That’s right, I said it.
DIRECTV turned on the national feed of MeTV yesterday on its satellite and internet (DIRECTV Stream) services. But, chances are you can’t get it. You can try going to channel 77 now and trying it. I’ll wait.
If you tried it, you may have gotten a “gamesearch” message saying the program was blacked out. If you’re lucky, you were then directed to a channel showing the same content. Personally I’m having a bit of trouble with the functionality but I expect it will improve.
Why, and how?
The reason it’s happening is that the national feed of MeTV is being blacked out if you have a local affiliate that shows its content. (You can check that here.) A lot of cities have MeTV already. Some have it as a subchannel but many already have it as a primary channel meaning DIRECTV already carries it. In Los Angeles, there are actually two MeTV affiliates, don’t ask me how that happened.
So really you’re not losing out on any content if channel 77 is blacked out. You’re just going to have to look for it somewhere else. If the gamesearch thing doesn’t work for you, just cruise through the guide and you’ll probably find it. You might need to change your favorites list to Channels I Get to see it.
What I find interesting is that DIRECTV hasn’t blacked out national feeds of ION, COZI, or other channels similar to MeTV. This must be something that MeTV’s owners are making them do.
Still, good for DIRECTV and good for us
At a time when a lot of boomer-centric TV is going to streaming, I applaud both DIRECTV and MeTV for doubling down on traditional TV. I would like to see other services, especially BUZZR, come to DIRECTV as well. I’m lucky that I can get it over an antenna and it also streams, but I’d love to stockpile a bunch of old Match Games on my DVR.
Oh, and FMC also
DIRECTV also added Family Movie Classic as well, which you can find on channel 314. This is another channel that offers boomer-friendly programs, in the form of films from the mid-20th century. The couple of times I tuned in, though, the movies were both stretched to fit the screen and cropped at top and bottom. So, perhaps this channel isn’t for me as I’m a bit of a format purist that way. I still prefer things not to be stretched.
The whole point here is that DIRECTV is still adding channels. After all these years you would think that they would have stopped, but it’s just more proof that the company is fighting as hard as it can to win in the pay-TV space.
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