Link This |
Email this |
Blog This |
Comments (49)
Dish Network is Not Using Their Noggin
January 2, 2008
If you are like me and have young kids, then chances are good that your kids watch Noggin. I have a 4-year-old son at home (who will turn 5 years old tomorrow… Happy Birthday Richie!) and Noggin is a big part of his day. He always gets upset when it turns to 6pm and his friends Moose A. Moose and Zee say goodnight. At that time Noggin goes off the air and on comes “The N”a channel aimed at teens.
When Noggin goes off we switch the channel to another kid friendly channel, which is one of the Disney Channels, but the programs on these channels seem to wind him up more then calm him down, and he ends up going to bed pretending his is a “Power Ranger.”
Imagine how happy I was when Viacom announced on August 13th, 2007 that Noggin would be going 24 hours on December 31st, and that “The N” would be becoming its own separate channel, replacing Nick Games and Sports.
We woke up on the 31st to find Noggin on Dish Network; we went ahead in the guide and saw the listings for Noggin, it looked like indeed Noggin was now 24 hours. In looking around I could not find “The N”, I tuned to the Nick Games and Sports channel to find it still on the air. I thought that was strange, but didn’t pay too much attention to it.
On New Years Eve, my son and I sat and watched a special “Franklin” movie, this movie was to celebrate the fact that Noggin was now 24 hours. Part the way into it the movie cut off and we were now seeing “The N” instead. My son was upset he wanted to watch the rest of the movie. I am lucky enough to also have DirecTV so I let him watch the rest of the film in my bedroom.
For many other Dish Network customers they did not have the option to watch the end of the movie on DirecTV. Many of the online satellite forums had messages from angry parents about the lack of 24/7 Noggin (and others were upset that there is no 24/7 “The N”)
Calls into Dish Network by customers got a bunch of different answers of why Noggin and The N were not 24 hours on Dish Network. Some folks even used the online support chat feature that Dish Network offers and were told “DISH Network customers will NOT be impacted by the change for The-N/Noggin.”
What makes this even stranger is that every cable company and DirecTV have made the changes, Dish Network seems to be the only provider to still be timesharing Noggin and The N.
Emails to Dish Network and Viacom about this issue were not returned by press time. If I get anything I will update this entry.
If you have been a longtime Dish Network customer you have come to expect programming issues from Dish Network to start the year. Dish Network once again follows that tradition into 2008. Hey Dish Network please start using your Noggin!
Correction
In my year-end recap on Monday, I incorrectly stated that Dish Network was the first satellite company to broadcast in MPEG4. While that may have been true for national HD MPEG4, it was actually DirecTV who first used MPEG4 to transmit MPEG4 signals into the Detroit DMA.
I do apologize for the error.
On Friday we will be looking ahead to the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show!
Posted by Scott Greczkowski on January 2, 2008 | Comments (49)
