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Echostar 11 Reaches it's Home
August 26, 2008

Just a little over a month after it blasted off from the Equator, Dish Network’s new “Echostar 11” satellite is in position and is ready for use.

Over the next few nights engineers at Echostar uplinks will begin moving programming from the current Echostar 8 satellite to the new transponders on Echostar 11.  Viewers in Hawaii and Puerto Rico will notice a nice signal gain when these changes are made..

After all programming is offloaded from the Echostar 8 satellite, the Echostar 8 satellite will move to the 77 Degree West Longitude position and will be used as part  of the “Eastern Arc” which is Dish  Networks new all MPEG4 satellite service.

An interesting fact about Echostar 11 is it contains a video camera on it and cam send live pictures of the earth back to the earth.  I would love to be able to see some of those pictures!

Farm Aid to Air on DirecTV in HD

In another  major DirecTV exclusive DirecTV has announced that it will be carrying this year’s Farm-Aid on its own Channel 101 (known as “The 101”) and this years Farm-Aid event will be the first one broadcast in high definition.

This years event features Farm Aid staples Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, The Dave Mathews Band, and Neil Young and will also feature other greats such as Kenny Chesney, The Pretenders, Jerry Lee Lewis and even Arlo Guthrie.

DirecTV will also have a special interactive application where you can learn more about Farm Aid and how you can help out the American Farmer.

Farm Aid will air live on DirecTV’s channel 101 on September 20th.

ESPNU HD

On Thursday ESPN will be launching ESPNU  in High Definition, but don’t expect to see the launch of this new HD channel on one of the satellite services.  Word is that neither provider has come to an agreement to carry the HD channel in time for it’s launch. 

With yesterdays big announcement of ESPN’s of a $2.25 Billion deal with the SEC, I don’t expect it to be long until deals are made to make the new HD channel available to customers of Dish Network and DirecTV. I highly expect that ESPNU will have a major future and will be a major force in sports programming over the next year years.

Deal or No Deal

So was I the only one suckered into watching last nights edition of NBC’s “Deal or No Deal?” After all the hype during the Olympics I know I wasn’t the only one expecting to see the shows first million dollar winner last night.

Sooner or later someone will win the big one, but they are ruining the show by adding a extra million dollar case each time someone doesn’t win the prize. On the next edition it appears there will be a total of 5 million dollar cases.  Sure if they make the majority of the cases million dollar cases then someone will win it.  Me I would rather see someone win the hard way with only one million dollar case on the board. 

If they keep stacking the million dollar cases on then winning the big prize is going to be like shooting fish in a barrel. What fun is that?


Posted by Scott Greczkowski on August 26, 2008 | Comments (8)


August 26, 2008
In response to: Echostar 11 Reaches it's Home
Rob commented:

ESPNU HD would be a very welcome addition! Come'on Dish! Scott - You must not have watched Deal last spring. At one time, they had filled the entire right side of the board with $1M cases (13 total!) and still couldn't get a winner. Whereas TPIR gave away $1M to three winners in four weeks when it aired special nighttime shows last spring.




August 27, 2008
In response to: Echostar 11 Reaches it's Home
Manuel commented:

Scott, I'm locked into a DISH Latino subscription for another 9 months. The programming, though, is terrible! It's a random jumble of some networks that Directv and even cable wouldn't put on. Why doesn't DISH keep up with the Joneses? The other guys keep innovating and improving their offerings. Manny




August 28, 2008
In response to: Echostar 11 Reaches it's Home
B.C. commented:

Manny, doesn't matter. THey have their 1.4 million subscribers and are not motivated to improve product, unless the people start leaving. You will have to deal with it for 9 months. Consider it giving birth then.




August 28, 2008
In response to: Echostar 11 Reaches it's Home
GG16 commented:

BC, that may be, but you are missng the point. We all know DISH Latino's success rides solely on getting to market first and their retailer netwrok. Their programming strategy is just "put anything on" - they have no one there who knows programming and strategy ofr Hispanic mkt. Their time is coming. Look at growth rates for Comcast, TWC and expecially Directv compared to DISH. This is the biggest story in hispanic pay tv now. maybe you should talk to laura martinez. For subscribers, yes, it's a bad situation. For everyone else, the market is starting to win out over dISH's retailer system. Smart subscribers like Manny, who can afford their bill and keep paying, will continue to leave DISH, leaving them higher churn and lower margin. And lower valuations in general - can you believe that over 10% of their base is DISH Latino? Sorry, BC. They will be motivated to improve product soon, even if that means hiring people who know the market.




August 29, 2008
In response to: Echostar 11 Reaches it's Home
Linda commented:

After being a Dish Network customer since its inception, we decided to high def. The Dish tech came out, told us we could not get the HD signal, (we are in the mountains in Georgia) but we could get the HD on the new satellite that is now in position. Its called the eastern arc satellite. We could not get authorization for this satellite, even after we spoke to 3 supervisors and told them our situation. They were very rude. We are very sad and disgusted with Dish Network. We have never have a problem till now. We are in the process of changing to Direct TV. We were paying Dish $150.00 per month. You would think they would want to keep a good customer.




August 29, 2008
In response to: Echostar 11 Reaches it's Home
Linda commented:

After being a Dish Network customer since its inception, we decided to high def. The Dish tech came out, told us we could not get the HD signal, (we are in the mountains in Georgia) but we could get the HD on the new satellite that is now in position. Its called the eastern arc satellite. We could not get authorization for this satellite, even after we spoke to 3 supervisors and told them our situation. They were very rude. We are very sad and disgusted with Dish Network. We have never have a problem till now. We are in the process of changing to Direct TV. We were paying Dish $150.00 per month. You would think they would want to keep a good customer.




August 31, 2008
In response to: Echostar 11 Reaches it's Home
prstar51 commented:

Will the launch of Echostar XI allow us in Puerto Rico to be able to have all the HD channel lineup? It has always been denied to us even though we get a very strong signal from 61.5.




August 31, 2008
In response to: Echostar 11 Reaches it's Home
prstar51 commented:

Will the launch of Echostar XI allow us in Puerto Rico to be able to have all the HD channel lineup? It has always been denied to us even though we get a very strong signal from 61.5.





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