# South Bend, IN - Fox moving to WSBT 22.2



## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Beginning Monday, August 1-- SBT-2 will become your local home for FOX programming.

FOX Michiana will feature all the programs you currently watch only on a new channel.

You can watch it on Digital Channel 22.2, Dish Network Channel 30 and Comcast Cable 16.

http://wsbt.com/news/local/sbt-2-to-become-fox-affiliate-monday-august-1

Two HDs on a digital channel. 

BTW - After a transition/simulcast period, channel 28 will become "Heroes and Icons".


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

We will find out by October 1st how that mess will work out.

It appears that the station was not acquired, only the Fox affiliation. The carriage contract is with the station ... perhaps DISH and DIRECTV will not have to pay WSJV as much as they do now when the Fox content goes away. Hopefully there is a clause in their contracts that lets DISH and DIRECTV out of paying major network affiliate rates for independent channel programming.

That leaves a hole for WSBT 22-2. DISH was forced to accept "SBT2" back when it was UPN Michiana. It was one of the first subchannels in the nation carried on DISH. UPN merged with WB to become the CW and that affiliation ended up on another station. But the contract to carry "SBT2" remained. Which means, for now, DISH customers get two FOX feeds, the grandfathered HD from WSJV and the new FOX Michiana from 22.2.

I hope DISH and DIRECTV work out new contracts with WSBT for carriage ... DISH to carry 22.2 in HD and DIRECTV to be able to carry the feed at all (preferably HD). The WSJV carriage contract will probably lead to having "Heroes and Icons" on both services in HD. Even if DIRECTV loses Fox.

Did I say that it was messy?


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## Timr (Oct 22, 2016)

They sure screwed up something. The transmitter for OTA 28-1 has the correct H&I info but still says WSJVFOX and on the hopper 22-2's Fox guide is over on 28-1, it still thinks that is FOX. 22-2 SBT2 always worked fine for me on DISH now it says Digital Service for 3 weeks now.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

*DISH Carriage*
They did fairly good for in market subscribers - at least for those without OTA.

Channel 30-0 WSBT2 was removed.
Channel 28-0 WSJV was renamed WSBT2 ... leaving the Fox affiliation on the same channel.
That means all the timers set for WSJV Fox continue to work for WSBT2 Fox programming.

Lost in the shuffle was WSJV 28 "Heroes and Icons". WSJV is no longer carried by DISH. I believe the underlying issue is the carriage contract for WSJV. WSJV's owners elected "consent to carry" and negotiated a carriage contract where DISH paid for the Fox affiliate. Now that WSJV is no longer a Fox affiliate the contract is broken. But the "consent to carry" election remains. DISH and the station need to negotiate a new contract to carry the new channel. Or WSJV needs to wait for the next election cycle and elect "must carry", forcing DISH to carry the "Heroes and Icons" feed but forfeiting any potential payment.

Without satellite carriage for WSJV you will not get EPG carriage. Yes, it is possible to uplink an EPG only channel to provide the EPG but DISH rarely does that.

The one thing DISH can do easily is change the OTA channel that the Fox feed is mapped to.
On channel 7091 WSBT's EPG feed is mapped to subchannel 01 on an OTA channel with TSID "047B".
On channel 7093 WSBT2's EPG feed is mapped to subchannel 01 on an OTA channel with TSID "0443".

WSBT 22 uses TSID "047B" - WSJV uses TSID "0443". If DISH changed the mapping on channel 7093 to subchannel 02 on an OTA channel with TSID "047B" it would fix the EPG error for channel 22-2. (The same change needs to be made to channel 5193 WSBT2.)

That still wouldn't add an EPG for "Heroes and Icons" ... but it would provide correct EPG for 22-2.

BTW: It annoys me that I know how to fix the problem with 22-2 but finding a person at DISH to understand such problems seems impossible. A few years ago I spent an hour on the phone with not a normal CSR who swore that OTA EPG was delivered OTA and not via satellite. Obviously someone who hasn't seen the uplink data. If anyone at DISH is reading that understands this stuff it should be an easy fix for 22-2.

*DIRECTV Carriage*
It appears that DIRECTV also came to an agreement to carry WSBT2 in the place of WSJV. DIRECTV did not carry "SBT2 30" so there was no channel to drop. I do not know if their customers are having EPG issues.


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## Timr (Oct 22, 2016)

Perfect explanation of what is going on! Thanks!


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

DISH finally fixed the EPG for 22.2! (no EPG for 28.1 or 28.2)


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## Timr (Oct 22, 2016)

Yep! I'm so happy DISH finally fixed EPG for 22.2.


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