Good article. I am sure most of you will comment on his general theme of how companies count and what should be counted. Or the fact that most subs don't care about the total number of HD stations, they only care about the number of of HD stations within their particular subscription package and the quality of those stations.
I do want to focus on this one point about the RSNs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Scott
In Dish Networks press release they boasted the fact they are the first provider with 100 national HD channels, but I personally don’t buy this since no Dish Network customer can call up and subscribe and see all 100 HD channels. And to make matters worse a number of Dish Network’s “National HD Channels” are regional sports networks, but these are not even full time channels, these are “select game-time only HD broadcasts” from where I sit to call them channels and include them in the channel count is just wrong.
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There is a difference between the way Direct counts their 95 HD channels and the way Dish counts their soon to be 100 HD channels. That is, Direct does not count their part time game only HD RSNs and Dish does count them.
But, Direct does count their full time HD RSNs. Scott says they should not count because, these are not channels in which anyone can pick up anywhere in the USA. This however is simply false. Any Direct sub can watch any out of market full time HD RSN pretty much 24/7 (only will be blacked out when ones home team is being broadcast on another RSN). The sports pack and/or premium package gets you access to all of these RSNs with pro games blacked out. These blackouts can be avoided with individual sports packages such as EI. In a sense, every single sub can watch every out of market RSN full time on Direct if they are willing to pay. This is still national.
What needs to be done IMO, is that both or all TV providers need to use the same standard of counting. When both Direct and Dish use the same standards, the actual number of HD channels on each is much closer, with Direct getting a slight edge (even after the addition of the 17 new stations).