Week of 30 March 2009
Tuesday
Watch out, Bakersfield: it's likely that the Univision RC spat could cause the loss of KUVI, Univision's only English-language station. (It's a MyNetworkTV affiliate.)
A huge jump in option awards raises Charlie's compensation. Yet Dish was devastating in 2008.
Carl Vogel resigns his post but remains on the board of directors.
Monday
New this afternoon: Get ready for a SlingLoaded cable box from EchoStar. MSO labs will get the beauty in June 2009, and volume production will start in the fourth quarter. The news comes as The Cable Show '09 gets started in our nation's capital.
¡Ay! Univisión no puede hablar con Dish porque ustedes quieren dinero! (What I just said: Get ready for another RC dispute.) Univisión fired back by saying that Dish would not accept industry-standard retrans deals. While the contract ends at 11:59 tomorrow night, the March sweeps (delayed due to DTV) end April 1, and so the signal would be cut April 2. Univision owns 64 stations and operates its namesake network, Telefutura, and Galavisión.
Week of 23 March 2009
Wednesday
News Items
The Consumerist: DirecTV wanted $500 for service that this guy had canceled.
Tweet tweet! Someone scored Cincinnati HD locals with Twitter and contacting Dish.
MCN: With IP-Prime going away, EchoStar is trying to woo customers over to their ViP-TV.
The Justice Department is going after Dish. Robo-calls made by dealers draw Dish into the mix. (MCN | B and C)
Uplink Report Highlights
Rejoice, Fargo: KXJB, KVLY, and KVRR have been uplinked and were made available in HD to 129.
NOTAX has reappeared on 201 for someone and is gone from 211. C-SPAN2 and C&T were added to 119 and 77 (C-SPAN2 is now on 211). HD locals coming soon or added now: WWHO (a rare CW affiliate), KESQ and KMIR (rejoice, Palm Springs!), KCAL.
WQMY, the MyNetworkTV affiliate for Williamsport, Pennsylvania, is also coming soon. Its signal was added to 9250 today but is not available to subscribers just yet.
Rejoice, Terre Haute (WTHI, WTWO, WFXW): Selma, AL (WAKA); Odessa, Texas (KOSA, KPEJ), and Miami (WSFL)! You just got the aforementioned HD locals.
WSAH was made available.
Preview dance...new channels are DIY and Planet Green.
More shuffling has happened at AAD: San Francisco locals are gone from the 5700s. JohnH says that a channel cleanup is to blame.
Week of 16 March 2009
Wednesday
Fire those K-GUNs! Tucson HD locals have been uplinked, but aren't available yet.
Rejoice, Pittsburgh! HD locals have hit 129 for you!
Internationals do the happy global preview dance.
Rejoice, Duluth, Yakima, Indianapolis, Corpus Christi, Kern County, Charlottesville, and Atlantic City! The first five markets got HD locals, WVIR-D (CW) was awarded to Charlottesvile, and WMGM (the secondary NBC affiliate for Philly) got on too.
Rejoice, Britton, Texas! KODF, presumably an Azteca América affiliate, is now on Dish.
FANDO changed from a data channel on 19210 to a data channel on 19210. FANDO is likely related to the Monday deal between Dish and Comcast Fandango (OpenTV + movie ticket ordering).
The march of MPEG2's deletion continues, as 5700 versions of the Atlanta locals fall by the wayside.
Two Abilene and two San Angelo market locals moved to tp 3 on 148.
HD Business channels moved to tp 17 on 121. (huh? 121? what's that? just kidding)
Various virtual channels for Charlottesville moved to 15s39 on 129 Ciel 2.
Week of 9 March 2009
Saturday
A retailer chat snuck by me - and Scott - overnight. The major news: a major HD local launch in 90 days with some locals on both arcs, several HD expansions planned for the next few months, and Dish will actually be updating its retailer website to support the latest and greatest web standards. The new smart cards are being phased in, with premium services getting Nagravision 3 within the next few weeks and the whole enchilada cooked and eaten by Q3.
Wednesday
An employee at the Harlingen, Texas customer service center did the MCN Talkback to that cover story on Monday. The revelations are shocking indeed.
i work for dish and it seem that the company is doing bad all of a sudden we have to kiss butt on every phone call we cannot allow a customer to hang up if they even hint they want to cancel we must offer them a 50 dollar discount over 5 months, to try and keep there account (hardly worth it huh) no matter how loud a customer yells how may times a customer curses at me or insults me (they are right) no one from a supervisor to a manager will step in to calm the customer down, right now they are even forcing us to work 6 days a week to keep the average call wait to 30 seconds. if you ask me we should be able to hang up on the person who call in to say how much they hate dish, in that time i can help out someone who needs help, if i do not agree to work 6 days i can lose my job. i have always thought you cannot force great customer service out of an agent and that is exactly what they are doing at work, by now our customers know that all they have to do is call in and yell enough and the fee or charge will get waived even though they are wrong,
In summary: churn is so high that they must offer discounts, CSRs must work 6 days a week, and not agreeing to do these things could get this guy fired.
Another alarming comment: "Take it from someone who works there now that this company is a disaster. Employees hate working for this jerk and leave daily and he does nothing to make it any better. When the economy turns around there will be no one left but the idiots who drank the kool-aid"
Bruce from Ohio says the following: "Dish isn't broken.. It was never together. When I worked for Dish (97-99), I used to say the company was successful in spite of itself. There was no teamwork between departments. Everyone was 'right' and no one listened to anyone else. I 'hear' it's pretty much the same as it ever was. Which is a shame because when I first started I thought it was the end of cable. The company needs to come together internally and start listening to it's employees. Charlie likes to play hardball, so my suggestion is to drop the ueseless NFL Network and get the NFL to quit playing favorites with the Sunday ticket. That will get the phones to light up."
And a blogger in Orlando chimes in: "Why there is no mentioning of Dish's legendary tradition of constant dropping 24/7 ad-free HD channels without any explanation and never-stopping dispute with content provider? Dish's attitude toward customers is like Taliban's attitude toward woman in Afghanistan. Also their customer service is really really terrible, several time I was left by the CSR for good (I waited for 40 min with their non-personal ugly music). Oh, did I mention that those contractors also hate Dish? They almost always tell the customer that DirectV is better choice and better picture quality (I disagree with PQ). Several popular HD channels have never been added. I often found it stupid for people to say Dish's subscriber has low income. Tons of low income hispanics in Orlando area have directv, Directv vs. Dish is like 10:1 here. Despite the price is lower (Their current HD price is no longer competitive anymore), I still hate them and can't wait to pay $120 to terminate and switch to Uverse, despite the fee will rise about $40 Dish is going to file chapter 7 in 12 months. Those people on Wall Street, I also feel they are low quality, because they always fault Dish like: bad economy, lower income customer base, complicated package. Clearly those people have no clue on why Dish is losing, it is bad product, bad attitude and fundamentally bad management. No wonder our economy is near collapse." (The reference to the Taliban and women implies hostility. The Taliban is known for bombing schools to keep the girls out.)
The TMC, Showtime, and BET Jazz HD channels just went live today.
A sweeping 5 satellite addition (61.5, 110, 148, 129C2, 118.7) addition of PIRTV on 125 and 573. I'm guessing that this is to be aimed to pirates. Yarrrr!
Tribune affiliates in some markets are getting beamed up: WTTV and WSFL are coming soon as local channels on spotbeams for Indianapolis and Miami. Given the ownership, this is likely part of the major Tribune deal reached a few months ago.
Along with that shocker came WVIRD for Charlottesville, Virginia, a CW affiliate. (The other network affiliations (excluding NBC) are part of a great Gray Television triopoly.)
CBS College Sports went into a free preview at the programmer's request. The preview is supposed to run March 13 to April 7 but has likely been rounded to the nearest Wednesday.
REJOICE!Indianapolis (without WTHR), Eugene, Montgomery AL, Lafayette, Monterey-Salinas, Santa Barbara et al., Salt Lake City, KRON San Francisco, Houston, and a sprinkling of Eastern Arc for Houston all get HD or MPEG4 SD. There are three new map types: MAP-A for Eastern Arc, MAP-B is something else (engineering?), and MAP-C is for HD locals. WSFL and WTTV both have MAP-C in their uplinks.
Four temp channels were deleted, as were the MPEG4 SD MAP-B Topeka locals, a MAP-B WHP, and MAP-B WTEV/WAWS/KLRT locals.
Two international channels are moving off 61.5. They've been moved to tp 18 and weeklong replacements have been added in the 6100s.
Monday: Recap of the Recap
Holy mooing cow! '''TMC HD and two Showtime HD channels plus BET Jazz HD Wednesday, MTV Networks and Spike HD April 1!''
HD local launches this month: Albany GA, Bakersfield (without something...), Corpus Christi, Duluth, Erie, Eugene, Fargo, Indy, Lafayette, Monterey CA. Coming soon: Baton Rouge, Butte MT, Cheyenne (!), Chico-Redding CA, Columbus OH, Columbus-Tupelo MS, Fort Smith AR, Ft Wayne IN, Gainesville, Grand Junction, Great Falls, Idaho Falls, Johnstown, La Crosse, Laredo TX, Medford, Meridian MS, Minot, Missoula, Panama City, Roanoke, Rockford IL, Sherman-Ada, Sioux Falls, Tucson (yay Charles!), Twin Falls, Wausau, Youngtown.
FX and Speed are in negotiations.
MLB Network would have to be in EVERY package DN would sell to be on Dish. (Yeep!)
Fisher and Dish are caught in the net of retransmission consent. This'll take forever to sort out.
922 June 1st.
Tonight, the first in what could possibly be a series of open letters to a Charles Ergen in Meridian, Colorado.
Dear Charlie:
Have you ever read Multichannel News? If you have, each week, they come out with a different cover story and write multiple articles on it. Well...this is today's cover story from MCN: "Is Dish Broken?". When you see that, sir Charlie, you have done something wrong. And in this case, you have. Your stance on retransmission consent has alienated many a subscriber over the years, and the situation now with Fisher Communications could spell disaster in the Northwest. I understand the litigation underneath precludes a settlement. But Charlie, you must fix things for the better of your business. Speaking of litigation, you have mired yourself in it. MLB, TiVo, Fisher, CalAmp. In just the 17 months that I have run the EchoStar Knowledge Base News Monitor, I've seen quite a few trials. DirecTV probably laid a goose egg in that sector, sir. When your rival is up and you're down, you know something's wrong.
I suggest you go to Scott Greczkowski's wonderful Multichannel News problem and read of the ideas he proposes. He is a Dish Network retailer and founder of one of two influential satellite TV discussion forums, satelliteguys.us. I suggest you consider his advice, for it may save a flagging Dish Network.
Sincerely, Raymie Humbert
Week of 2 March 2009
Thursday
SP, Tip Line International Expert, saves me again! AGAPY 775 is Aghapy TV from Cairo, and they're actually moving from Telstar 25 to Dish Network.
Dish terminated several retailers.
Wednesday: Uplink Report Highlights
On Tuesday, 9645 became a SCENE IT LF commercial.
Atlanta is now New York on AAD, as previously reported.
New international on 775: AGAPY. As always, info wanted on the tipline.
More HD: Jacksonville, Harrisburg, Topeka, Little Rock, Peoria. New locals: WSAH (shopping), WMGM (secondary NBC in Philly).
International preview dance. Some Ciel 2 locals come online, including Las Vegas, Colorado Springs, Idaho, Reno, Rio Grande Valley, Memphis.
KTEN-D is now available.
Internationals gone from 61.5 in favor of 118.
Unavailable MPEG4 SD versions of now-HD services gone.
Monday
Earnings: Dish loses 102,000 subs, Charlie thinks 2009 will be OK and Craig Moffett objects.
Week of 23 February 2009
Wednesday: SHVERA and More
Charlie at a briefing: 20-hours local or we won't carry it. 17% of Dish locals have no local content.
The uplink report: More locals being redied. WPTY, WKRC, KWKT, Fort Smith, and Grand Junction could come in HD soon.
KTEND was added to 7524, and KETH was added to 8386. KTEND is a CW affiliate (likely part of the reason KTEN is even available), while KETH is the TBN affiliate for Houston. Unavailable.
REJOICE! HD WKPT, WCIV, KVIA, WJHL, KDBC, WCSC, WCBD, WCYB, KTSM, KFOX, WTAT, WEMT, WCL, WTXL, WTOC, WCTV, WSAV, WTWC, WTGS, WTLH, KOKI, and SD WOAC were made available.
Tuesday: SHVERA
It seems to be time to reform SHVERA. Everyone has a different angle: Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA) wants it renewed and retrans consent reformed. Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) wants Dish to have to carry PBS multicast channels. Dish and DirecTV agreed that the DMA system needed changes and that broadcast carried too much power. MCN | B and C
Charlie says he has four fixes for SHVERA, which address 1) consumers unable to get state public affairs/news due to multi-state DMAs, 2) rural communities without major networks (likely including digital subchannels - Yuma El-Centro?), 3) long retrans fights, and 4) "satellite" stations that are covered under the must-carry umbrella. He also likes retrans consent reform and wants a 20-hours-local mandate for must-carry stations. B and C | MCN
And a guy named Ferree is leaping into the battle. The former FCC Media Bureau chief says that satellite ways should be changed in order to "recognize the 'extremely competitive' video delivery market". Significantly-viewed adjacent-market local channels for DMA-split markets are part of his idea, too. MCN | B and C
A comment to the B and C version of the Ferree story proposes this: "What about customers in DMAs where the channel switched to digital and the digital signal does not serve the DMA due to dropouts or weak signal. Cuustomers who do not get a digital signal 100% of the time should also be allowed to get out of market signals. Example KALB has moved from ch 5 to ch 35 and no longer serves the same area it once did but the DMA has not been changed and customers with no signal are still being told they can not get distant signals". This is a good idea, as digital signals don't have the carry of analog - and they're mostly UHF, which doesn't sit well in rugged terrain (West Virginia, for example). I think more DMAs would be the only way to solve the issue, or special translator services in weak areas.
WSYR and WXXA HD were turned on today.
Lots of delays at Dish México...at least for México City. Other areas have been launched, but poor Aransay has been kept waiting.
NPS announced its distant nets service will swap Atlanta for NYC locals March 4 due to PQ issues. Aransay had a post on this in the Uplink Report, and a SatelliteGuys thread also announces the change.
Week of 16 February 2009
Wednesday: The Uplink Report Highlights
A bunch of new HD locals coming soon on 61.5: WRCB Chattanooga, WOLF NE PA, KHAS Hastings NE, KTXS Sweetwater TX, WCTI New Bern, WSYR Syracuse, WFXI Morehead City NC, WXXA Albany. Also coming soon is the Multicultural TV station WOAC (which really airs infomercials).
AIT, an international channel, was removed, as were UWTV and GSN in the PI range. GSN appears to have ceased operations. CSPAN, TBN, and EWTN also debuted in the PI range.
Rejoice, Toledo, Dayton, Cedar Rapids, Springfield IL, Fresno, and New Orleans! You've got new HD locals on the air.
Call letter change: KWBF to KARZ. This is much faster than normal for Dish, as the change occurred on February 1. KWBF recently got bought out by KARK/Nexstar from Equity, which is not in good shape right now.
Tuesday
Liberty Media bought a bunch of Sirius XM stock, rescuing the flagging company. The investment is estimated at $530 million, and Liberty gets approximately 40% in the company and its board. Broadcasting and Cable | The Consumerist | Gizmodo | Betanews
MCN: DirecTV beat the odds and added 301,000 subscribers in the fourth quarter, "defying gravity" as Craig Moffett puts it.
It's the TiVo hearing, day one. Betanews puts it in context.
Dish announced that its 4Q earnings conference call would be March 2. As always, the News Monitor will have analysis and coverage of the day's news.
A bevy of television stations are turning off analog today. The Associated Press writes: "A patchwork of 641 stations across the country, mainly in thinly populated areas, are still turning off their analog broadcasts this week or have already done so. The most populous markets where many or all major-network stations are cutting analog include San Diego and Santa Barbara, Calif.; Providence, R.I.; La Crosse and Madison, Wis.; Rockford, Ill.; Sioux City, Iowa; Waco, Texas; Macon, Ga.; Scranton, Pa.; and Burlington, Vt." One station in most affected markets will stay on as the analog nightlight to provide news and public affairs information. (Read the AP story)
Week of 9 February 2009
Wednesday
A first in satellites occurred: an Iridium satellite and Russian satellite have collided 500 miles over Siberia.
Sirius XM could go Chapter 11. Charlie's chunk of their debt just matured, too. The legendary Muzak has fallen into Chapter 11 too, and Scott thinks it's related to a rumored double buyout of Muzak and Sirius XM. (If Charlie does that, things will not look good.
A Democratic representative from Michigan proposed that satellite channels carry all 210 DMAs.
It's another round of 77 West News, and the mythical Q*1 could be coming. QuetzSat 1 is slated for a 2011 launch at 77 West. The odd name comes from the quetzal, national bird of México.
Monday Recap of the Recap from the Tech Forum, brought to you by DBSTalk: 922 has a new program guide with logos, a weather application, tickers, and lots of other cool features. The 722k will be out in a few weeks with Custom Groups that manage DVR content and will also come to the 612/622/722 line.
Uplink Report Highlights: EchoStar V shuts down. Lots of new stuff flooding Ciel 2, and the international previews shuffle around again. WMFD and WJHG-D, either a CW or MyNetworkTV affiliate (there are both available). QTV, an international, is gone, and the 148 exodus continues with San Angelo and Abilene. TDIS -> DISXD, part of the Disney XD rebrand set for Saturday. TJC is now MERC - more info wanted on the tip line. WTOK3 became WTOKD, a CW affiliate.
Week of 2 February 2009
Saturday
Orbitcast: Would Dish/EchoStar be able to take over Sirius XM? The prospect is really interesting, as EchoStar has been taking big chunks of debt from them. Would the FCC allow it, I wonder?
Wednesday
Lots of Ciel-2 moves. Internationals also moved off 61.5 to 118 fully.
WRAY, WMFP, et. al, WJEB, KDMI, and other stations were turned on.
Mappings have been removed in Casper, and the KAZT map is now 7, the actual full-power channel number.
The NDTV channel was turned on, and a few previews shuffled around. ShopNBC is now on 134. Fox News is now in a monthlong free preview.
TiVo Update: Some sort of motion and patent defense.
Tuesday
A correction to the telco story yesterday...I was talking MAJOR telcos as stated in Multichannel News's original article.
A huge pairing of additions came today, and the EKB Smart List filled up on the story. A carriage renewal deal with Fox brings the widening of FNC's distribution (MCN), the launch of its HD network, and the launch of the Fox Business Network (TVNewser. This now signals the second of three major gaps in FBN's distribution closed (the third being Cablevision of New York City). FBN is now in 50 million homes (Broadcasting and Cable) and FNC's Dish distribution to 11 million homes.
Barclays has reduced its stake in DirecTV, selling 45 million shares.
Crime and Investigation HD replaced the Smithsonian today.
Monday
Dish has a new chief marketing officer/senior VP, Ira Bahr. Bahr formerly worked with Dish Network in a similar post.
The end is here...the last telco using Dish for bundles has switched to DirecTV.
My EKB Smart List got flooded today...it contains the keyword "Comcast" - and two hours to the south, Comcast customers (keep in mind that Cox is dominant there too) got porn. (The first link is considered NSFW, which for those who don't read blogs means has a sexual connotation, genitals, or other similar matters; it contains video of the event.) It's rumored that everyone is getting a $5 discount from Comcake Cable. Everybody from The Consumerist to Gizmodo to Multichannel News and Broadcasting and Cable got in on the story. It was not KVOA (the NBC affiliate)'s fault, which isolates the problem to Comcast. The HD feed was not affected, either.
Week of 26 January 2009
Wednesday
New Ciel2 locals and WNBW for those in Gainesville. KUIL got dropped, which was not a surprise (I reported on it last month). My guess? Since they no longer have Fox (and are now a WCIU knockoff), they weren't good enough for Dish. A preview danceand the turning on of KBMT-D, and we have the week.
News backlog: NFL Network, A&E, MTV Networks, a new analyst, Comcast Spotlight and NCC tackle RSN ad sales, Scotty rants about 2009, a Kevin Martin D* order, and one analyst's report takes DISH up 11%! (Right now, SATS is worth more than DISH.)
Week of 19 January 2009
Wednesday
New locals getting ready at 148.
Internationals at 148 in the 6100s...they're movin', folks! Their primary channels are all on tp 11, which is a signal of moves. 148, which has been a half-location since EchoStar II's death, is being cleared off (likely to remove it, as EchoStar I is rather moribund).
More Eastern Arc MPEG4 SD locals for markets nationwide.
Rejoice! WPCH is up on 6369 now. Yay!
RFI has left the air. The audio channel on 660 was removed.
WSEE-T is gone, and WVXF has been replaced from WSEEP. This is a special variant of WSEE, the Erie CBS affiliate.
A bunch of TMP moves. These channels are HD in the 4800s.
WTOK-D was changed to WGBC-D, and is presumably now a Fox affiliate.
Week of 12 January 2009
Thursday
More interactive tennis on DirecTV. DirecTV also announced it would begin carrying the Sportsman Channel on Wednesday.
Where exactly did Dish launch new stuff? Turns out the new services were in Abilene, Joplin, Little Rock, Louisville, Springfield MO, Wichita Falls, and Scranton-Wilkes-Barre.
The DTV transition is merely a month away, and a few shady Dish installers will inevitably take advantage of it...and this installer has by saying Dish was the only alternative to nothing.
Wednesday: Uplink Report Highlights
Ciel-2 is revving up with HD locals for Atlanta, Austin, Beaumont, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Des Moines, Detroit, Fargo, Fort Myers, Grand Rapids, Green Bay, Joplin, Kansas City, Lincoln, Los Angeles, Memphis, Minneapolis, Mobile, Nashville, Norfolk, Omaha, Orlando, Palm Springs, Peoria, Pittsburgh, Raleigh, Richmond, Roanoke, Sherman-Ada, St. Louis, Tampa, Topeka, Waco, West Palm Beach, Wichita Falls, Abilene, Casper, Charlottesville, Charleston-Huntington WV, Clarksburg-Weston WV, Columbus again, Dayton, Erie, San Angelo, Sioux City, Wausau, Fairbanks, Juneau, Indianapolis, Bakersfield, and many, many other markets!
INDUS is on 678 at 61.5 tp 18 (probably related to internationals).
A slew of temps on 110, 61.5, and 129 in the 4800s. New HD channels!?
Free preview changes...
842 and 853 were removed.
WCEU was changed to WDSC. This is a PBS affiliate affiliated with Daytona State College in Florida.
Lots of legal news: The USPTO might think TiVo's patent is invalid (or their claims are wrong! The NFL Network trial is scheduled for June, and both sides are declaring victory.
EchoStar will be delivering satellite services for emergency management under a deal with Vredes.
Monday
It's been a Slingy week...the founders of Sling have left EchoStar and Betanews has a first look at the 922.
That Fox News item I posted about the other week was a half-joke, I've been informed.
It's a case of Freedom is Slavery, as the CBS affiliate in Grand Rapids isn't in HD on Dish, and Freedom Communications hasn't negotiated: "We have been in a dispute with DISH for the last year. The main issue is compensation. At this point, either side seems willing to bend. This dispute affects all of our Freedom Stations in six states. I do not expect an early resolution to this dispute. Have you considered changing services?". There's contact details in the thread.
Sunday
BobaBird does have CES pictures, but scaling them is a mess right now...and once he has a finished product, they will be linked to from here.
The 922 was lauded and won Best of CES!
Week of 5 January 2009
Friday
SP at the tip line: The NDTV channel coming to 574 is NDTV Imagine (citing this source) and not the DirecTV-exclusive NDTV 24x7.
Thursday
My, my! Today was one of the biggest days for News Monitor materials, with no less than four blogs talking Charlie. Multichannel News reported that Dish is to offer a $10.00 promotional package to new customers on the 1st. The 922 will have a touchpad on its unique remote. The UI and remote for the 922 were knighted as CES Innovations 2009 Design and Engineering Award recipients.
Our friends at Gizmodo report on the Sling Monitor, a 15-inch HD display that you can "Sling" video to from the 922 using Wi-Fi.
Sling Media unveiled the web-based SlingGuide. If the DVR is SlingLoaded (922) or has a Slingbox hooked to it, people can watch their DVR shows through a web version of SlingPlayer built into SlingGuide. The first availability will occur with the launch of the 922. (read the Betanews coverage)
SlingPlayer was released in beta form for BlackBerry.
Morning catches from my feeds:
KTKA is back on as Free State reaches a deal with Dish. KTKA HD will also be in the cards when Topeka HD locals launch.
The 922 it is! Gizmodo gets a presser from Dish and I see this beautiful news item in my feed list. It even looks like there's an iPhone-specific experience for it. 1 TB or storage, Sling capabilities, coming spring 2009. The SlingLoaded logo appears on the front of the box, as does the TurboHD logo.
Wednesday: Uplink Report Highlights
NDTV 24/7 will be added on 574. This channel is an Indian news service used by MSNBC during the Mumbai attacks.
Abilene will soon get KTAB and KRBC in HD.
A bevy of internationals waltzed to the 6100s and were moved to tp 18 on 61.5, an impending sign of their removal.
ITMP1 is on 61.5 tp 18 and is likely related to the internationals' removal.
New channels: WPCH HD has been reuplinked (but on a spot beam), WIPB Muncie, WCHU Rochelle, WMFD Mansfield, and KDMI Des Moines.
New digital subchannel info additions in Texas, Ohio, and Michigan. The Texas addition is KBTX, which could be a sign of retransmission consent agreements FINALLY occurring for this Bryan, Texas TV station.
International preview changes.
Rejoice, Huntsville and Alaska-Hawaii! It's new HD for both, with Huntsville getting WAAY and our 49th and 50th states receiving HD channels like TLC and The Weather Channel HD.
Holiday mapdowns were removed and 982 has disappeared.
WSEET appeared on 7985 for Puerto Rico. Unavailable, and even Nel J. Torres is confused with the switch back to WSEE, the CBS affiliate for Erie, Pennsylvania.
Bill O'Reilly and friends as well as a ton of other networks could be coming to Dish HD if this rumor (and this rumor) are correct, with a CSR confirming Fox News HD coming soon.
The 722s is possibly now the 922, which will be the Swiss Army of Dish Network.
KTKA got dropped then reached a deal. Missed this retrans consent spat.
Tuesday
Sling Media plans to release an iPhone client by March and support HD streaming on the Mac.
NBC added in Beaumont, but WYBE is removed as a PBS duplicate when it isn't.
Week of 29 December 2008 cont'd.
Monday through Wednesday are at the 2008 archives.
Thursday
General new year housekeeping.
Of course, MLB Network isn't on Dish - blame Charlie's refusal to renew Extra Innings. The EI renewal deal also included a stake in MLB Network equity.