Week of 29 June 2009
Wednesday
Rejoice! A huge swath of HD locals has been made available, and I am so excited because some big retrans consent news is hidden within. As I reported, KBAK, Eau Claire/La Crosse, Panama City, and Wausau were part of the HD Tuesday, but Fort Wayne was thrown in this morning too as expected. There's also retransmission consent stuff within, stuff that allows me to remove some stations from Quincy Newspapers, Schurz Communications, and the entire Newport Broadcasting and Granite/Malara Broadcasting portfolio. WPTA and WISE, owned by Malara (a shell company for Granite) and Granite, are available in HD, and combined with WKBW HD last week, it's huge.
The smart card channels and another set of internationals were removed.
TV9TE, an international, is now available.
KSWO has been added again in HD. It's been added and removed like crazy of late, likely while Dish talks to its owner Drewry Communications.
KCWL changed to KFXL. It now is the same content as KSNB and KTVG, and most of the market will get its CW from KXVO Omaha.
Beckley-Bluefield locals are marching in with the uplink of a slew of them. Being offered are WOAY (ABC), WVNS (CBS), WVVA (NBC), WVNS-DT2 (Fox, mapped to 8), WLFB (religious), and WSWP (PBS). Expect a launch in the next two weeks if Dish's tradition holds.
Cable could pony up more than Dish and DirecTV: SNL Kagan projects that retrans revenues could hit $1.2 billion in 2011. 62% of this year's fees have come from the top 25 markets, and the average payment is 25 cents per subscriber.
sTuesday
Another HD Tuesday, and good news abounds: Panama City locals (no CBS - very weird situation where Dothan's CBS and Panama City's NBC are co-owned and they provide services for the other market (Dothan CBS for Panama City and Panama City NBC for Dothan) but can't be carried together), KBAK (no KBFX, as they do not have an HD OTA signal right now), Eau Claire/La Crosse (all four!) and Wausau (WAOW, WSAW, WJFW, WFXS) tomorrow. But there's something that caught my eye, and if you live in Cedar Rapids, Rockford, Quincy, Madison, Rochester MN, South Bend, or Sioux City, it could mean a new HD local for you: Eau Claire and Wausau include the W_OW stations, owned by Quincy Newspapers. This is a first, because QNI and Dish have been at an HD retrans impasse for a while now. It's huge news!
Week of 22 June 2009
Wednesday: Uplink Report Highlights
The HD Tuesday locals were delivered on time, as was KVER in SD (uplinked last week), the Univisión affiliate in Palm Springs. Also, another market is coming soon in SD, and the Mississippi Delta might want to stock up on party supplies; WABG, WXVT, WABG-DT2 (Fox map 32), and WMAO are up on 129 now. The market does not have an NBC affiliate.
Another set of internationals went off 148 today, bu the most striking item in the set is the removal of a string of local channels. The connecting factor is that each one is owned by Equity, the bankrupt broadcaster forced to auction off its stations - and these never had digital operations. In the case of some (like KLMN), they have new owners willing to restore the signal (Max Media), but quite a few were bought by the Daystar network and will likely never return to Dish. The only major stations pulled were some Fox affiliates in Montana (Max Media) and the MyNetworkTV affiliate in the Springfield market (to be bought by Daystar).
The long form channel rotated names to V12 today (advertising deodorant, I believe), and GPUNJ channel 621 was added. (SP, what is GPUNJ?) Art Sports 601, BBC Arabic 606, HKYAT 777, and a new DNFYI 829 were made available. 829 is between the Univision and Telefutura E/W feeds, and if someone would tell me what that slate says to my tip line or Twitter, I would be very happy. (No need to translate if in Spanish.)
SHVERA, SHVERA! Draft versions could allow Dish to put HD and SD on separate dishes.
Tuesday
Setanta UK has fallen into administration (the equivalent of bankruptcy in the US) but does not affect its international and US businesses.
A fiber cut forced Dish locals to black in a number of markets earlier. Reports say Columbus OH, Fort Smith AR, Tri-Cities TN VA, Memphis, and others. Dish Twitter gave me a boilerplate message and told me at 2:14 local time that they were back.
HD Tuesday on Twitter: looks like the days of missing HD locals for some may disappear! KVAL, KIDK, KBCI, KIMA, and WKBW HD for tomorrow.
Monday
WKRN is off the air due to a power outage at the transmitter site. And evidently, it wasn't just them: 40/29 (KHBS/KHOG Fort Smith) had a transmitter issue that forced them off the air on Dish and DirecTV for a long time (the KHBS transmitter fell dead on the 13th) that was fixed just a few hours ago.
Global Communications might be dancing with Dish in Florida court: another lawsuit was found, this time on Dish Pro Plus.
Week of 15 June 2009
Friday
Overnight uplink: KQFX-LP ch 22/38 has been turned on in HD. They just got their own HD signal OTA on 22, but the EPG still maps KQFX to 38.
Thursday
Modernizations made to our news archives. They now bear the same look as all other EKB news pages and are valid HTML 4.01 Strict.
Dish is investigating more workarounds for TiVo.
Wednesday
A new EKB News Monitor feature: Twitter access. Get the latest information and watch as I get the facts from Dish official Twitter accounts. You can also send me tips through Twitter.
It turned out to be a good day to start Twitter, because the Dish Network Twitter feed confirms what WDBJ had been reporting all along: "FYI Roanoke subs:@jdashiell @nryannews @sbahorich @CarsonKrislov @TVNewsGal & rest of @WDBJ7 are up in HD beg. TONIGHT around 5p ET" A preliminary uplink report shows that HD locals for Richmond; Tampa; WPB minus WPEC; Birmingham; Oklahoma City; Tulsa; and WDBJ were made available.
Also from that report: new channels soon: Bend HD + KOAB; North Platte HD; KVER SD 9329. Research indicates that KVER-CA is a Univisión affiliate in Palm Springs.
Another round of internationals were yanked off of 148 today.
Massachusetts alert: the legislature might pass a 5% satellite tax.
The Retro Television Network is rebranding as RTV, just like DTV. Its programs will also be on KHIZ and WSAH for LA and New York viewers, respectively.
DirecTV and Invidi Technologies are going to make local ads on DirecTV real by 2011. Ads would be pushed to DVRs, and then the software would cue the ads over the national video feed.
An owner of remote-area full-power broadcast translators in Nevada and Wyoming has proposed moving them to Monmouth, NJ and Wilmington, DE, in order to give each state a local-audience TV station and to create jobs. I can't say I've heard of a long-distance move of that sort before.
Last week, we reported on dishbeatsdirectv.com, Dish PR's attempt to get customers. There's also an accompanying print campaign running in newspapers. 800 words of copy emphasizing more HD and low-cost packages. But then there's this item which is worded wrong: "Sunday Ticket costs DirecTV one billion dollars a year and ends up being subsidized by other DirecTV customers whether they get the Sunday Ticket or not. Maybe that's why in the last three months of 2008, the average DirecTV customer paid about 15% a month more for TV than the average Dish Network customer." Also said: "We refuse to carry the NFL Sunday Ticket", but because it's DirecTV-exclusive by contract, they had no choice.
Tuesday
Are you ready for another DTV term? Double rescanning requires you to clear out a converter box's memory and is saving some who cannot get certain channels.
SHVERA was reintroduced without the split market provision.
DTV call center: 95000 calls on Monday.
The satellite big guns pledged not to exploit a loophole in current SHVERA wording on white areas.
Can anyone make sense of this article on local satellite coverage?
Dish is going to the table with noncom stations over signal carriage.
Monday
A new analyst initiated DirecTV coverage with a buy rating.
The last hurdle for News Corp's acquisition of Hughes' stake in DirecTV has been cleared.
DTV transition aftermath continues: By Sunday, the wait to call 1-888-CALL-FCC was 46 seconds. WLS and WPVI were having issues with their post-transition DTV channels that will take the FCC to fix.
The amazing reception on June 12 continues. One viewer in Toronto was watching WIVB Buffalo with an indoor antenna when they shut off analog. But it was what came after that shocked the viewer: a picture from WWL New Orleans. Also mentioned: WFLA could pick up North Carolina stations, WSAV was getting Kansas stations, and WKRG Mobile could be picked up in Birmingham and Montgomery.
Week of 8 June 2009
Saturday
It's over: stations switched, the people making it issuing a press release, New York and Chicago got the most DTV calls, there were 317,450 calls on Friday to 1-888-CALL-FCC, and to round it all out, I'll throw in an article from the Navajo Times on translators and the transition.
Friday: DTV-Day
Today is the biggest day in American television history. With the DTV transition upon us, many stations have already shut off analog, and the last few full-powers will do so at 11:59pm local time tonight.
Channel problems? Report them here or here.
New this afternoon: details of the first signoffs of NYC analogs. WNET reception noticeably improved.
This transition should be uneventful, according to Rick Boucher, chairman of the House Communications Subcommitee.
At WCCB Charlotte, KISS rocker Paul Stanley ceremonially shut off the signal.
By the numbers, according to B&C: 220 stations ended before 2/17, 421 on 2/17, 161 more between 2/17 and 6/12, 186 in the early morning, 239 in the mid-morning, 155 between noon and 6, and 391 by midnight.
The FCC call centers are getting swamped with calls. Three calls produced an automatic hangup, a warning that waits would be longer than five minutes, and the third went to hold after rescanning info. Another 1200 operators are joining the effort, bringing the total to 5200 for now. And 122,000 calls have hit that call center.
Raycom Media stations have completed the transition. WSFA had power interruption problems; WLOX had a bad transmitter that took 90 minutes to fix. However, DTV reception on VHF must be really good. WSFA DTV 12 was getting excellent reception from as far as 75 miles away; WBTV Charlotte's digital signal was being picked up in Kansas City, 1,000 miles away (on UHF 23, no less!). Staffers in Montgomery were picking up WBRC Birmingham, 100 miles away.
A look at other stations' DTV reactions from B&C.
Yesterday, the NTIA reported 320,000 coupon requests, a big spike from the last month's average request volume.
An American inventor has made an offer to save the endangered Setanta Sports.
In 85 markets, 118 stations will provide nightlight programming and emergency information.
Engineers are confident that the transition will go over well.
Sidebar: At WJHL TV in Johnson City, Tennessee, the founding member that flicked the switch to turn on the station in the first place also turned off the analog signal.
To rescan for channels on a Dish receiver with OTA (as is necessary in many markets), delete the channels first and rescan. You may need to wait as the stations move their digitals.
From DirecTV, a list of station moves and dark Equity stations.
Thursday
New this evening: Rep. John Dingell is worried that the DTV transition could make it hard to see Game 7 of the Red Wings-Penguins series on Friday. (He's a Michigan Democrat, in case you wondered.)
Also new this evening: Univisión is celebrating the DTV transition in several ways. Their late news will be extended with coverage of the transition. Their morning news will feature DTV coverage; 45 second news briefs in prime by the network; hourly countdowns on every Univisión station; a countdown during the late news in Times Square; and more. This coverage and sendoff of analog might be better than what most English-language stations do!
More new this evening: 70.5% of households unready for the transition in November have acquired digital-to-analog converter boxes. A further 29.3% switched to pay TV services (most to cable).
A long battle has ended. After six months minus a week, Fisher Communications stations have returned to Dish Network. There's huge excitement on DBSTalk and SatelliteGuys right now, and here's the uplink to prove it. KATU, KOMO, KBCI, KVAL, KBAK, KBFX, KIDK, KOMO, KUNS, KATU, KUNP, and KIMA are welcomed back with open arms by our Northwest region customers. onlycharlieknows.com is now a blank white page. (Here's the presser.)
It's time for a look at the TV2 IR converter. Scott has photos at SatelliteGuys.
One day to go...the NAB says 1.75 million are unprepared, Ed Markey reminds everyone of how he backed this for 20 years.
Wednesday
New tonight: A source familiar with Monday night's Charlie Chat said that Charlie was not saying that everyone could get AAD but that those in retrans consent battlegrounds or those who will not get digital main signals could qualify. But the pack of dogs known as the National Association of Broadcasters are seeing red. NAB spokesman Dennis Wharton: "If some of [Charlie's comments] are true, it would be outrageous for him to use the end of the DTV transition as an excuse to illegally import distant network signals with impunity."
Yesterday, a channel 81 Info was added, and I surmised that it relates to the HD distants. Sure enough, eight channels (73-80) have appeared with the actual distants.
New: 601 Art Sports and BBC AR (Arabic?) 606, as well as 702 TV9TE (need info on this one). Unavailable.
A variety of locals were beamed up including Buffalo and Grand Rapids moving and Wausau added. Wausau will not have ABC or Fox due to them being owned by Quincy Newspapers. Granite's WTVH Syracuse is notably absent.
Four internationals and HIDEF 77 (that was remade available on 90) were removed.
The moved locals, all of what was uplinked on Tuesday (Alaska digital subchannels) minus 81, the HD1-HD8 channels, and KVEW. (Wha?)
Other versions of the Alaska subchannels, KCYU HD, KKPX, WPXA, KPPX, WCPX, and KWPX were turned on. (The Yakima market has a CBS Fisher, a KHQ-owned NBC, and a Morgan Murphy ABC (which really should be available, given that KXLY is.) KCYU is not in SD oddly.) Rejoice, Yakima, Fairbanks, Juneau, San Jose, Atlanta, Chicago, Phoenix, and Seattle!
LF 9645 was renamed to DPTC today.
Tuesday
Setanta Sports is in danger of going off the air and at any minute could fold. Cox just added Setanta as an a la carte.
Retailer Chat today: recap here. Recap of the Recap: the official DN product of the month for retailers, a plastic Dish Network pizza cutter, new remotes, the TV2 Converter for $35.
Ketchikan, Alaska's KPU Telecommunications is switching from IP-Prime to EchoStar's ViP-TV.
Three days to go: the NAB announced a DTV press conference on Thursday, and the Red Cross said that people should update their emergency plans for the DTV era.
Schurz rejoicing! Dish and Schurz are working to get all the Schurz locals in HD by the 17th, or at least WDBJ! (See the retrans board for a full list of Schurz stations.
Dish launched dishbeatsdirectv.com yesterday. Notice the issues with their rendition of the DirecTV logo. Even worse yet, "directvbeatsdish.com" redirects there.
New from me: a letter to Quincy Newspapers high-ups.
U.R.H.: INFO ch 81 was added on 110 tp 17 today. It likely trumpets the fact that good things are coming for Fisher and Freedom and Quincy and Schurz people.
Monday
Charlie Chat tonight. Only big news is that AAD will give you distants if you want them starting Saturday. Holy smokes, Fisher and Freedom are goin' down! And new: If you don't have HD locals, you can go to AAD and get Chicago/LA HD distants!
Coming soon: MSNBC HD (7/8), Columbus MS, Fort Wayne, La Crosse, Laredo, Wausau, Panama City HD (7/1), Bend, Lima, Marquette, Alexandria LA SD (7/8 or 7/22).
Dish is talking weekly with Fisher...and they are slathering on unreasonability.
Puerto Rico HD: 27 new channels in August.
Five years ago today from the EKB News Archives by JBuff: "Reagan Memorials Impact SHVERA Hearing" and "Report: Sony Passage a Boon for Satellite?"
Week of 1 June 2009
Saturday
Six days to go and the silent list has been revised. KXVA, along with WLNY (early flash-cut), KCWK (analog silent, license gone - Pappas filed for ch 11 and this was a casualty), and WMTJ (technical issues fixed), were pulled.
Friday
New tonight: WRGB's general manager appeared on his station today warning of the loss of Albany's channel 6 in SD on Dish. WRGB is a Freedom Communications station. It looks like we have a mess on our hands now...June brought to you by the letter F? Fisher and Freedom like that one. My letter to Freedom TV GMs and its president is out tonight.
One week to go to the nation's big switch to DTV. On June 12, different stations will go at different times, and more stations than expected would lose 2%+ of their viewership. Instead of 319 stations, 355 will be affected.
On Wednesday, I posted a list of post-DTV silent stations...but did KXVA deserve to be on there?
How did Dish receive KOAM and KFJX? (And KSNF?) Through equipment on KSNF's now-collapsed tower. KOLR, KSFX, and KYTV have replaced these stations. (Ironically, KSNF, like KOLR and KSFX, is part of Nexstar and Mission Broadcasting.
Thursday
Sit! Stay! Injunction! The US Court of Appeals granted Dish's request to delay the injunction, which means Dish DVRS are safe, at least for now.
DTV Watch: At Wednesday's DTV update meeting, cable was both lauded and scolded; lauded for working with broadcasters to educate viewers and keep services running and scolded by Consumers Union for upselling services during the transition, confusing consumers. DTV Watch is a temporary feature on the News Monitor in the final days of analog television. Are you ready?
Wednesday
New tonight: Chase Carey is leaving DirecTV for News Corp. July 1, becoming that company's deputy chairman, president, and COO. Larry Hunter will fill in as DirecTV CEO in the interim.
Markets on the move! Re-uplinked today to 129 spots: Sherman-Ada, Fort Myters, Austin, and Cleveland. All are available.
A new TMP HD channel has appeared, 5382 on 61.5 and 129.
KKPX, WPXA, and WCPX; new Ion locals have come online but not available.
What the heck is KVSN? It's new, it's here, and it's...Univisión! The Entravision-owned affiliate signed on in March and has made its way to Dish Network.
Rejoice, Sherman-Ada! Your locals were turned on at 61.5 in addition to the surprise 129 addition.
Rejoice, Puerto Rico! WJPX was turned on today, mapped to 21 (digital) and not 24. (The mappings conflicted with WSJX-LP, Fox Puerto Rico.) Our Puerto Rico expert, Nel J. Torres, tells us about the exciting things you can find on WJPX for Puerto Rico subscribers, including Major League Baseball and a few other things. (They also have a digital subchannel with pony races!)
Channel 280 is gone...does anyone know why? Maybe having the locals in the packages is why.
HD channel TMP57 and international ZGUJ 623 are gone. SP, what's up with ZGUJ?
KPXB, an Ion local that never made it, is gone.
With the TiVo dust all but settled, the websites are pouring it on: Multichannel News, Broadcasting and Cable, Gizmodo, Betanews. A Credit Suisse analyst thinks he sees a licensing deal soon with Dish and TiVo after this one.
In the markets, TiVo soared 53% to 10.70 at the end of Wednesday's trading. Dish dropped nearly 10% to 15.56.
35 stations are going dark June 12, and 7 of them are major network affiliates. Of these, Equity Media owns the majority, which are newer builds without digital facilities. Fox could disappear in Marquette, Great Falls, Missoula, Butte and Abilene; a KOB (NBC) repeater is at risk of going dark, as is KNRR; and a miscellany of other stations are in the mix. Some are silent for DTV transition delay reasons, such as two in Puerto Rico; KCWK, on the list, has been dead and likely will end up repossessed and turned in; two have had bankruptcy (WRTM) or death in the owners' family (WBIJ). These stations (full list here (PDF) were all licensed after 21 April 1997. Updated with new info and an updated link.
Tuesday
JUST IN to the EKB News Monitor: THE EASTERN TEXAS DISTRICT COURT HAS RULED AGAINST DISH NETWORK IN THE TIVO CASE. The permanent injunction on infringing DVRs will be fully enforced beginning in 30 days. TiVo is awarded $73.9 million plus interest and an additional $103.1 million in damages. TiVo stock was down today but is up 38% in after-hours trading, a positive for the company that was barely not turning a profit. Stay with the EKB News Monitor for continued updates to this story.
Finally, DBSTalk posters realized the Freedom dispute!
In other news today, EchoStar is expanding into Asia with a company called Asia Satellite Telecommunications Co. to sell DBS to Taiwan and other areas. AsiaSat provides the capacity, EchoStar operations and equipment. It'll be running in the second half of the year.
DirecTV signed a two-year extension of its deal with Convergys for customer service support. Time Horror, Comcake, Cox, and Suddenlink also use Convergys. (Those are nicknames for TWC and Comcast in case you're humor-impaired.)
Chase Carey has confirmed that he's talking with News Corp., saying that talks are private.
Monday
BBC America HD has set July 20 for a launch date. Will Dish or Cox carry it at launch day?
The rumor machine is grinding up news saying that DirecTV CEO Chase Carey could leave to News Corp by the end of June. Even though Chase Carey has a contract with DirecTV, an analyst at Barclays thinks that Carey can weasel his way out of the contract. And Tom Eagan, an analyst at Collins Steward, thinks that Carey's departure could mean a sale, with AT&T being his pick for likely buyer.
No new uplink activity, but a variety of other Freedom stations have the same message. It's a boilerplate format, so I've created the "Freedom Notifier":
"This is a message for those who watch [channel name here] via Dish Satellite service. For many months we've been trying to get Dish to agree to add our HD digital signal to their lineup. We are disappointed that Dish subscribers cannot view our programming in HD digital quality and we're concerned that our programming may stop being offered. Call Dish and tell them you don't want to lose great [CBS or ABC: there are 5 CBS and 3 ABCs in the Freedom bouquet] programming such as [2 syndicated programs] and our newscasts. Call Dish today at 1-888-284-7116."
Week of 25 May 2009
Saturday
Eleventh-hour indeed! Sinclair and Dish have signed a deal, and all Sinclair-Cunningham stations are safe again, including illegal duopolies and sets of three. Expect the second quarter results to say retrans was (again) the only improving area.
Friday
I have sent the letter to Fisher Communications. Read its text here. I'll also post the text of any responses I receive.
Another retrans dispute is unfolding: Freedom Communications. A SatelliteGuys poster tipped me off to a message from WTVC's general manager (viewable here) hinting at a third wide retransmission consent dispute, the zesty cherry to the Sinclair dispute we just learned about. Freedom channels have never been in HD on Dish. They include WPEC, WTVC, KFDM, WWMT, WRGB, and WLAJ. A corporate address is available at the bottom of the retransmission consent noticeboard here. (By the way, my definition of "wide RC dispute" means that it affects SD and HD of multiple stations, such as Fisher or Sinclair. WBRZ? No.)
I plan on having letters ready to go to what I assume are the email addresses of Freedom CEO Thomas Bassett and Sinclair CEO David Smith. Now that the letter to Fisher's CEO, Colleen Brown, is done, I can focus on these two.
From the Dish Channel Chart archives, Sinclair and Dish last signed a deal at the end of July 2005. From August 1 2005 to June 1 2009 is 46 months.
Thursday
The newspaper in Peoria, Illinois reports on a crawl saying that the Fox affiliate there is warning of the beginning of a retransmission consent spat with Dish and Sinclair on June 1. WYZZ, the station running the crawl, interestingly is run by Nexstar Broadcasting Group, not its owner Sinclair. Retransmission consent was the only profitable sector of Sinclair's 1Q 2009 earnings, rising 8% when ad sales dropped steeply and Sinclair lost money.
Write them immediately: Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc., 10706 Beaver Dam Road, Hunt Valley, Maryland 21030Wednesday
Raleigh, Charlotte, St. Louis, and Detroit locals moved on 129. And St. Louis can rejoice, for KPLR has joined the HD lineup today.
New SD locals! They all bear PX: KPPX (a new local for me!?), KPXB, and KWPX.
Rejoice, Great Falls and the Rio Grande! Great Falls launches at half strength with KFBB and KRTV; XHRIO makes its debut.
Rejoice, Jacksonville: WAWS-DT2, a little late, makes its launch.
Another round of internationals moves.
SLTV has ceased operations and is now a slate. It's now called DISH. Also gone is 9576 The N, now that it lives at 181.
EchoStar got its first ViP-TV customer today. They used IP-Prime, which is going bye-bye.
Monday
First, last week's leftovers:
The Battle of Retransmission Consent continues. Cable thinks it hurts the small guys.
Analog soft tests brought in 55,000 calls to the 1-888-CALLFCC digital call center.
Time Warner Cable is losing HDNet and HDNet Movies at the end of the month, and one LA resident took it upon himself to talk about it to Multichannel News, Mark Cuban, Time Warner Cable employees, and others. He switched to Dish and was happy to hear Mark Cuban reply that Dish and HDNet had signed a new deal. (This averted the potential loss of the HDNet channels a few months ago that Scott got an email blast about.)
Live in Vermont? You could get a satellite tax! The tip line submission said Massachusetts, but verified against the stopsatellitetax.com website jointly run by DirecTV and Dish, it's Vermont.
Week of 18 May 2009
Wednesday
The multiview channels have returned this time in the 550s. They are for the French Open. On a related note, the Tennis Channel has moved into freeview for the event.
A few moves today for Birmingham and Oklahoma locals.
Rejoice, various markets, and Sherman-Ada, get ready! A wave of new HD locals have been added - available AND not so. KSNF is in this batch, however their tower collapse earlier this month means they're likely not on. KSNF and KODE are effectively co-owned, so those looking for certain KSNF programs may find them on KODE. Additionally, KSNF-KODE have news updates available on their joint website if desired. Some of the new channels are moved from other locations.
WPTA and WISE, Granite-Malara stations, are in this batch. I'll be watching to see if these get turned on: co-owned WKBW is missing its HD feed.
Another huge wave of internationals are going off 148, and the 6100s are bright and light with new channels during this.
Like temporary HD channels? Six of them have popped up today in the 5300s.
The MGM HD network is coming soon, if new channel 9647 is any indication.
WJPX channel 7785/24 is coming soon for Puerto Rico. It's a CaribeVisión affiliate, not ION as the call letters might make you think. (It used to be though.)
Additional rejoicing for those new subchannels! Bakersfield gets its CW (but still doesn't have CBS or Fox), and Eugene and Hannibal Quincy get similar offerings. WAWS-DT is conspicuously absent.
The No Tax channels keep bouncing around. Anyone want to fill me in on who is getting them?
Rejoice? Fuel SD has arrived today on channel 155.
The long-form channel is now ALOE.
In the weekly news, Dish dropped in the Wolverines' customer satisfaction index. DirecTV leads with a 71, followed by Cox (!) with a 66 and Dish with a 64. (Wow, my local cable company is on top of Dish Network!)
Week of 11 May 2009
Thursday
Rejoice, Alaska and Hawaii! Another batch of HD national channels have arrived for you.
The Sling controversy is unfolding...the Sling issue may be connected to a U-verse product in development.
Do you live in Lafayette, Indiana? DirecTV is adding WLFI tomorrow. As for Dish, it'll be a few years despite the fact that Dish loves LIN TV.
Wednesday
Get ready for a party: the HD ranges have lit up with unavailable Tulsa, Birmingham, and OK City locals; KTVG from Grand Island, Nebraska, Fox; Great Falls; KPLR on 118.7; and Marquette local channels. Sherman-Ada shuffled and is coming next week, and Great Falls the week after that, according to a retailer chat screencap. (Not much there, but hey.)
The digital subchannel info range shuffled. KMOS, WENH, WCAV, WLOV, KMGH, WDAY, WHTM, WJXX, WLKY, WKOW, WNCF, WTVJ, KAWB, KBHE, KNBN, KNSD, KTEN, KUTV, WWTV, WFQX, KMVT, KFDX, and KIMA were added. In addition, the Alaska Hawaii MPEG4 SD locals were removed, as were a select amount of digital subchannels.
Rejoice, Roanoke, Erie, Springfield IL, Baton Rouge, Bismarck, Medford, and Twin Falls! You've received one or all network affiliates.
The first wave of the ION stations came on today. KPPX and several others are missing. No rejoicing for ION.
Another wave of 148 internationals went by the wayside.
I once went to a horse race...it came so close that we were stuck at a Steward's Inquiry. My horse-racer-lover uncle got a big windfall out of the inquiry, however, so it's fine. Anyways, Dish is carrying 80 channels of live racing beginning in September.
The craziness has ensued between Charter and DirecTV. The latter was running ads saying that Charter's Chapter 11 would interrupt service and Charter promptly took legal action and got a restraining order against DirecTV.
Verizon is selling 4.8 million access lines to Frontier Communications, a Dish reseller. The markets do not have FiOS, and the analysts are chirping over the fact that this could be huge for Dish. Such a deal would triple Frontier's customer base.
The Sling iPhone item is a mess. AT&T was not happy because it would slow its network considerably. But it's now in the App Store for $29.99. It only works on WiFi.
Tuesday
No Recap of the Recap for last night's Tech Forum: I'll turn you over to BobaBird to read about the happenings. Before tonight, I never knew that we did Tech Forum recaps.
Monday
Do you live in Little Rock? Read about an issue with KLRT (Fox) not broadcasting HD content. Weather damage is causing the issues. KLRT is also a rare Newport TV station in HD on Dish; the rest of the station group is missing, though a set of Newport digital subchannels were added this week.
The NAB says that DTV converter boxes make the picture better. Given that the NAB commissioned the survey, the numbers only make sense.
One of the weirdest inverse relations: if Dish news is bad...stock goes up!? It went as high as 21.4% higher and closed 17% higher.
From Marketwire press releases: EchoStar reports a 13.5% decrease year-over-year in revenue but a net loss of $645,000 for the first quarter.
Dish lost 94,000 subs but boosted net income by 21% year-over-year, giving it a net income of $313 million on revenue of $2.91 billion, a 2.1% growth year-over-year. In the SEC 10-Q, Dish says that relative performance comes from Dish-specific issues. Promotional pricing from competitors and retention tactics are responsible for some of the losses. Dish also cited certain customer service issues. In the MCN article, also notice that Verizon and AT&T combined gained 583,000 new subscribers.
You may recall last week that Dish and CMT struck a deal to bring concerts to its channel 101. There's more to the deal: Dish will premiere new editions of Invitation Only, a concert series. The first of the monthly concerts is June 2 with Darius Rucker.
Week of 4 May 2009
Friday
Today was a BIG day at Team Summit, and the announcements come rapidfire: Speed HD! FX HD! MavTV HD! FashionTV HD! Logo, SD and HD! MSNBC HD on June 29! Dish is taking its 101 to HD, exclusive CMT concerts! New UHF remote for the 922, with a Lost Remote Finder feature! Dish Remote Access streaming home content from the 612/622/722/722k/922, launched today! Sling iPhone remote next month! All retailers at Team Summit can help beta test the 922! MSRP on 922 $699! TV2 IR converter allows non-Dish remotes to operate TV2; Slingboxes can be hooked up for receiver control! A new Dish 500+ integrated LNB! 129, 119, 118.7, 110, and a DP+ switch all in one! Push VOD: all movies to 622s will be in HD! DishOnline to be changed for easier navigation! More 1080p! Puerto Rico: 30 HD channels soon, and 10 regional channels exclusive to Dish! In 2010, a single dish solution for Puerto Rico with 30" dishes! 14 more HD local launches by the end of the year, bringing the count to 152 markets serving 93% of the population! Marketing guy Ira Bahr mocks DirecTV's HD claims - a filing from DirecTV shows that D* customers pay $20 more from D* for the same services!
Thursday
Two new TMP channels are now up, and they ARE HD.
DirecTV made an announcement today during its earnings: it had its largest quarter of new subscribers in four years, gaining 460,000 subs to hit the 18 million mark. Customer churn was at 1.3%, the lowest in a decade. But Chase Carey also said that they may have overdone the promo pricing. Major sales deals and the DTV transition drew subscriber growth upward big time. But could Dish steal the Verizon thunder? Expect such announcements from Dish on Monday.
From the SatelliteGuys Twitter feed: the 922 will have an MSRP of $700 or lease for $199. DTVPal DVR owners will get the F207 software release this week as well.
Wednesday
The SatelliteGuys Twitter feed gives us a peek into the grind of pre-Team Summit today, with the uplink march moving along.
The long-form channel is now SDWCH. What is being hawked here, I wonder?
Fox and Dish appear to have finished their negotiations, as FUEL has made it to Dish. It will be on channel 151. The Speed and FX HD channels still are not on the table.
PEOPLE ARE USING THEIR NOGGINS! The N split off from Dish much earlier than expected today on channel 181.
A channel called STARF is now up on 269 for AT100 customers. It is a mirror of 9408, the Starfish Network.
REJOICE, ALASKA and HAWAII! You get caught up on HD for the first time.
Did my new retransmission consent noticeboard work? KSWO HD is now waiting in the wings.
Want to try some digital subchannels? We'll start in Fort Myers, Florida, where a new WINK 2 has popped up. We still don't know what's on it, and it's unavailable. It's surrounded by a variety of test channels also added today, so it could be the test WINK2, but the Fort Myers tag is on it. WINK does not have an 11.2 digital subchannel.
Next, it's off to Eugene, Oregon, where the CW subchannel of KMTR has also come swooping in. This is a Newport station, intriguingly.
Off to Bakersfield, California, a town devastated by the metaphorical Hurricane Fisher. Another Newport station, KGET, is offering its subchannel, another CW outlet.
Back to Florida, where the First Coast and WAWS, another Newport station, give us a taste of WAWS-DT2, a MyNetworkTV affiliate.
Rejoice! A bunch of new HD locals hit the air: KWYB Butte, KRCR Redding, KHBS Fort Smith, KXLF Butte, KHSL Chico, KFSM Fort Smith, KTVM Butte, KNVN Chico, KNWA Rogers AR, KCVU Paradise CA, KFTA Fort Smith, KSFY Sioux Falls, WTVO Rockford, KELO Sioux Falls, WIFR Freeport IL, KDLT Sioux Falls, KTTW Sioux Falls, and WQRF Rockford got turned on today. A good number of Nexstar-Mission stations are in the sprinkles, as well as Bonten-BlueStone stations.
Like it when things are made available? Rejoice again, An chorage! You get KTVA and KAKM HD, marking Dish's first HD PBS member station! KTUU shows up late to the party because of Schurz ownership (read my new retransmission consent noticeboard). KTBY is also missing.
If you like it when channels move because they move to digital, you'll love it at KCVU! When they shut off analog, they became FOX 20, not FOX 30. Dish mappings now reflect the change on the day that Chico-Redding lights up.
APUNJ is the only channel today to go, and it moves off of 148 in a spectacular week, buried in the uplink report.
Tri-Cities in Washington: The KAPP mappings were all changed to KVEW. They are sister stations (of KXLY) (much like the CBS affiliates go, and they're part of Hurricane Fisher).
Dish will be countering the DirecTV cloud DVR system with its own. The rumor from SatelliteGuys gives an ETA of Friday and a beta at dish.sling.com to try.
Scott got to see the Uplink Center! That's the big daddy in Cheyenne, though there is a little sister in my backyard (Gilbert, AZ).
LOGO news: Scotty thought he saw it at the uplink center and the hackers are seeing it streaming off Dish satellites.
Watch for big moves on Friday...the big kahuna is that date.
Tuesday
A low-key uplink shuffles TMP channels and adds an unavailable KBTV. But it's Scott blowing the whistle on more juicy news on this Team Summit week: Speed HD. FX HD. MavTV HD. FashionTV HD. This week. Excellent sources, according to Scott.
24 hours of Dish Earth don't seem to be boring. Very nice time-lapse video.
If you like mergers and DirecTV, do I have the treat for you! DirecTV is being combined with Liberty Entertainment.
The results of my twin polls on DBSTalk and SatelliteGuys over split markets are in one decided direction. In just about 48 hours, 153 people voted for the plan, 6 said no, and 12 checked their name under the not sure/not affected category.
I have a new page in my domain as of Sunday night: the Retransmission Consent page talks a little about why stations don't want you to watch them and gives you a feast of addresses and phone numbers for the station groups where there are problems. Nexstar is not included because their delays are likely more technical. (See KBTV.)
Sunday
The split market battle heats up. I've started polls on DBSTalk and SatelliteGuys to get readers' opinions, and I'm watching the issue. Congress is willing to give this the green light.
Editorial: Split Markets
And now, an editorial. Let's say I live in the Oklahoma panhandle and am a satellite subscriber. I receive my news and information from stations in Amarillo. Of course, Amarillo, which is in Texas, will have more coverage of things happening in Texas. What if a major emergency occurs in Oklahoma? I'm in Oklahoma, so I am entitled to know what's going on. Because my market is bound to have more coverage of Amarillo and Texas news, I need stations from another market (say, Oklahoma City). Right now, I'd have to "move" to Oklahoma City, but I might be outside the OKC spotbeam! The logic of split markets would allow me to receive the Oklahoma City locals as well as those of Amarillo.
What if I'm in the DC market, though? Would the fact that Virginia AND Maryland locals would becoma available subvert the position of WUSA, for example, in retransmission consent? To an extent, yes, but I see where this benefits the viewer.
Take the Washington side of the Portland OR market (including Longview). If I live there, I'd get KATU and maybe KOMO (Seattle) or KAPP Yakima. Well, if you factor in the huge Fisher dispute, KATU and KOMO go. If changes to the split market system work like I want them to, Dish Network could make KAPP available to subscribers as a replacement ABC affiliate. In the Baton Rouge, Louisiana market, which has just one county in Mississippi, another protracted dispute has left WBRZ off Dish Network. The closest market to that county contains WLOX, another ABC affiliate. Dish could make WLOX (which would already be available to the Mississippi side of Baton Rouge) available to the rest of the market, minimizing disruption for viewers. When or if WBRZ and Dish negotiate a deal, WLOX would retreat back to the Mississippi side of the market. End Editorial
Site note: Last week, I failed to mention on Monday that Monday was my 18-month anniversary of doing the News Monitor.
Week of 26 April 2009
Friday
I guess I can say if it's internationals, it's SP! My international channel identifying hero swoops in with the names of the three international channels: AH is Anhui TV, CQTV is Chongqing TV, and SZ is Shenzhen TV. They're all Chinese.
Wednesday
Earlier this week, Dish shook up its management at the top. Multichannel News explains the changes.
Another NOTAX was added to 233 at 110 and 77. 211 is already up and cooking. Information is requested on what is on the NOTAX channels via the tip line.
Another TMP channel on 373. TMP45 is in HD but not to us.
A series of DMOS channels were added in the 550s. They are 72.7 and 110 couplets with MPEG4 flavors.
Panama City locals are coming...soon! WMBB, WJHG, and WPGX were added but not available-ized.
Alaska won't get HD locals at the cost of getting possibly a bunch more HD channels....the 5500 series lit up like crazy today with new additions.
Do you like the letters PX? Then we have a huge discount for you! ION owned and operated stations are coming like crazy. WTPX is listed as WTPXD but has never been in analog at all. WPXJ was put on 9134 which is in the Buffalo range but not near Jacksonville. WPXC channel 21 which DOES serve Jacksonville from Brunswick, Georgia is coming to 9060, however.
Rejoice, Laredo and Chicago! You've got new local channels. Chicago gets a worthless thing called WCHU and Laredo gets KXOF, its Fox affiliate. The Planet Green free preview has ended, and another set of international channels are moving off 148 this week.
Channel 181 has been deleted, along with some 4800s TMP HD channels, uplink channels, and other flotsam.
Rejoice, Joplin! KFJX is now in HD, giving you American Idol. Tonight. Mm-hmm!
Scott's got a juicy rumor: a reliable informant now claims that Dish could be partnering with Verizon, currently a DirecTV reseller. Verizon is known for FiOS, a major competitor to Dish and cable in the markets that it is operating in.
Goldman Sachs has downgraded Dish Network's stock to "neutral" as they flipped to "buy" for DreamWorks Animation.
EchoStar 5 is movin' on up to 148...late June likely.
Week of 19 April 2009
Friday
At 6:46pm Central Time last night, it was Rejoice, Bryan-College Station! when KBTX took to Dish for the first time. The sub-market, unique in that most of its stations are satellites of the Waco market stations, was served by sister KWTX until today.
Thursday
The interestingness continues, with Uplink Report Highlights occurring overnight.
NICK GAS is off the air, and Cartoon Network West has replaced it. Channel 181 is now a slate.
Channels shuffling even in the 4800s, which currently hold temp channels 37, 45, 46, and 57, as far as the report says. 56 was deleted.
Some of the Alaska-Hawai'i versions of national HD channels moved to spotbeams.
Wednesday
An interesting day in Uplink Report Highlights.
A few months ago, a tipster spotted the output of E*11's camera on 110 on a test channel. It's Earth Day, and Dish has made it available to the public on channel 212. If you want to know more, read the fluffy press release. Or Multichannel News can give you one of its funny titles.
More people could be using their Noggins: NICK GAS is to go away tomorrow, according to Scotty, but CN West will take the slot. 181 will become a slate and then The N will take its place. Noggin will also move to 24 hours. The first changes are on the docket for tomorrow and the move of The N will come on 27 May.
EchoStar V is no more, and the remaining channels (Indianapolis HD locals, minus party pooper 'THR) are on tp 5s24 on Ciel 2 now.
Laredo and Anchorage HD locals are uplinked.
ION West was turned on.
A trio of new internationals: AHTV, CQTV, SZTV. What are they?
Rejoice! KOAM and Grand Junction locals are available.
KPXN was made available, likely as part of the ION deal.
Another international purge ends.
Zoom becomes MZIKA to reflect the name better.
WCHU is on a CHU-CHU train to appear on channel 61 - it did nothing today but moved transponders on 110.
Rejoice, Altoona-Johnstown! Big Four locals just landed on the availability square.
We're also watching a long-going tech snafu with The Weather Channel. Bad audio freezes, video glitches, and even blue bar problems are the case. DISH CANNOT WORK ON THIS. The Weather Channel has a whole tech team (because all of the cable and even the satellite Local Forecasts and blue bars come from computers) that deals with this stuff.
Tuesday
Yesterday, ION and Dish extended their contract, which confirms the ION West feed's arrival to Dish. ION West was added to DirecTV last week, a three-hour time shifted feed of the positively paid programming channel.
Speaking of DirecTV, Charlie and Carey teamed up to oppose the affiliates in the split-market state-to-state standoff as the battle of SHVERA continues.
Week of 12 April 2009
Saturday
New internationals Aghapy TV and Punjabi TV are here: it's time to read more about them, of course! SP sent another link in.
Wednesday
ION is now on channel 216. ION West is close on its heels on channel 217.
Getting ready: KFJX and Medford.
Sun Sports and Fox Sports Florida HD part time channels are here.
148 internationals are getting slaughtered...
KPXN is coming. So is KBTX. The ION affiliate for LA is less relevant than KBTX, a CBS affiliate.
Rejoice! WDAY, WPFO, KXVA, WBEP, and KHBB-D are now here, the first three in HD!
Channels 212, 216, and 217 were removed. The second and third removals give ION breathing room.
KLDO-3, still unavailable, changed to KXOF. KXOF is an LPTV Fox affiliate for Laredo.
Long Form 1 turned on today for Sony, mapped to 99.
LA locals are having problems where the signal is lost due to high winds.
Week of 5 April 2009
Saturday
A reader called into the tip line reporting bad video on Comedy Central HD. No info yet on the cause.
I missed a Retailer Chat yesterday, so it's time for Recap of the Recap!
Team Summit: May 6, Howie Mandel and a surprise.
New ad slicks (here): Scotty hates them.
Scotty: "Dish is offering a Grill Apron Kit to retailers (no I am not kidding) for only $3.99!"
Finally, HD locals news. April 22: Fort Smith, Columbus-Tupelo, Grand Junction, Johnstown-Altoona. May 6: Minot-Bismarck, Sioux Falls, Rockford, Twin Falls, Butte-Bozeman, Chico-Redding. May 13: Baton Rouge (minus WBRZ?), Erie, Medford, Roanoke. May 20: Sherman-Ada. May 27: Great Falls. After May: Fot Wayne, La Crosse WI, Wausau WI, Laredo, Panama City.
Recent news takes its toll on the chat, as Scott succinctly states: "Now they go into talking about the federal "do not call lists" (This after telling dealers they are giving them lists of people who are about to get shut off for non payment... I can see a bunch of violations of Federal collections laws coming soon to Dish Network)"
Technical news: the DTVPal software update is coming soon. Reinstallation and re-time setup is required. 522/625 software: L532 brings video on demand and fast reboot, the latter of which is coming to other DVRs soon. The 222k supports two-way backup, the DP34 is now a ground block.
Scott's scared that retailers don't pay attention to Dish: many did not know of the forthcoming MTVN channels.
Good Friday
Dish and NFL Network settled in court today. It will remain in the 200 tier. Comcake Cable, however, is pulling it at the end of the month.
REJOICE, AMERICA! The HD channels we were promised have come, and The N in SD 24/7 is currently on channel 9576 for AT200, ending the 16-month-long smushing-together of channels. It is likely that #2 affected #1. Expect The N to replace GAS (an AT250 channel). I presume that the tier placement affected the deal and the split.
Wednesday
A variety of locals in HD end up on Dish, unavailable right now.
The cable CW affiliate for Erie, WBEP (which isn't real but is operated by WICU and WSEE), is coming soon. The mapping is not available at this time.
A bunch of digital subchannels were added in the 14x range.
Rejoice, Gainesville, Williamsport, and HBO on 119 haters! SD versions of Starz/HBO multichannels were removed. Williamsport gets WQMY, and Gainesville gets HD locals, including the brand-spanking-new WNBW!
Fisher-Disher News Watch: a new domain appeared yesterday. OnlyCharlieKnows.com is a very clever push from Fisher Communications, claiming that only Charlie knows what it takes to get a retrans deal done in one of Dish's most famous and most extensive disputes yet. Ironically, they include a Satellite Dish blog post from good old Scotty. (And he said, "I am surprised they have one of my articles listed up there, which is kind of funny as I am against Fisher in this entire ordeal.") Fisher has bought ad time on radio stations and is running newspaper ads, both of which are viewable.
Sling.com struck a deal with the Tennis Channel.
Dish dropped the HD enabling fee.
Week of 30 March 2009 cont'd
Wednesday
It's a last-minute save for Dish Network: Univision will stay on Dish Network as well as on Time Warner.
The locals buffet continues: KOAM, WPFO, WOGX, and KXVA have been uplinked. Columbus minus WBNS is now available. KHBB-D, a Fox affiliate for Helena, is also coming soon.
A slew of TMP channels hit 61.5 and 129 - all of them in MPEG4 HD.
The mapping shuffle continues, and the internationals do their preview dance.
Rejoice, Tucson, Columbus, Sioux City, Cheyenne, Albany GA, Youngstown, Meridian, Missoula, and LA (KCAL)! It's an HD victory for you!
Site note: All Q1 news is now at the news2009 page.
5-digit range digital subchannels were purged.
The NDTV 574 entry has been changed to more accurately reflect its subname, Imagine.
An old WOGX-HD entry was recycled for WNBW, the new NBC affiliate in Gainesville.