Whats the Story With 4DTV?

The subscription business for the big old fashioned C Band satellite dishes has been declining greatly over the years and now one if the programming providers is telling customers that the show is almost over.

Reports are coming in that National Programming Service is no longer selling 4DTV C Band subscriptions, and that the CEO of NPS Mike Mountford is telling customers that, “We do believe that Motorola will discontinue support of C-Band authorizations after the end of the year.”

In an email to a NPS customer from Mountford it goes on to trying convert the customer over to DISH Network. In the email Mountford says, “We have set up a special deal for our C-Band customers with Dish Network. We can get you a free system Dish Network system and have it installed as early as tomorrow!”

So is the C Band subscription market going away? According to Mike Kohl of Skyvision he says that the email from NPS is “Hogwash!”

According to reports that other programmers such as Skyvision and SPL they have been in talks with Motorola and that the information being reported by Mountford is false.

C-Band “4DTV” subscriptions have been in decline over the years, both due to the fact that many big dish users have moved to smaller satellite system such as ones from DIRECTV and DISH Network and also due to the fact that it is next to impossible to find and buy a new 4DTV receiver.

Used 4DTV receivers can be found on the internet selling for up to a thousand dollars. People still want them but they are hard to find.

Most C Band subscription programming is considered the best quality since in most cases it is the master feeds from many of the popular satellite delivered networks. For many channels you can not get a clearer picture then directly from these master feeds.

Now I have been unable to contact anyone from Motorola for comment, so I don’t know whos telling the truth here, but remember that Mike Mountford from National Programming Service sells Distant Network channels on Dish Network under the company name of All American Direct. If I had to guess I would say that Mr. Mountford is looking to get out of the satellite business soon. But that’s just my guess.

There will be a discussion about this topic tonight on the Access America Radio Network at 9PM, you can find out how to tune in at http://www.sattalk.us/ the site also including links so you can listen to the stream live on your PC.