HBO, Tennis & Circuit City Thoughts

(Please note: This was the Satellite Dish column which was supposed to run on Friday January  16th, but was delayed due to system upgrades here at MultiChannel.COM - Thank you for your understanding!)

This weekend DirecTV customers can enjoy a free preview of HBO.  The free preview which started yesterday will allow customers to enjoy such blockbusters as “Snakes on a Plane”, “Juno”, and “The Simpsons Movie.”

HBO will be shining the spotlight on their HBO Original series “Big Love” and “Flight of the Conchords” which returns to the pay television service for another season.

On Sunday HBO will be presenting a special celebrating the inauguration of Barack Obama. The special called “We are one: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial.”  This opening celebration of the 56^th Presidential Inauguration will be held on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and will feature performances by such artists as Bruce Springsteen, U2, James Taylor, Stevie Wonder, Sheryl Crow and Garth Brooks. This special event will air on Sunday at 2:30PM ET and will also be simulcast on HBO Latino.

Interactive Tennis on DirecTV

Tennis fans can rejoice as DirecTV has announced that it is expanding its interactive tennis lineup by carrying all four Grand Slam tennis tournaments.

For the first time viewers will be able to watch the live broadcast plus 5 court channels all in HD via a special DirecTV Interactive Mix channel.

The fun starts on Sunday with coverage of the Australian Open.  Viewers will be able to tune in to channels 701 – 707 to access DirecTV’s expanded coverage.

Goodbye Circuit City

While not satellite related, I am not surprised to hear that it is the end of the line for Circuit City stores. I personally stopped shopping Circuit City a few years ago when they fired all their knowledgeable commissioned staff and replaced them with teens working at minimum wage.

Before Christmas I went to my local Circuit City store and purchased a family member a digital camera.  It was the Christmas rush and there was only two registers open.  One register was open in the photo area and the other register open was at the pickup desk (and it had a line a mile long).  Since I was buying a camera and the camera I wanted was available in the glass case at the photo center I decided to pay at the photo area.  After paying for the camera I was instructed to go wait at the pickup desk, which got me mad.  Here I was and there was a glass case full of the exact camera model I wanted yet they wouldn’t open it up and give me the camera I paid for.  So I had to go wait in line at the pickup desk.  After waiting in line for over 45 minutes I finally got my camera.  I walked out of the store vowing never to go back and I didn’t.

I always found it funny that where there was a Circuit City there was almost always a Best Buy directly across the street.  The Best Buy lot was always packed yet the Circuit City lot was always empty, this was a telling sign.

What’s Happening?

A number of readers contacted me today nothing that the RSS feed for “The Satellite Dish” has gone crazy by sending them all the previous editions overnight.  Fear not, everything will be ok!

The folks here at MultiChannel News are working to make things better for you and have started upgrading some of the behind the scenes infrastructure. In doing these upgrades the RSS feeds had their last read pointers reset.  And that’s why you might have received all the old postings in your inbox this morning.

The folks at MultiChannel are working hard to make things better to serve you!  While the behind the scenes updates continue I invite you to take a look around at the site, there is so much going on here at MultiChannel that at times you might miss things.  And of course be sure to check out the “TV Crush” it’s a great look at the world of what we all watch TV for… the TV Programming!

Have a great weekend!