I thought TV in America is free.   You have obviously never seen my cable bill !!!

I saw that crawler going across my screen last night... very interesting... I do not think this is just a KBAK problem... I'm pretty sure this is between DISH and CBS... the big boys with the big money !!!

That crawler is running on both KBAK and KBFX so its more local then national. Although Dish has always had a problem with FOX since FOX also owns Direct TV, Dish's competition.

Channel 60, 140 thru 151, 182 thru 214, 300 thru 350. That's enough channels for me. Quite obviously I am ready for a la carte. These boys better not get to proud of their stations. They may find themselves selling shoes.

I would like a la carte choices, too, tkozy.  That'll never happen, though, supposedly because it would put the smaller, less popular cable stations out of business.

Nine,

'Never', was the third leg in the vocabulary of many a Enron employee.  :>)

We have the same problem with Direct TV and the CW network.  Mind you, the local CW network is ran through our local KGET station here in town.  Niether KGET, nor Direct TV seem in any hurry to fix the problem, nor can you get a waiver from either to get an eastcoast feed for it.  Now, I'm lucky and I only miss Smallville, but if I couldn't get CBS and Fox for sports, I would be rather disappointed. 

Interesting. I hadn't heard about this, but here I am looking at a man who's talking about the loss of my channels. That's interesting. It kind of ticks me off that I can't see a couple of my favorite shows on this channel. I suppose now I have to go out to the game room where I can watch them on our Direct TV. We have both satellite networks.

I am livid over this situation.  Fox airs the NFC football games and will be airing the Super Bowl this year.  Now I will have to go to someone else's house to watch the games. 

Well I found out today more information. It involves Fisher Communications is what I hear. Maybe they are the new owners of KBAK/KBFX. I think those affected need to contact KBAK and air your feelings and also keep posting here. If TV stations didn't make money from their advertisers, they wouldn't spend millions on their antenna and transmitter. They would be cable only. I feel its unfair that the owners of KBAK/KBFX can block me from having a quality TV signal just because I happen to have Dish Network service. The least they could do is give the waiver that I need or other Dish Network customers need to get out of the area channels since they are making the decision to keep their signal from me. Oh of course you will get the same line I get, its available free over the air, but why should I have to invest in an antenna network and pay someone to install that antenna just to get their free over the air signal?

Besides that, TV broadcasters charge for ads based on the numbers they can claim as viewers. With the KBAK/KBFX signals on Dish Network, cable and Direct TV they get to claim 100's of thousands more then they can with just over the air broadcast. Especially when you take into account that KBFX is a low power tv and has a very small foot print where they can be seen over the air. Cable is not always available to all homes so satelitte is a great way to get TV broadcasts to remote homes where cable is not available. What KBAK/KBFX is doing is strong arming Dish Network trying to force them to pay more to carry their signal. What the end result will be is Dish Network will just pass that added cost on to me and the other Dish Network users. That is just wrong! With the added fees from Dish Network, I will be forced to change out all my equipment and switch to Direct TV and forcing Dish Network to price out their customers is just wrong!

Here's the deal with paying for local channels on satellite and cable.  Someone decided that local stations are due payment from satellite and cable providers for the re-broadcast of their programming.  Therefore, companies like Dish and DirecTV are required to enter into contracts with every local station that it wishes to rebroadcast - not just CBS or FOX - but each CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, and CW affiliate in every market that they do business in.

If you're in the same predicament that I am with Dish, you can go to mydistantnetworks.com and for $2.99 a month, per network you can replace each of your missing networks.  For football fans (like myself) this isn't a bad idea because you will get the San Francisco feed and the Atlanta feed, so in theory, you should be able to receive two different football games on both FOX and CBS at the same time.  The other plus by signing up for this service is that you don't have to sit through the horrible local news provided by FOX 58 and CBS29!  No great loss!

The bigger question here is why is one company allowed to own two different network affliiates in the same market?  I think Fisher Communications is just using their monopoly in Bakersfield to take advantage of all Dish Network viewers.

I don't know who is at fault here, Dish or the channels, but I have to say I'm very irritated.  I live in Lake Isabella and we can't get the local stations via antenna.  I have to have satellite or cable.  I'm on a contract with Dish.  I love my Fox and CBS shows like House, NCIS, etc.  I'm very angry that there isn't a national Fox we can purchase as an add on, or let us add on the local Fox for an extra charge.  I would pay....

Thanks for the link. I will check it now. Funny thing about owning more then one network in the same market. The history of that actually started here in Bakersfield. Previously you would not be allowed to own more then one each media form in any market and no more then three media forms total in that market. In otherwords, if you owned an AM station,  you could own an FM station as well but not two AM or two FM stations. Your third media form could be TV or print, but you could not own all four forms (AM FM TV and Print). At the time it changed, Buck Owens had FM station KKXX, AM station KUZZ and Print media Camera Ads. Buck's sister Dorothy Owens owned a TV station KDOB. When the TV station went bankrupted, Buck petitioned the FCC to allow him to pull his sister out of bankruptsy and buy out the TV station. Rather then make Buck sell off one of his three media forms, they allowed a waiver and therefore Buck ended up with all four forms. From that, no more then three of the four forms rule died. So the end result you have American General Media, Buckley Broadcasting and Clear Channel owning most of the media forms in Kern county. AMG has many AM and FM stations as do the other two. This is how Fisher can have both KBAK and KBFX and how even though Buck later sold the TV station to Univision his media giant now consists of two FM stations and one AM station, along with the Print media here in Bakersfield.