Newlywed in Dubai - Year 2: Orbit ESPN is officially gone

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Early this week my Orbit ESPN sports channel disappeared from my satellite television (see Where the Hell is Orbit ESPN?!?).

I vowed to find out the what was going on, which proved to be somewhat challenging (see Orbit ESPN is still missing).

All of a sudden other concerned sports fans in the Middle East got involved as well, and provided rumors that ESPN had jumped to another provider (see ESPN now on ART?).

But finding someone at Orbit with a brain in their skull to answer our questions turned out to be impossible. So I went the other route - I turned to ESPN.

I found in an article from last September about the promotion of Lynne Frank to the position of Managing Director of ESPN International for Europe, Middle East, and Africa. I confirmed this all via her biography on the company website.

So, knowing the way that Disney does their email addresses from my time at the company, I sent off a pleasant email to her, asking for clarification.

Immediately I got an "out-of-office" reply, so I knew I was on the right track. In her mechanized message it named another person in the office who might be able to help with any questions.

I emailed this other lady with the same question.

Finally last night I got a reply from a third person - this time a VP of "TV Sales EMEA" who said, and I quote:

I received your request for information regarding the Orbit ESPN channel. ESPN's agreement with Orbit expired on April 1st 2008. The ESPN channel is available through ART in the Middle East. I apologise that you were not able to receive good information from Orbit and I shall make sure they are aware of this and we will endeavour to make information available regarding our new agreement as soon as possible.

So there we go, official word.

Now my challenge is figuring out if we even get ART in Dubai. They have a website sure, but it's only in Arabic, which is awesome and super-helpful to all of the American and European expats who, you know, might be interested in an American and European sports channel.

I can't believe how happy I was just last week (see Live Red Sox in Dubai!).

I'm so ready to be done with Dubai.

posted by Josh at 10:15 AM

7 Comments:

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At April 5, 2008 6:47 PM, Hamad

I'm an ART World subscriber and as I said earlier in one of my posts the channel is there with the ART package but any word on when will ART turn the channel on for its viewers?

At April 5, 2008 8:27 PM, Hamad

Hey Josh check out www.firstnettv.net , ART's English Website version...

At April 6, 2008 12:13 AM, Hamad

NY Mets vs. the Braves is now live as I speak on Fox Sports Asia via ART with Joe Buck doing the commentary ;)

Checked this also for you, yes of course ART is avaiable in Dubai and actually their call centre is stationed in Dubai for the entire Middle East. But expect similar customer service like the one you would get from Orbit...

At April 6, 2008 10:14 AM, Josh

Joe Buck?!

I'm not going to change my whole cable TV setup just to go over to Fox Sports Whomever and get Joe Buck talking at me!

Honestly I think I'll miss SportsCenter and the rare Baseball Tonight on ESPN more than the potential for live games, which are always quite rare, and always happen at early hours anyway.

Luckily I didn't get too addicted to ESPN SoccerNet Press Pass ... because I'm pretty sure we won't be able to see that this summer when we move home ...

At April 6, 2008 11:06 AM, AnnaB30

Maybe I am naive... does MLBTV.com not work? I have been listening to MLB radio so far, works fine.

At April 6, 2008 11:43 AM, Josh

You know, I've always been too cheap to plunk down the cash for MLB.tv. I do have the GameDay Audio, though, that works well.

I'd quite honestly rather get SportsCenter or just Baseball Tonight from ESPN instead of live games. I don't have time to watch/listen to entire games at this point in my life, sadly.

I have to do more research into ESPN360.com - I think that works here, that might be the way to go.

At April 6, 2008 8:42 PM, Kyle

Thanks for the information. The lesson I learned with the satellite packages here is don't get too comfortable with one. I used to subscribe to Orbit direct when they used to carry Fox Sports and ESPN. Then suddenly Fox disappeared (around 2001). The same thing that is happening now happened then. So when Evision came around I signed up with them. Now they are not perfect, but I can switch packages with a phone call. I added FirstNet with Fox at the beginning of the year to see the bowl games I wanted to see. I was planning on dropping them, but will drop Orbit instead.

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