# Why won't DirecTV give me my local channels?



## Guest

I am in Little Egg Harbor, NJ, in Southern Ocean County, zip 08087.

I am some 85 miles from New York City, and 50 miles from Philadelphia.

I am in the home delivery area for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and deep into Philadelphia Eagles/Phillies/Flyers territory.

Most people here commute to Atlantic City, Camden County, or Philadelphia.

Our cable system carries all of the Philadelphia broadcast channels in it's most basic package. 

They said I qualify for the Los Angeles and New York City broadcast channels.

BUT- they will NOT give me my local broadcast channels from Philadelphia!

Can anyone help?!


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## pez2002

> _Originally posted by ? _
> *I am in Little Egg Harbor, NJ, in Southern Ocean County, zip 08087.
> 
> I am some 85 miles from New York City, and 50 miles from Philadelphia.
> 
> I am in the home delivery area for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and deep into Philadelphia Eagles/Phillies/Flyers territory.
> 
> Most people here commute to Atlantic City, Camden County, or Philadelphia.
> 
> Our cable system carries all of the Philadelphia broadcast channels in it's most basic package.
> 
> They said I qualify for the Los Angeles and New York City broadcast channels.
> 
> BUT- they will NOT give me my local broadcast channels from Philadelphia!
> 
> Can anyone help?! *


Try calling agian And getting a different CSR Mabye that will help


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## Mike123abc

It is done by county. Your county must not be in the Philly market. They can sell you the distants because you must live in an area where your stations cannot be picked up well. Nielson sets the DMAs up based on tons of factors, you can be closer to the tower of one market but still be in a different one. DBS companies do not really have flexibility, they have to go by market maps.


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## Geronimo

Is any part of New Jersey NOT in either the Phily or NYC DMA?


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## Greg Bimson

Try the map from the Echostar Knowledge Base.

Ocean County is indeed in the New York DMA. You cannot get the Philly stations.


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## Guest

The TV map page at http://www.ardman.net/ says that I can recieve a grade B over the air signal for KYW-3, WPVI-6, WCAU-10, and WHYY-12, all Philadlephia channels. It also says that not a single NYC channel reaches my area.

New York is 77 air miles away, Philadelphia is 51 air miles away, that's a big diffrence, no?

I don't know of a single person that watches any TV from New York south of Toms River.

Also, I subscribe to Total Choice Premier, and all the Yankees games are blacked out. I thought that the games were only blacked out for people outside of the New York market?

Comcast (previously Adelphia) has always provided all Philadelphia broadcast channels, for at least 20 years now.

Comcast gives: CBS/NBC/FOX/ABC/UPN/WB/PBS from both NYC and Philadelphia, and even gives Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia here.


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## TNGTony

? (I wish you'd just pick a name )

The TV Markets and the sports markets are two different animals.

I just redid the maps and I haven't had time to update the pages to point to the right gifs. http://ekb.dbstalk.com/TVMarkets/Maps/
But Ocean County is 100% within the NYC TELEVISION market as defined by the Nielsen Media Research Company. And Egg Harbor is 100% in the Philadelphia Phillies sports market.

The thing is that BY LAW, both DirecTV and Dish Network can only sell you the broadcast channels to the market which Nielsen says you belong to. And they say you are in the NYC market.

Egg Harbor City is in the Philadelphia DMA because it is in Atlantic county.

We have a similar situatuation here in the Cincinnati and Dayton Markets. Northern Butler County is in all respects a suburb of Dayton Ohio. But it only qualifies for Cincinnati locals. Where I live, I can pick up Dayton channels with rabbit ears. But I will never qualify to get the channels over satellite with the current law.

See ya
Tony


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## Guest

I kinda like the "?" name, it's unique.

I am in Little Egg Harbor, NJ 08087. We share a post office with Tuckerton, NJ also 08087. (Not to be confused with Egg Harbor City, or Egg Harbor Twp.) I know it's confusing 

Do you have the maps of the Sports markets? I'd very much like to see them.

How does Neilson come up with this data?


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## TNGTony

I don't have maps, but there is a web site...(http://www.maplenet.net/~trowbridge/rsnteams.htm)...that lists the teams available to individual zip codes. In your case:
Knicks, Nets, 76ers, NY Rangers, Flyers, Phillies

It's interesting that there are some zip codes that qualify some one for one TV market, a different city's baseball team, a third city's football team and yet another city's basketball team! 

Each league carves up the country in a different way.

See ya
Tony

---
Found a another one. http://directv.fxep.com/

For Dish http://dish.fxep.com/

The problem is that it only shows you the channels you actually qualify for in the basic packages. It doesn't show you what other teams you could see if you had the sports packages.


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## TNGTony

As to Nielsen...they look at what MOST people watch in the entire area. In this case ALL of Ocean County. Ocean county used to be divided into north and south, but no longer. Why, I don't know. So my guess is that most people in the northern half of the county get NYC locals either via OTA or via cable. Since more people live in the northern half of the county than the south, they "rule your world". 

See ya
Tony


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## Jacob S

I pick up locals from a DMA closeby in which uses channels in our DMA in their cable lineup as well. Its a very small DMA but nevertheless it would be nice to be able to pick it up as well. I think they should change the rules to where you can get a neighboring DMA especially if you cannot receive your own.


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## Brett

?, there are also two Hamilton Townships in NJ, one in Mercer County and one in Atlantic County!

The Philadelphia stations (all network owned) should lobby Nielsen for the Southern part of Ocean County (the 609 area code part). The population of Southern Ocean should be important, - about equally valuable as Salem and Cumberland County.

In exchange, New York should be given Princeton (the Northern half of Mercer County), although Princeton can go either way easily.

But, The phone companies have it right!!

609 and 856 - Philadelphia territory.

The rest NY territory:

http://docs.nanpa.com/area_code_maps/display.shtml?nj


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## awax

Thats why SHVIA needs to be modified.


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## Mike123abc

SHIVA should be DMA plus grade B signal markets. So if you are in a market, you get your locals, plus the locals of the surrounding markets that you could get with an antenna anyways. Why say you cannot have a signal over DBS that you could simply put an antenna on your roof and pick up anyways.


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## Brett

Hey, ? , do people in Southern Ocean and Ocean Co. take Atlantic City ExpressWay, White Horse Pike to reach us in Camden/Burlington County area, or do they take Rte. 70(which has way too many circles and traffic lights). How do they commute all the way here?

Unfortunately, there is no big interstate connecting Ocean County to Philadelphia region. There is Garden State Parkway which links Ocean Co. to NY, but to get to Philly, they have to drive South to Atlantic City then take A.C. ExpressWay or White Horse Pike, or drive north to Monmouth County then take I195 which will take them to Trenton, then they have to drive south again to Philly.

Although cable systems in Ocean Co. carry both NY and Philly, its an area ignored by both NY and Philly stations (with very little coverage in news to that area). And the DMA messup doesnt help.

The Philly stations have cable coverage even in Southern Monmouth and Northern Ocean County. I have no idea why they are still on cable there, since that area is very Central NJ/NY area focused and Philly stations only detract viewers from the NY stations. Maybe because they are co-owned and not really competing for viewers there? Probably.


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## tampa8

> _Originally posted by Mike123abc _
> *SHIVA should be DMA plus grade B signal markets. So if you are in a market, you get your locals, plus the locals of the surrounding markets that you could get with an antenna anyways. Why say you cannot have a signal over DBS that you could simply put an antenna on your roof and pick up anyways. *


Excellent point. This and many many other things need to be addressed but there is too much (potential) money involved for the broadcasters and they are apparently a strong lobby. What the consumer wants is often secondary.


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## Jacob S

How long has it been since the SHIVA has been updated? Doesn't Nielson update it often or just how much of a population each DMA carries?


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## TNGTony

The SHVIA was only passed in November of 1999. As to updating, the way that the law is written, it allows the DBS provider to keep the 1999 definitions for its customers so that if they live in an area that changes, they do not lose the channels they became acustomed to.

At the same time they are *allowed* (they don't have to) to start giving NEW customers in the same area the locals for the newer maps. At no time can the subscriber actually qualify for both.

This is a NIGHTMARE waiting to happen. Imagine the irate customer calling that their neighbor gets x market and that is what they want but the current definition only allows y. This is why I think that both DirecTV and Dish will set the 1999 definitions in stone and leave them there!

See ya
Tony


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## bills976

> _Originally posted by Brett _
> *
> 
> Although cable systems in Ocean Co. carry both NY and Philly, its an area ignored by both NY and Philly stations (with very little coverage in news to that area). And the DMA messup doesnt help.
> *


Tell me about it. I live in Pleasant Valley, NY (see left), near Poughkeepsie. Smack dab inbetween Albany and NYC. Qualify for NYC locals, though they haven't had a reporter up here since Al Sharpton was convicted in that whole Tiwana Brawley thing. My son goes to RPI, and their locals (Albany DMA) actually cover Poughkeepsie news, but alas cable nor satellite carries the full complement of them; TW carries only the ABC affiliate.


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## Guest

Brett,

I'd guesstimate that about 40% of the people in Southern Ocean County commute into Philly/Camden County

People here mostly take Rt.70/72 or the Expressway for commuting Westward. (Expressway is a bit faster, about 1 hour and 10 minutes to Philly, Rt.70/72 takes about an hour and 20 minutes)

To get to the Expressway is really simple and a reasonable commute. The Parkway to Exit 44 which is Rt. 575. Rt. 575 takes you right to the Expressway which runs right into Philly, totaling just over an hour.

Rts. 70/72 is not too bad either, but usually has more traffic. Rt. 72 runs into Rt. 70 which runs through Cherry Hill and Camden. You can make Cherry Hill in 45 minutes.

We also have a fair amount of people who commute to Mercer County, as Rt. 539 runs from Tuckerton, through Stafford/Barnegat/etc and puts you a stones throw from 195 in under an hour.

As for the Parkway, yes it does link into New York but it's a 2.5 hour drive (in the Winter non-tourist season) You have the Parkway to the Turnpike to the bridges/tunnels and hardly anyone does it from South of Toms River.

Many teenagers in the area go to the Cherry Hill Mall on a regular basis just to "Hang Out", although we have BOTH the Hamilton Mall in Egg Harbor Twp. just 25/30 minutes away, and the Ocean County Mall in Toms River 40/45 minutes away.


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## bills976

Actually, ? -

I just noticed you mentioned:



> They said I qualify for the Los Angeles and New York City broadcast channels.


You qualify for distants. I think most people would kill for your address


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