Echostar banished indoors: no more OLN

Let me start with full disclosure: I'm a happy Dish Network customer and have been one for about five years. Let me continue by saying I'm thoroughly pissed off that Echostar, the parent company for Dish Network, will no longer be carrying The Outdoor Life Network (OLN). I was afraid this would happen once I saw that OLN-HD was rolling out with the typical Comcast undertones.

See, OLN is owned, at least partially, by Comcast. I live in "Comcast Country", which is southeastern Pennsylvania, and I've witness firsthand how Comcast bullies the industry around. Wanna watch a Flyers hockey game? Not likely without Comcast cable. How about some hoops with the Sixers? Again, most games require Comcast cable.

Sure, it's not a monopoly simply because Comcast does offer the rebroadcast rights to folks like Echostar. It's the prohibitive cost to Echostar,
some of which has to be passed along to the consumer, that causes bad deals like this. Echostar doesn't feel that the cost of OLN is now justified to make the deal happen and so a great channel will go dark on my set. According to Echostar, "The Comcast-owned programmer recently demanded that EchoStar force millions of additional DISH Network customers to pay for its outdoor programming as a condition to continued availability."

What a shame: OLN is the sole reason I upgraded to Dish's most expensive package; I'll likely drop down to the middle tier now. Oh, I probably don't need to tell you this, but just in case: don't expect OLN-HD on Dish Network for sure now. Comcast: you're getting a little too big for my tastes now that you're  both my HD and my SD
content.