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Dish TV Pulling Plug on Gray Communications TV Stations


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My local Gray affiliate (KOTA TV/ABC network in Rapid City) announced today that Gray and DISH could not reach an agreement and DISH is shutting down Gray stations (at least ours) on Tues, Jan 17 at 5 PM MST. A graphic on the Gray website shows 62 stations nationwide (by my count). A link to the graphic in case it might affect you:

 

https://www.gray.tv/index.php?page=station-list

 

Hank Whitney

SKP 67414

2005 Mandalay DP

2012 Honda CRV

Hank & Joyce

2019 Phoenix Cruiser 3100

2012 Honda CRV

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Dish does not remove stations until the carriage contract expiration no longer allows them to rebroadcast the station per FCC rules. Dish routinely offers a current contract extension in these situations with a "makeup" provision that will pay the broadcaster the entire difference retroactively when the new contract is agreed to. Apparently Gray would rather hold their viewers hostage in an attempt to force Dish to accept a higher fee than Dish feels is called for. Personally, I applaud Dish for trying to hold the line on price increases.

Dutch
2001 GBM Landau 34' Class A
F-53 Chassis, Triton V10, TST TPMS
2011 Toyota RAV4 4WD/Remco pump
ReadyBrute Elite tow bar/brake system

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Hank, we are in RC too. Is this just the one local channel that will be removed from DISH? We have never had the local channels added to our DISH (didnt pay for the adapter) so we watch our local channels on the RV digital antenna. Depending on your location in the Hills you should still get KOTA through an aerial.

 

Nice looking weather for us this week!

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The "Locals" being talked about do not come through an adapter. They are part of Dish Subscriptions and come via the satellite signal.

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Mark & Dale
Joey - 2016 Bounder 33C Tige - 2006 40' Travel Supreme
Sparky III - 2021 Mustang Mach-e, off the the Road since 2019
Useful HDT Truck, Trailer, and Full-timing Info at
www.dmbruss.com

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Some day the FCC will fix this. In the beginning, cable and satellite companies needed the Local channels to get customers to switch to the service. At that time there were no fees to the local TV stations as the cable/satellite companies got there signal like everyone else, off an OTA antenna.

 

Then there was a realization that the cable/satellite companies were actually expanding the viewing audience for the local TV station by delivering signals to white areas where no antenna reception was feasible. And direct feeds were added from the local TV station to the cable/satellite companies for better quality signal and a small fee was allowed by the FCC for the local TV station for the convenience.

 

Now local TV, like the entire TV viewing world is facing a reduction of viewers because of alternative Internet driven forces. To compensate, the local TV stations are using their monopolistic power on Broadcast channels in their area to hike the fees for the cable/satellite companies. Monopolistic because the cable/satellite companies cannot get Broadcast channels from other areas because of FCC rules.

 

During this time, the production of locally produced TV programming (the reason for the copyright hold) has dropped to just local news reporting. And if you have watched that lately, local news is mostly a repeat of national news.

 

To remove the monopoly hold by the local TV stations, the FCC should allow the cable/satellite companies to back fill the Broadcast channels during these conflict times. The local TV stations don't want this as they know that local news is not enough to keep their viewers.

 

Over time, the removal of monopolies has been to the good for the public. This is this time for the local TV station monopoly on Broadcast channels to come to reasonable control.

Please click for Emails instead of PM
Mark & Dale
Joey - 2016 Bounder 33C Tige - 2006 40' Travel Supreme
Sparky III - 2021 Mustang Mach-e, off the the Road since 2019
Useful HDT Truck, Trailer, and Full-timing Info at
www.dmbruss.com

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Grawe,

 

Mark is correct. This only affects Dish users, not OTA or cable users. We are on cable in Custer SD 1/2 of the year we are usually here and then on Direct when we travel (usually Oct - April). We started with cable when we bought our house here in 2009 (after 6 years of fulltiming) and decided to stick with it. At that time Direct did not have locals. Could probably save a couple bucks with an alternate solution, but we use a lot of internet, like a local phone and have a Tivo DVR instead of cable company equipment. So, all things considered, a cable bundle works for us for 6 months a year. And local support is very good. We cannot do OTA TV out here.

 

We are hunkered down here for the winter instead of being in Arizona because the DW had knee replacement surgery in Nov so needs time to rehab before we hit the road again in Sept.. Who knew it would be one of the coldest Dec/Jan's on record?

 

Hank Whitney

SKP 67414

2005 Mandalay DP

2012 Honda CRV

At Home in Custer SD where it will be a scorching 45 dgs today

Hank & Joyce

2019 Phoenix Cruiser 3100

2012 Honda CRV

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Switch to DirecTV's DNS. I was Grandfathered in too both coast and get $3 off a month for not having local's. :)

At my winter spot I get over 20 local OTA from my Batwing with Wingman except Fox. As they have low power output and only 35 miles from me the same location as others.

Full Time since Oct. 1999
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Switch to DirecTV's DNS. I was Grandfathered in too both coast and get $3 off a month for not having local's. :)

At my winter spot I get over 20 local OTA from my Batwing with Wingman except Fox. As they have low power output and only 35 miles from me the same location as others.

You were grandfathered. No longer can you get both East and West Coast feeds. The selection is based upon Billing Address. And DNS is a solution only available to RVers and truckers. Also, if you have DNS, you cannot have Locals by FCC regulation.

 

If and when DirecTV gets the same coverage of local markets as Dish, then DNS will probably disappear from the DirecTV offerings also.

Please click for Emails instead of PM
Mark & Dale
Joey - 2016 Bounder 33C Tige - 2006 40' Travel Supreme
Sparky III - 2021 Mustang Mach-e, off the the Road since 2019
Useful HDT Truck, Trailer, and Full-timing Info at
www.dmbruss.com

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As Mark states, you have to settle for one coastal feed with Direct. When we full-timed we had both East and West DNS, but let that lapse when we became part-timers/snow-birds in Arizona. I re-applied a year or so ago so we could get programs when doing some extensive travel, but only get a San Diego (?!) CA feed. The DNS does include a PBS feed which we really like. When snowbirding in Arizona we get our locals from Phoenix so no DNS required. It has been easy to turn the DNS on and off..so far. They didn't say anything about limits to how often I turn it on and off. I only wish I could do it online and not have to talk to a customer rep each time.

 

I did have a lot of trouble suspending my Direct TV service while at home this winter, I suspended it back in April, Direct has a 6-month-limit and I had to talk to a couple different customer rep's until I found a "friendly" one who said she could extend me for 6 more months and just call back this April if I needed another extension. I made sure to write down her name.

 

Hank Whitney

SKP 67414

Hank & Joyce

2019 Phoenix Cruiser 3100

2012 Honda CRV

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There is a way for RV'ers to get a "pseudo DNS" with Dish by selecting a service location in one of the areas with the locals on a CONUS beam instead of just a spot beam. We're currently in the Jacksonville, FL TV market for instance, and the locals are on the eastern arc sats at 61.5 and 77, with the 77 sat channels CONUS beamed. If we don't change our service address when we leave, we could still get them anywhere else we go that we can hit the eastern arc. Most of the CONUS beamed locals are on the 77 sat, although the NYC locals are on the western arc 119 sat.

Dutch
2001 GBM Landau 34' Class A
F-53 Chassis, Triton V10, TST TPMS
2011 Toyota RAV4 4WD/Remco pump
ReadyBrute Elite tow bar/brake system

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