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Waiver No More?San Diego Stations SpaceboundGary Stigall, CSTE Four San Diego TV stations will likely make their debut on direct broadcast satellites (DBS) in July. XETV/Fox, KFMB-TV/CBS, KGTV/ABC, and KNSD/NBC have been given slots on DirecTV and Dish Network. At press time, the satellite slots had been announced, but rebroadcast agreements and signal continuity tests hadn't necessarily been completed. During June, DirecTV connected the stations via fiber to their El Segundo uplink facility. The signals join other "local-on-local" stations on Tempo 2 satellite at 119°W longitude. Note that the primary services satellites for DirecTV reside at 101°W, requiring customers to buy either one of the new multiple focus dishes or use two dishes. For the Dish Network, Airwatch Traffic Chief Engineer Dick Warren says they receive the four stations via demods, then process the video and send the signals via Time Warner and Sprint Fiber to an uplink station at Cheyenne, Wyoming. EchoStar 5 rebroadcasts local-on-local at 110°W. Dish Network viewers, too, will require widely-spaced multiple beam reception. The extra service is expected to cost about $5 per month, plus initial antenna costs. The local-on-local service should slow the local affiliate processing of waivers. Rules have prohibited substitution of out-of-market network affiliates as a violation of copyrights. A court order last year shut down the network DBS services for viewers inside the stations' grade B contours. The waiver pleas won't go away entirely. Many viewers want access to outside affiliates from past hometowns. Others want access to any signal regardless of network/affiliate agreements. |
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