Recently we were happy to hear the news that our Dish Network service has added 22 New Channels for our viewing pleasure. Unfortunately, along with this wonderful news, we discovered that several of our favorite HD channels have disappeared from the regular lineup. We loved watching the sweeping, continent flyovers that were featured on Equator, the extreme sports shown on Rush, and the unique concerts and musical programming on Rave. Hubby also loved the fact that he could watch world soccer almost any hour of the day on World Sport. Those channels were some of the best HD programming that we had available.
But here’s the thing… I contacted Dish Network to ask where those missing channels were, and they sent me a list of the channels intended to “replace” the ones that are gone. There are, according to Dish, 22 new channels. Let’s take a look at the list I was given of new and “replacement” channels, shall we?
Animania was dropped, and was replaced by Cartoon Network HD and Toon Disney HD, with an “alternative” choice of Boomerang. Okay, here are two “new” HD channels…
Equator was replaced by Discovery HD, History Channel HD, Travel Channel, AAnimal Planet HD, and SCI-FI HD. And here are four more “new” HD channels… we already had the Travel Channel, so it’s not new at all.
Family Room went away, but we get TLC HD, ABC Family HD, TBS HD, Disney HD and Hallmark Movies HD instead, with alternatives of ION and Hallmark available. Five “new” HD channels here…
Gallery made way for Arts and Entertainment HD and Smithsonian, with alternative choices of Classic Arts Showcase and Ovation. One “new” HD channel… and Smithsonian is new, but not HD.
Game Play was replaced by the alternative channel G4 – no direct replacement was listed and we already had G4.
HD News is gone, but we now have CNN HD, CNBC HD and CSPAN, with the alternative option of Fox News. Two more “new” HD channels…
Kung FU was knocked out and no replacements were offered except the alternative offering of SPIKE, which we already had on our lineup. And it doesn’t even come close to replacing the Kung Fu channel.
Monsters disappeared, also without direct replacments, but can be replaced by the alternative selections of the Premium Movie Packages (at an additional cost, of course) and there is an alternative available called Chiller. I haven’t seen Chiller, but obviously it’s not HD, and the premium channels don’t replace the Monsters channel any more than Spike does Kung Fu.
RAVE took a final bow, to be replaced by MHD 369 or the alternative offerings of FUSE, MTV, or MTV2. I haven’t seen MHD, but Hubby says it’s primarily country music, whereas RAVE showed jazz festivals and other alternative music choices – not a great trade, in my opinion. Also, we already had FUSE, MTV (do they play music anymore??) and MTV2.
RUSH is gone, and replaced with ESPN HD, ESPN 2 HD and SPIKE HD. Three “new” HD channels… but none of them really show the cool extreme stuff RUSH did.
Treasure disappeared, but was replaced by Travel Channel HD, HGTV HD, Food Network HD or the alternative, Fine Living. Three more “new” HD offerings…
Ultra was dumped for the replacement options of Travel Channel HD, HGTV HD and Food Network HD, with Fine Living or Soapnet being listed as alternatives. Obviously, these replacements are the same as the ones for the Treasure channel that’s gone, so no “new” ones counted here.
VOOM HD Movies (formerly World Cinema) was replaced by IFC, which I love but we already had.
World Sport is gone, and now we have ESPN HD, ESPN2 HD , Tennis HD and Fox Sports HD, with an alternative offering of Fox Soccer. Two of these were used to replace RUSH, so only one counts as “new” HD.
So, there are 22 allegedly “new” HD channels. HOWEVER… most of the new channels are not new at all, but are duplicates of channels we already had but with an “HD” added to their name. Of the HD versions now listed, most have been available for at least several months on our lineup. So, we are paying the same amount of money for fewer actual offerings.
The real kick is that adding the letters HD to the end of the channel’s name, and sending it through an HD signal, does not mean that programming on the channel will be shown in HD format. David Bromstad will not be any hunkier than he already is on my other HGTV channel, Raven will not be any funnier than she is on my other ABC family channel, and the Challenges will not be any more riveting on my non-HD Food Network channel. So Dish Network is pulling a big one over on their paying customers, and suckering in a bunch of new ones, I’m sure, by saying they’ve added 22 new channels. They have really only added – that we can tell – Smithsonian, which is NOT EVEN HD!!!!!
We’re going to look at Direct TV – maybe they will treat us as intelligent consumers, not morons.
Update: We are now Direct TV customers! We are paying less, and although there are a few duplicate channels, it’s not nearly the number of Dish. Thanks for nothing Dish – you still suck!
Every now and then I think to myself that maybe I should get “cable” or “dish” or whatever. Pay tv. And then I read something like this which you wrote, or I spend a weekend at a hotel with “cable” or something. And I’m always glad to NOT have pay tv and save that $139 a month. I go up to Netflix and twiddle with my queue a bit, then I walk over and adjust the rabbit-ears so there are not two David Lettermans, and I go get a cookie.
And my guess, dear sis, is that Direct TV is no better — nor is real cable, nor is Comcast or any of them.
I only have six channels and there is rarely anything to watch on them. I imagine having 100 channels with barely anything to watch and I no get it! Aaaah. Time to watch YouTube.
Aaaauuuugggghhhh.
Your brother’s right. But I, sadly, am addicted to electronic noise. So…I’m keeping my cable.
Actually, Smithsonian Channel is a True HD Channel. According to http://www.whereishd.com/, Smithsonian HD is 98% True, Native HD.
I am seriously considering nixing my TV. My only concern is the effect it would have on the 10 YO chillun. We would have to replace it with things like books, quality time with games, and outdoor activities. I hope this doesn’t keep her from getting into a good college.
thanks, dc – my hubby said the same thing after reading my diatribe, but I was just going off the list sent to me by the (obviously highly-trained) helpful guy from Dish.
And, for the record – I like the Smithsonian channel. :)
BJJB, it seems to work for the homeschooled masses, give it a go! But then you’d have no one to keep you company.
Hey Original Poster of Dish is full of crap: You mention in your post that several channel types have replacements with alternatives avaliable. What do you mean by this? Does this mean that you can choose to have those channels and not the other channels listed as replacements? I’ve got the Dish network HD only package and as for news I get CNN, CSPAN, and CNBC but since Fox news is not in HD yet I can’t get that channel. I was wondering if my alternative you meant that somehow I could choose to have fox news rather than the others… please explain…
That’s a good question, Chris – unfortunately, I don’t have a good answer. I ASSUME that you have to contact Dish to get those alternative channels, since we don’t have them automatically showing up on our menu when we go through our choices. I just listed what I was told, and the alternatives were just called alternatives and no explanation as to how to access them was given.
Good luck!
I contacted dish about the exact same thing. All they told me was that they were changing my channels to better suit “me”. Which is such a lie because I liked my channels before. Now just as the original poster said, I have a bunch of channels that are not HD but SD channels that are stretched. I may be wrong but I’m pretty sure that old episodes of Full House from 1990 are not really in HD.
well said, Mitchell! We’re direct TV customers now. :)
Ohhhhh, how the truth hurts. We originally had Direct TV for several years. We loved it, but their service was contracted through local contractors, and was terrible. Every time we had a problem, it took several weeks to correct. Finally, we switched to Dish Network. The service was great, but you are correct, they keep changing the rules in the middle of the game. If you contact them and complain, it is a total waste of your time. They could care less and even their “supervisors” either have no authority or don’t care. Direct TV always tried to make the customer happy. Long story short, we are going back to Direct TV. We made a mistake changing to Dish Network in the first place. They are unethical.
Dish still sucks!
Looking for an alternative.
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You had better keep an eye on your bill.
As soon as they thought they could they started charging me an extra 5.15 a month for my
“additional receiver” that was part of the original
package. Nothing I could do but pay if I wanted DISH.
On contract it states;
“PRICE SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE”
So then they started charging 6.25 a month for service contract.
I have called them about these extra charges and was told SORRY.
Good luck with Dish as they are just like ALL the other crooks out there. IMO
when i was younger, i always love the tune of alternative music compared to pop music ;~’