Satellite Must Carry

[crepehanger]

I went to Best Buy tonight looking at TVs. Salesman there told me that Dish and Direct were going to be required by the Feds to carry all local markets by Summer 2007. First I had heard of this. Anyone else?

[sklej]

From everything I have researched in the last 30 minutes, this is not true, although it is said that the FCC Chairman supports must carry. There is a requirement that all locals must be carried in Alaska and Hawaii by June 2007. The only other requirement for sat providers is that if they carry one local channel in a market, they must carry all locals in that market.

[DJ]

I install for DirecTV, and there isn't even a flicker on the radar for Columbus locals. DirecTV has shifted all their focus on HD locals. They are no longer adding SD locals, not even on the 72.5 satellite.

If, and that is *IF* we ever get picked up, it'll be well into 2007 or even 2008.

[Alan Gordon]

djk said:

They are no longer adding SD locals, not even on the 72.5 satellite.

DirecTV can't add any more on the 72.5 satellite, as DirecTV can only provide service on the 72.5 satellite to a certain amount of people... and that refers to the people living in the DMAs, not subscriber #'s. Not to mention that DirecTV only has a limited amount of time to use the 72.5 satellite.

djk said:

If, and that is *IF* we ever get picked up, it'll be well into 2007 or even 2008.

I expect DirecTV to add Columbus HD-LIL late next year. DirecTV could theoretically add some more SD-LIL after DirecTV 9s goes into service, as it's more efficient at doing spot beams than the current spot beam satellites located at 101. DirecTV will probably shift the 72.5 locals over to 101 once 9s goes operational... but they could add a few more markets at least. Once DirecTV starts transitioning the HD channels over to the new KA birds next years, they could then fire up some more spot beams at 119. Odds are that DirecTV will never add more SD-LIL, and instead simply tell people to get a H20/HR20 to receive LIL.

Dish Network however has stated that they intend to continue adding SD-LIL until they get all 210... an issue that becomes even more important now that Dish is going to have to cut off their DNS customers.

However, they have stated that they see no point in adding HD-LIL to more than the top 50 DMAs since people can receive them just fine with an antenna. They have announced a few cities in their planned HD-LIL cities list outside of the top 50... but Columbus wasn't on the list, and nobody should expect anything outside of that list for several years.

~Alan