So who is lying, E* or local Salisbury networks?

[jacobm69]

While reading a local news blog, I came across a topic regarding people whom are being told that E* / D* will not supply locals due to the local stations not allowing them, and they are being told by the stations that dish will not uplink the signals.

So my question is: How do I know who is telling the truth?

Here is the link stating the view from the local station: http://sbynews.blogspot.com/2008/12/vice-president-of-wboc-craig-jahelka.html
Vice President Of WBOC, Craig Jahelka Wants To Clear The Air Waves

Good Morning Joe,

I'm in California this morning on business and haven't been checking your blog as frequently as I do when I'm at home. Therefore I just now noticed the posting from someone who erroneously claims WBOC is misleading people with our informational campaign regarding satellite. I'd like the opportunity to set the record straight for your loyal readers. Neither DirecTV nor Dish Network will uplink the local Salisbury stations. That means folks can't get WMDT, WBOC or FOX 21 on satellite. So satellite customers will also need a rooftop antenna to pick us up and to get the local information we provide each day. There's a lot of confusion regarding this issue, and that's why we're taking the time to educate folks with an on-air campaign. Your previous writer erroneously claims the satellite companies will carry local programming. That's just not true. It is illegal (against federal law) for satellite companies which do not offer local stations to import an out-of-market station to people who can receive our free over-the-air signals unless the local station grants a waiver. A 'waiver' is a request for us to waive our rights to distribute CBS network programming in our area. If it is determined via a signal strength test that a home on Delmarva cannot receive our free over the air signal, we grant a waiver to that home, and the satellite company then provides that home a feed of the CBS station from New York City. The previous post erroneously accuses us of misleading people and asks us to tell the truth. Our informational campaign is factual. I hear every week from people who've chosen to purchase satellite service and only then discover they can't get local channels and can't understand why they don't see ABC or CBS programming. This is a result of national advertising campaigns that claim local channels are available. While they are in most areas, they're not available on satellite here on Delmarva. Your Salisbury TV stations have invested millions of dollars to provide a high definition broadcast signal to our family, friends and neighbors here on Delmarva. We will continue to invest in technology, people and products to serve the public trust. And we will continue to urge the satellite companies to carry our signal. Until the satellite companies step up to the plate, consumers who choose to write monthly checks to them can still watch us, absolutely FREE, and in high definition, with a rooftop antenna.

Craig Jahelka
VP/General Manager
WBOC-TV/FOX 21


The link for what customers have been told by dish is here:
http://sbynews.blogspot.com/2008/12/channel-16-21.html

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

The broadcasters want to be paid to carry their signal on Satellite. If satellite companies do not want to pay what the broadcasters want then the broadcasters do not allow them to broadcast their signal.

The silly thing is that satellite can bring them more viewers from their area then an off air antenna as many people in the area of the station can get a good signal from those boadcasters. Which to me says that satellite distribution of locals helps the local station gain more viewers and in turn more eyes for their sponsors.

I don't understand why the broadcasters dont see it that way.

 

[mperdue]

The broadcasters want to be paid to carry their signal on Satellite. If satellite companies do not want to pay what the broadcasters want then the broadcasters do not allow them to broadcast their signal.

The silly thing is that satellite can bring them more viewers from their area then an off air antenna as many people in the area of the station can get a good signal from those boadcasters. Which to me says that satellite distribution of locals helps the local station gain more viewers and in turn more eyes for their sponsors.

I don't understand why the broadcasters dont see it that way.

Because they'd rather get more viewers for increased ad revenue AND charge for their signal too. It's called greed.

Mario

 

[Hall]

Who owns those local stations ? Or who owns any of them ? There's a few well-known companies who basically want "too much" for re-transmission....

 

[jacobm69]

Who owns those local stations ? Or who owns any of them ? There's a few well-known companies who basically want "too much" for re-transmission....

CBS and FOX:
WBOC, FOX21 and WBOC Interactive are locally-owned and operated by Draper Holdings, which also owns Loblolly, LLC.
WBOC-TV 16, Delmarvas News Leader, FOX 21 - WBOC-TV Delmarva's News Leader

Not sure about the ABC affiliate
WMDT-TV - Delmarva's Choice

 

[ENDelt260]

Not sure about the ABC affiliate
WMDT-TV - Delmarva's Choice

Wikipedia claims Brechner Management Company (Delmarva Broadcast Service, LLC)

 

[mike123abc]

The blog post is cleverly worded:

Neither DirecTV nor Dish Network will uplink the local Salisbury stations

Of course they will not uplink them because the local stations wants too much cash.

And we will continue to urge the satellite companies to carry our signal. Until the satellite companies step up to the plate...

Why does the station not step up to the plate and allow free retransmission of their signal after all they go on to say:

...consumers who choose to write monthly checks to them can still watch us, absolutely FREE, and in high definition, with a rooftop antenna

If having a free signal is such a big deal, then why not give it free for satellite and cable?

The stations know about 90% of their viewers use satellite or cable, why not get that 90% to pay?

 

[Hall]

The local NBC affiliate use very similar tactics when their contract with Time Warner ended and people (on cable) were without them for close to a month. Surprisingly, they came to an agreement the week prior to "sweeps week". Now tell me, what does the cableco benefit from "sweeps week" ? Nothing.... The NBC station needed them back on cable for ratings, i.e. advertising $$$.

 

[dennispap]

The broadcasters want to be paid to carry their signal on Satellite. If satellite companies do not want to pay what the broadcasters want then the broadcasters do not allow them to broadcast their signal.

The silly thing is that satellite can bring them more viewers from their area then an off air antenna as many people in the area of the station can get a good signal from those boadcasters. Which to me says that satellite distribution of locals helps the local station gain more viewers and in turn more eyes for their sponsors.

I don't understand why the broadcasters dont see it that way.

I have been saying the same thing. The tv stations need to Look at it as if they are a band. Would you want your record in a few stores, or in every possible store there is?

 

[RockinHARD26]

OMG! I didn't know there was another user from DELAWARE here that was upset about locals from Salisbury!!!!!! Please to meet you! BTW, Where do you live? I find the idiots from Salisbury, at times, think they "know" the correct information when actually, they lack knowledge of current technology. I signed up a few years ago just when Dish had to drop distant local stations. Woke up a day later after being installed to find, they were gone. Dish knew it the entire time, but kept lieing to me. Since then, I've had it out for the company. If it wasn't for some creative work on my end, I would be without locals from philly. Gotta love watching news from a City that you do not live! If I want to know local news, gotta pick up a darn PAPER!

PS. If you do a search for older posts of mine, you'll come acrossed my messages about this topic from day one here. I recently gave Verizon Fios TV a try for two weeks, atleast they have access to Salisbury locals. That was an entire new ball of issues though. Did you see Mediacom cable's present ads about satellite companies lack of local stations?

 

[Voyager6]

... If it wasn't for some creative work on my end, I would be without locals from philly. Gotta love watching news from a City that you do not live! If I want to know local news, gotta pick up a darn PAPER!

PS. If you do a search for older posts of mine, you'll come acrossed my messages about this topic from day one here. I recently gave Verizon Fios TV a try for two weeks, atleast they have access to Salisbury locals. That was an entire new ball of issues though. Did you see Mediacom cable's present ads about satellite companies lack of local stations?

You could have "moved" to the Baltimore DMA. At least then you would have had some local news content.

What issues did you have with FiOS? Equipment or service?

 

[RockinHARD26]

You could have "moved" to the Baltimore DMA. At least then you would have had some local news content.

What issues did you have with FiOS? Equipment or service?

That is true, but still. I picked Philly because I grew up a hour north of it.

Fios... hmm.... lets start: Its a pain when I call Verizon. At first, It keeps asking you to put in a telephone number even though, I do not have telephone service with them. I have just a Fios Internet account. When I finally get to a real live person, 9 out of 10 times its the wrong department. They transfer me, and again, its usually the wrong department. Sometimes they even say, they cannot transfer me. Then they attempt to tell me the correct number to call and guess what? Its the number I actually dialed. This is my personal experience from 267 times I called this year alone.

Now, onto the service…
HD box at first did not like my tv. I had to go into the service menu on the Motorola box and my TV, change a few settings and all was good. Took a few hours to find how to go into the service menu by researching it online. Phone support was no help at all. They kept saying, my DLP bulb was about to burn out. TV is only two months old.

Onscreen guide was very misleading. Even though, I subscribed to every possible channel, there were still channels I could not get. Example: FX HD. Guide showed it as a channel that was possible to watch, but I kept getting some message I could not understand. Again, phone support did not help me. Searching online, I found that not all HD channels that are available from Verizon are actually shown in every market. Some areas have FX HD, while others do not. If the channel is not available for me to watch, then why show it or how about indicating somewhere it's not available?

Parental controls should not allow adult titles on the screen when turned on. If I had young children, I would not like them to see adult titles. Allow to lock out channels all together. Have the ability for different group favorite channels. Not just one favorite list.

Now, this is one what did it for me…

The onscreen guide information 99 out of 100 times was incorrect. I like to know if the program is new, a rerun, old, and when the original air date occurred. The guide would say, new, when actually the program aired a week before. Example: Pushing Daisies. I saw it a week before but the guide said new. Now, I'm not saying that Dish's onscreen guide is completely current but most of the time it is! Fios TV on the other hand, 99 percent of the time, misled.

My personal view points are from experience. I am not saying that the service may or may not be the same for you. I found that the two weeks with the service, were not very easy.

I am now dealing with a billing problem. They charged me $432.99 for the two weeks I had with the service. Funny looking free first month, free six months of box rental, free install, and money back guarantee. Calling to speak to billing, is again, not easy.

 

[tempVAdish]

To the Deleware guys:
I really can't see either of the sat co's picking up the Salisbury DMA until there is a lot more bandwidth available. I live down in VA, just a stone's throw from Chincoteague, and use OTA w/ my 622 to get both WBOC & WMDT. I don't suspect that a market w/ only 3 major networks is looked at very closely. I managed to be one of the lucky ones because I do fall into the Norfolk DMA, as well, just by living in VA & am able to get those chans in HD from Dish. Bad thing about WBOC is that they are jerks when it comes to getting waivers. Back in the day when I was installing both C-band & Direct TV (Dish didn't exist then) WBOC jumped on the high horse & wouldn't even grant waivers to people bordering on Northampton County to get CBS... 47 usually just agreed & everyone could get ABC if they wanted. My whole issue w/ WBOC is the fact that they are a MD station & they are allowed to dictate what VA viewers watch. I don't mean this in a bad way, but that's not right. Hell, more times than you would believe, I've had to make long distance calls to the station because they couldn't even turn on the HD feed... 2 seconds after hanging up the phone, "blip" HD would fill the screen. Another fact that irritates me w/ WBOC is that they've used one of their sub channels for FOX... unless things have changed, the FCC will only allow one HD signal per carrier, all others are to be SD, so, no chance of ever getting a local FOX HD...

Dudes, sorry for the rant, didn't know I'd been going on that long

 

[mdram]

wow, someone else here reads joes blog

its been an ongoing discussion on there for a few weeks.

Ive sent e* an email to see what it takes to get a local on there, and pointed them to the issue
i did get lucky and got the free OTA antenna dish was offerign at one time, so i can get locals that way, but with no programming guide.

according to neilson salisbury is the # 144 market for 2009

according to dishuser its the only dma in md, del, va that is not offered

 

[Jim5506]

Two 720p HD signals are possible to put on a channel, in fact Lubbock TX has two 720p signals PLUS a 480p signal on RF channel 43 (CW, MNTV and Univision).

They are still fine tuning the balance of the bandwidths, but the picture is getting better bit by byte.

 

[Hall]

according to neilson salisbury is the # 144 market for 2009

I looked at their ranking and I'm pretty sure are actually smaller markets that Dish carries. When there's only (3) networks (vs 4), Dish or DirecTV really need all (3) on board before they carry that market. Having 3 out of 4 in a market happens often enough, but 2 out of 3 doesn't make much sense... So if just one of those stations negotiates "tough", they hurt everyone, viewers and the other stations, in that market.

 

[mdram]

here is wboc's faq for sat
WBOC-TV 16, Delmarvas News Leader, FOX 21 - FAQs on Satellite Waivers

 

[jerryez]

Also, many local stations are requiring the carriage of their sub channels (plus money) as a condition of carriage of the network feed. The local cable company may give in, but Dish does not have the capacity to carry these useless sub channels.

 

[mdram]

an update from the vp

Salisbury News: V.P. Of WBOC Responds

 

[RockinHARD26]

Like what I said before, no one cares. ITs all about HD this and HD that. Whatever happened to adding new markets or new channels? No locals here. Fios has the best of both worlds but if only the on screen guide and call center didn't suck so bad. (suck in the bad way haha)

I need a beer, who wants to join me? lol