DISH vs. Sinclair Broadcast Group (1 Viewer)

Imagine going into McDonald's and ordering a burger, fries and Coke, paying for your meal and sitting down at a table to eat it. While you are doing so, the company that supplies McD's with potatoes decides it wants more money for its spuds, and McD's objects but is open to negotiation. That's not good enough for the potato supplier, who then walks into the restaurant, comes over to your table and takes the fries you just paid for.


That is what is happening to 5 million DISH customers right now. Where is the FCC? How is this allowed to happen?


Sinclair should be getting fined thousands of dollars for every channel they have pulled from DISH, for every day that this practice continues. They should also be fined for lying to their viewers by claiming that DISH pulled the plug, and urging those viewers to contact the company and complain.

This happens every year with every pay service.

On a much smaller scale, KXLY here in Washington just went through the same thing the past week or so. Eventually they work it out. Especially now when there are plenty of other ways to receive the channels you want.

Maybe not as easy and you can't record to a DISH DVR, but there are ways to bypass their service.

Is it me, but doesn't it seem like DISH has more of these issues than DirecTV? Both of them go through it, but DISH seems to have these issue all the time.

Here in the Salt Lake Market, we lost our local NBC on Direct TV last week, and now we lost our local CBS on Dish. We have no choice if you want both and don't have cable available and over the air is not possible.


I really hate being a pawn. Hopefully the FCC Chairman will go forward with his proposal that will allow Cable/Sat providers to go to alternate network market feeds when the primary signal gets pulled by the local station.


This whole re-broadcast rights thing has me really perplexed. The local stations get ad money based on the number of viewers. The Cable/Sat companies provide more viewers. This means the local stations get more money already from the added viewers. But that is not enough. The local companies want to get paid for allowing the cable/sat provider to show a signal that is increasing the viewer count. In the case of our local NBC, they were asking Dish for 3x increase on what they were getting. Dish wouldn't do it. To make matters worse, the local NBC station keeps telling us pawns that it was Dish that removed the signal. But dish has always maintained it would be glad to keep the signal, but it was the local station that pulled it.


The local CBS station is part of the Sinclair group. At least this one has many many more people effected so I am hoping it will get resolved sooner.


For once in my life I am hoping the FCC actually does something. We can't be held as hostages multiple times per year, every year.

Scott-S said:

For once in my life I am hoping the FCC actually does something. We can't be held as hostages multiple times per year, every year.

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For once they actually are. But while they're at it they should finally put through legislation to stop all of these blackouts - because there is no shortage of other greedy broadcasters out there.


http://deadline.com/2015/08/dish-network-sinclair-blackout-1201506316/

Scott-S, our local issue was a DISH/ABC dispute. Went for several days without service until they settled it.


Not so bad this time of year, but when the new TV season starts next month, I'm going to be pissed if they pull this crap again.

We've got plenty of OTA stuff, but it means hooking up those goofy receivers, possibly putting in those flat window antennas. It's a nuisance.

I'm about ready to cut the cord and go elsewhere for service.

Robert Crawford said:

Is it me, but doesn't it seem like DISH has more of these issues than DirecTV? Both of them go through it, but DISH seems to have these issue all the time.

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DirecTV has the fewest blackout occurrences, generally DTV is ahead of negotiations by months.

Robert Crawford said:

Is it me, but doesn't it seem like DISH has more of these issues than DirecTV? Both of them go through it, but DISH seems to have these issue all the time.

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I had DISH for about four years, and during that time, I never had any Disney owned channel in HD other than ESPN and ESPN2, all because of some dispute between DISH and Disney. I recall a time where I lost a bunch of the AMC related channels for a couple of weeks. And I think right when I left for FiOS, they were threatening to take away the local NBC station.

Chip_HT said:

I had DISH for about four years, and during that time, I never had any Disney owned channel in HD other than ESPN and ESPN2, all because of some dispute between DISH and Disney. I recall a time where I lost a bunch of the AMC related channels for a couple of weeks. And I think right when I left for FiOS, they were threatening to take away the local NBC station.

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DISH seems to have a lot of these issues, but they have great service, love their DVR with the two TV setup.

Supposedly they're #1 on poor customer service, but I've never had a problem. Fried three DVRs, all my fault because of poor ventilation and my dog ate several remotes. All replaced at no cost.


Just last week had a remote cause problems. New one shipped out that arrived yesterday, also no charge.


Other than the occasional argument with different channels, they're really pretty decent.

Robert Crawford said:

Is it me, but doesn't it seem like DISH has more of these issues than DirecTV? Both of them go through it, but DISH seems to have these issue all the time.

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I dropped DISH after 14 years and switched to DirecTV. Got real tired of losing channels for weeks. It didn't help when DISH CEO Charlie Ergen said the loss of TCM was a 'non-event'. I like DTV much better. More bells and whistles and better reception makes me wish I had done so sooner.

IMO, as someone who had Dish Network for about 4 years before switching to U-verse and who has a close family member who still has Dish, Dish Network has far far more blackouts due to network disputes than other satellite/cable providers do.

I can understand there being disputes and even blackouts every great once in a while, but with Dish it happens way too frequently. A couple months ago, in the Detroit area, we nearly lost NBC and last fall (I believe) several Turner channels were blacked out for weeks.

The CEO of Dish says that he is fighting to keep subscriber costs down, but from what I can tell, their rates increase as rapidly as their competition. I, personally, will never go back to Dish Network.

Do not work for DISH and certainly not pumping their service, but I've had very few blackouts. Maybe it's a local thing.

Never lost TCM, maybe it depended on where you were located. Any blackouts we possibly had, we had plenty of warning and they were solved fairly quickly.

I'm just so used to DISH, their remotes, receiver, fantastic HD reception, etc. Switching to DirecTV would be a major hassle.

I'm a recent subscriber to DISH and I think it's wonderful. Better remote, better channel organization, better DVR functionality, excellent picture quality - after being disappointed in both cable and DirecTV I finally have a provider I am happy with. The Sinclair blackout was annoying but short-lived, and given the FCC's rapid response I am hopeful that such attempted consumer hold-ups wlll soon be a thing of the past.

DaveHof2 said:

I'm a recent subscriber to DISH and I think it's wonderful. Better remote, better channel organization, better DVR functionality, excellent picture quality - after being disappointed in both cable and DirecTV I finally have a provider I am happy with. The Sinclair blackout was annoying but short-lived, and given the FCC's rapid response I am hopeful that such attempted consumer hold-ups wlll soon be a thing of the past.

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Good for you, but I've been with DirecTV for about 20 years and very happy with the Genie especially with the football season about to begin.

Robert Crawford said:

Good for you, but I've been with DirecTV for about 20 years and very happy with the Genie especially with the football season about to begin.

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Yes, you do have the advantage there with NFL Sunday Ticket - personally I think the league was foolish to give the monopoly on that to one provider. But I'm a Bears fan and it's going to be a lousy season for us anyway.