. I really wish they had gotten rid of it during the Viacom dispute. Oh well.... :lol:

[Mike Richardson]

Echostar has held an interest in ZDTV/TechTV for a long time now and a while ago that was a pretty good channel. (Paul Allen is the one who ruined it.)

[FTA Michael]

Well, my thoughts were that WGN and WTBS started as distant broadcasters and converted to cable networks. Considering the relative ease of starting networks these days, it made me wonder how difficult it would be to start with another independent station's lineup, subtract the local-license-only stuff, add old movie filler or somesuch, then market it as a new digital TV network.

Then it was April Fool's Day, when anything can happen! :)