New Local channels now available.....but with a mystery

You're seeing a boogey man where none exists.  The system describes what station we deliver to what areas, the folks at Directv have no choice at all.  If you're real quiet you may get the locals as well as the nationals but don't rattle the bushes because the availability is either or.  Note that the satellite locals never include the sub carrier stuff, one main channel per station. 

What do you mean by the 'system' ?

I think tramway guy's point is that there is no NBC affiliate in the DMA, so DirecTV is bringing in a station from outside the DMA, which they can do, and he is querying why it's the Rochester one and not the Syracuse one. There may be a technical reason for this, for example the spotbeam carrying the Rochester signal might cover the Watertown DMA whereas the Syracuse one does not. I'll have a look at this tomorrow.

Thank you; that is it in a nutshell.  Might it also be a matter of the 'retransmission fee' from the stations in question?  I know that some are a bit greedy about it.

I had a quick look at the DMA maps. As you know, because you don't have your own NBC station, DirecTv is taking one of those already being delivered for an adjacent DMA. The obvious candidates are WSTM in Syracuse and WHEC in Rochester.  These are already being delivered via those spotbeams - think of spoptbeams as flashlight bema spoiting at the earth from the satellite, each spotbeam covering covering just a small part of the U.S..  Also, delivering you one of these stations won't add the station to the Watertown spotbeam, to receive the station, Watertown has to be inside the spotbeam pointed at the other city. 

We don't know what the coverage is of all the spotbeams.  There are maps floating around but they are usually just for SD, or are incorrect. Each of the DirecTV satellites carries some spotbeams, and two of them (Spaceway I and II) only carry spotbeams. To make things more complex, the Spaceway I and II spotbeams are adjustable from the ground.  But I suspect that although Watertown itself is probably inside the Syracuse spotbeam, the furthest parts of the Watertown DMA are probably not, whereas the whole of your DMA is probably inside the Rochester spotbeam which would be a very good reason for choosing to deliver a Rochester station rather than a Syracuse one.  If you check cable systems in the parts of your DMA closest to Rochester, you will probably find they carry WHEC not WSTM. 

Of copurse, it's always possible that it was an arbitrary choice by DirecTV. The people in your DMA close to Rochester will be pleased that they selected WHEC, those close to Syracuse will want WSTM. But DirectTVcan't deliver one station to one part of the DMA and a different one to another.

You should write to DirecTV about the blackout situation. I agree with you it's unreasonable for you to get blacked out because of a broadcast on a station you don't receive. Any reasonable person would say that if the DMA receives WHEC, you should only be blacked out if WHEC is broadcasting the game. Unfortunately reasonable people did not write the blackout rules (DirecTV can't change them either) and the "markets" for stations were defined long before satellite TV came along.  I expect you will just get a form response back from DirecTv but at least you will have made your point.

I doubt that this is a carriage rights issue. But you are right, the blackout situation

Thanks for a very thoughtful response, texasbrit.