Folks, I know I must sound like Chicken Little. I’ve been banging this drum since 2016. But please know that I’m super serious. DIRECTV has already started turning off standard definition local channels in major markets. It’s not going to slow down or stop. In fact I expect the pace of the shutdown to increase as we get closer to 2024.
A little history, and why we are at this point
DIRECTV launched in 1994, a time when standard definition was, well, the only definition. A few years later, in 2001, they started aggressively adding local channels. By 2006, their satellite fleet had the capacity to add HD local channels, and after several launches in the 2010s, the fleet stood ready to take on 4K locals.
In the meantime, the company had assembled a huge fleet of satellites which at one point spanned seven locations across the sky. As early as the mid-2000s, they set out to consolidate all their programming to three central locations, with satellites located 22,000 miles above the middle of the country. Slowly, they shut down one satellite location after another as they just weren’t necessary.
By 2016, the only real outlier was a satellite at the 119 degree west longitude location. This satellite carried standard definition local channels for about one quarter of the markets DIRECTV served. The decision was made that by 2019, when that satellite would be 15 years old, it would be taken out of service. (Most satellites have a 10-15 year service life.)
And then, well, you know
DIRECTV wasn’t ready to start taking down standard definition channels by the end of 2019. And then, well, you know, 2020 hit. A lot of things got put on hold and this was one of them. That 15-year-old satellite kept functioning, luckily, and everything just stayed as it was for two years until the world was ready to focus on it.
However, in the fall of 2022, DIRECTV started moving quickly to turn off standard definition locals. In some cases, they informed customers. In some cases, they didn’t. Keep in mind, the company had been aggressively trying to get people out of standard definition hardware for years. They started giving away free HD receivers to new accounts in 2013. They started giving incentives to existing customers in 2018. I guess they must have felt at this point that they had done all they could.
Mobile and marine customers are still impacted
The largest segment of standard definition users at this point are mobile and marine customers. A lot of marine dishes from the ’00s as well as essentially every mobile dish have something in common. They can only see one satellite, specifically the one at DIRECTV’s 101 location. This satellite is home to most of DIRECTV’s standard definition content, but only a handful of HD content. Until the launch of DIRECTV’s T16 satellite, the 101 satellites were not well suited to HD transmission, so a lot of that work was done by satellites at the 99 and 103 locations. Unfortunately, most mobile and marine satellites can’t decode the signals from those locations.
Now’s the time to act, because this is a good thing
If you still have standard-definition-only equipment, now’s the time to act. You can trade those SD receivers in for HD ones before you lose all your SD locals. That way you’ll still get HD locals if they’re on the 101 satellite.
And that’s the best part of all of this. By eliminating thousands of SD channels from the 101 satellite’s broadcasts, there will be room for more HD channels at that location. It’s estimated that an additional 85-100 channels will be available for HD when this is all over.
That’s good news for everyone. You still may not get your locals from that satellite, that’s true. More importantly you’ll get a lot more HD content. You’ll get HD content that’s available everywhere in the country, and up to 100 miles offshore. That’s what you really want.
Don’t get left behind
Call the experts at Signal Connect. We’ve handled more SD to HD conversions than anyone else. We’ll review every option with you. We’ll help you decide which is best for you. And, we’ll make it easy for you to move forward. Folks, this is what we do. It’s why DIRECTV called us their Dealer of the Year. Trust me, you want to work with the experts. Call us at 888-233-7563 during East Coast business hours. Or, fill out the form below and we’ll take care of you.
