Attention fantasy football enthusiasts: The Gridiron Games will give all DISH Network subscribers access to two fantasy football games which can be played for cash prizes.

Both fantasy football games that make up the Gridiron Games are exclusive to DISH Network and will be available throughout the 2010 NFL season. “DISH Network Team Pick’em” allows fans to pick a winner for every NFL game in a given week.

For more hardcore fans, “SnapDraft on DISH Network” delves deeper into the strategy behind the game by giving players the opportunity to graft new teams every week using salary caps.

Both of these new games are powered by Fanball, a recognized provider of fantasy sports products and contests.

Every week of the 2010 season, DISH Network will award $500 to the player that has earned the most points in each competition. When the 2010 NFL season comes to an end, the winners of both games will each win $20,000; players in second and third places will each receive $5,000 and $2,500, respectively.

Each of those prizes would certainly pay any subscriber’s DISH Network bill well into a number of future NFL seasons.

Every so often DISH Network will offer some of their premium channels for free for a weekend. This is one of those weekends.

From June 25th to June 28th DISH Network subscribers will be able to watch three HBO channels for free, even if they are not subscribed to those channels.

Channels 303, 304 and 305 will all be free during this period.

These free weekend promotions are a great way to find out if some of DISH’s premium channels are something you would like to have access to on an on-going basis – a sort of “test drive” for the programming available on various premium channels.

HBO, or “Home Box Office” started out showing movies but has since moved into developing their own successful series-oriented programming as well. Perhaps the best-known HBO series was the very popular Sopranos.

Just about everyone on planet Earth has heard about the FIFA WorldCup, even if they have no interest whatsoever in the game soccer, or football as it is known in other parts of the world. The WorldCup is a huge event, and has the attention of millions and millions of fans all over the world.

DISH Network has joined in on the fun by launching a new channel devoted entirely to the 2010 FIFA WorldCup South Africa. With baseball, football and basketball still being more popular here in the United States, the new channel is focused on Spanish-language viewers. Soccer is very popular in many South American countries, and many Spanish-language consumers here in the U.S. are likely to be very interested in the WorldCup games.

On DISH Network channel 826, The Univision FIFA World Cup Channel is online now, but is available only to DishLATINO customers. What’s unique about the new channel is that it also provides viewers access to Univision recaps, highlights and primetime replays of the best, most exciting games from the previous day.

Senior VP of Programming for DISH, Dave Shull said: “The Univision FIFA World Cup(TM) Channel, combined with Univision, TeleFutura and Galavision in high definition, offers our DishLATINO customers unprecedented access to the best the World Cup has to offer. We’re proud to partner with Univision to deliver more World Cup coverage than any other pay-TV provider in the country.”

Currently,the Univision FIFA World Cup Channel is free to all DishLATINO and DishMEXICO subscribers. Customers who subscribe to DishLATINO Dos or higher can also take advantage of DISH Network’s “HD Free for Life” promotion. For more information on DishLATINO’s exclusive WorldCup coverage, see the DISH Network Packages page.

DISH Network does not appear to be pulling any punches when it comes to marketing their services these days. A new promotion has been announced that drops the price of programming packages significantly.

For example, the America’s Top 120 package is being offered at $24.99 per month. Previously this package was offered at $39.99 per month.

America’s Top 120+ is now $29.99 per month, down from $44.99 per month previously. America’s Top 200 had dropped $15 from $54.99 per month to $39.99 per month.

Now priced at $49.99 per month is DISH Network’s America’s Top 250 programming package, which is down from $64.99.

Finally, the company’s best programming package, America’s Everything Pak is now priced at just $84.99 per month; a $15 decrease from the previous price of $99.99 per month.

Along with these new deals, DISH Network is also offering free HD for life, but this offer is for a limited time.

It’s a little surprising to see price cuts like this in a poor economy, but it’s a good opportunity for consumers to save money.

It’s not certain how long these promotional offers will be available, and DISH Network may change them at any time.

It’s standard practice in the industry to require certain commitments and conditions in order to take advantage of promotional deals like these, and this is no exception.

For all the details, call 1-866-537-9648 or visit the DISH Network packages page.

The newly-added NFL RedZone channel will be offered up for a free test drive on Sunday, October 4th. DISH Network subscribers who are into football and have not had a chance to check out RedZone and see if it is something worth paying for. That, of course, is up to each individual fan, but it’s likely that DISH will pick up a few new subscribers to the channel after the free preview.

Ira Bahr, Chief Marketing Officer for DISH Network has said that “Over the past few weeks, our customers have told us their Sunday afternoons have changed forever.” That’s a pretty bold statement, but apparently DISH has been receiving a lot of positive feedback regarding the new channel, which packs the most exciting moments from multiple NFL games on one channel by switching from game to game with live look-ins, highlights and a opportunity to check out every important play.

The NFL RedZone free preview starts at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time and runs until 4:14 p.m. on DISH Network channel 155. The channel is available in both high and standard definition and will cost fans who decide to sign on an additional $5.99 per month. Not a bad deal if you are a serious football fan.

DISH Network has announced a deal that will please fans of the Versus channel. The sports/outdoors channel will be available for all DISH Network subscribers for free until December 2nd. It can be found on channel 151 and is also available in HD.

Personally, I’ve never watched the Versus channel and don’t anticipate doing so anytime soon. A quick glance at their official website makes it  appear to be more team-sports oriented than “outdoorsy” programming like hunting and fishing, although the website does include information about that kind of programming that the channel carries.

Regardless of my viewing habits, there are probably a great many DISH Network subscribers who will enjoy this opportunity to check out the Versus channel for free.

Apparently, DISH Network’s chief rival, DirecTV is not getting along too well with the folks that run the Versus channel, and it was recently dropped from their programming line-up. DISH Network has seized this opportunity to lure some DirecTV customers with a free offer. It appears to be a good move on DISH Network’s part, but it will probably be a while before they are able to gauge the effect on their subscriber numbers.

Here’s a quick rundown of DISH Network’s current package deals. Keep in mind, these deals may expire or be changed at any time.

DISH Family: This package is a great choice for  "family-friendly" programming. Featuring more than 55 channels of sports, news, children’s programming and more. This package is currently being offered for $24.99 per month.

Classic Bronze 100: This very reasonable-priced package has something for every member of the family. This package offers the best in entertainment, sports, news and children’s programming and includes local programming. All for $24.99 a month.

Classic Bronze 100+: This package includes everything from the Classic Bronze 100 package above but adds your local sports channels to the deal as well. A decent bargain at $29.99 per month.

Classic Silver 200: The is one of DISH Network’s most popular package deals. This one features in excess of  220 channels of the best entertainment you can find, including all the programming content from the Classic Bronze 100 package plus a variety of great channels like Bravo, MSNBC, SPEED, Animal Planet and a lot more. This one is just $37.99 per month.

Classic Gold 250: This is the plan I personally have right now and it has just about everything I want. You get more than 250 channels, including SIRIUS music. I had the Classic Silver 200 package for quite a while, but got sick of hearing other people tell me about programs on other channels like National Geographic, The Military Channel and Fox Reality Channel that I did not have, so I upgraded. This plan is listed for $62.99 right now. I also have an HD DVR, 80 or so HD channels, an extra receiver for my son’s room as well as my local channels and I currently pay about $82 a month. Compare that to the $75 a month I am paying Comcast just for high-speed internet alone!

America’s Everything Pak: This is the top-of-the-line package and includes all the programming that the  Classic Gold 250 offers and also includes HBO, Showtime, Starz, Cinemax and NBA TV. The current price for this package is $102.98.

HD channels can be added to each package for $10 more per month and the number of HD channels varies depending on the package.

To get all the information and details on these packages, head on over to the DISH Network website.

DISH Network announced on Friday, April 10, that it has added an additional seven national HD channels to its HD offerings.

The new HD channels are: BET, CMT, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, Spike TV and VH1. The new channels are available at no additional cost to customers of the service tiers in which they were placed.

CMT HD, Comedy Central HD, MTV HD, Nickelodeon HD, Spike TV HD and VH1 HD are now available at no additional charge to customers of the Classic Bronze 100 HD tier and above. The BET HD channel is available to customers of the Classic Silver 200 HD and above.

Consumers who sign up for DISH Network may also be eligible to receive high-definition programming at no charge for the first 6 months, in addition to  a free HD DVR and free installation.

“We are pleased to now offer our customers these top-rated high-definition channels, and we look forward to a long-term partnership with MTV Networks and BET Networks that includes broad video-on-demand and Internet-streaming rights,” said Dave Shull, DISH Network programming senior VP. “The launch of these channels is a testament to our continued HD leadership, as no one has more HD channels or a higher-quality picture than Dish Network.”

About a week ago, I received my analog-to-digital converter box from DISH Network. There was a lot of confusion when DISH first announced plans to offer a $40 converter, and then ended up releasing one for about $60. A while later, DISH promised that they would be coming out with a $40 converter, making it essentially free for those who have the $40 government-issued coupons that are being issued to help ease the transition to digital TV in February.

Although I do have DISH Network satellite service, I do have another TV in the lower level of my house which is simply connected to a roof-top antenna, which means that I would not be able to receive anything on it after the digital switch without the converter, other than some low-power stations that are reported to be remaining on analog, but I am not sure if there are any in my area, and if there were, they are probably not of much interest to me anyway.

I opted for the cheaper unit, which DISH Is calling the TR-40 CRA and is the one that sells for $40. The unit was very easy to set up and seems to work well so far. Other than the 20-minute process I had to endure on the telephone with a customer service rep who I’m guessing was in India, and having her share of computer problems, I’m pretty happy with the deal.

DISH, like so many other online retailers I have done business with, does inflate the cost of “shipping and handling,” however. They are charging $9 to ship a single unit, which is way more than the actual cost they forked over to UPS to bring it to my door.

So far, I’m quite satisfied with the unit, although one slightly annoying “feature” is that it goes through the process of downloading programming data for the on-screen program guide each time you turn it on. This can be stopped if you want to start watching something right away though.

It is rather cool to have a program guide on an over-the-air TV. It looks a lot like the one on my DISH Network ViP622 DVR, but with fewer features, of course.

It also has a nice feature called “Analog Pass-through,” which allows you to press a button and bypass the converter and watch the plain old analog signal if you wish. Due to the nature of the way digital TV seems to operate (at least in my area), this is a handy feature because we’ve seen our share of problems with digital TV signals here.

We’ve actually been watching digital TV here since the beginning of 2007 since our DVR is able to receive over-the-air digital broadcasts using a standard TV antenna and most, if not all of the stations in Boston have been broadcasting in both analog and digital for a while.

From my experience, the digital signal does not seem as reliable, and may be much more susceptible to weather conditions than the old analog signals.

Just this morning I was watching my local Fox channel’s digital broadcast via my new converter box, and suddenly the picture just became totally distorted, and then was lost completely. I had to use the “Analog Pass-through” feature so I could continue watching the program via the analog signal. The weather was clear and dry, so it does not seem as if bad weather had anything to do with it, and I could see from the converter box’s on-screen signal strength indicator that the signal strength was indeed lower than normal.

Although we do enjoy much better picture quality when watching the digital broadcasts here, it does seem like there will be occasional problems with reception due to factors I do not yet fully understand. I’m even more pleased that I recently decided to add our local broadcast channels to my DISH Network programming package so that we can view those channels via the satellite now. I suspect we will have that need from time to time depending on how the over-the-air digital broadcasts are coming in at any given time.

DISH is planning to produce a unit called the DTVPal Plus that is supposed to have a more sensitive receiver, but buyers will pay a premium for that at $70. Perhaps that is what we need here for more reliable digital reception, but I do not see myself ordering any of those new improved converter boxes anytime soon.

As just about anyone who watches TV now knows, all over-the-air television broadcasts will be converting to the digital format in February. Here in the Boston TV market, we have been inundated with commercials reminding us of this fact.

If you receive your television programming the "old fashioned" way with an antenna on your roof, and your TV is not capable of receiving digital broadcasts, you will need a digital converter box if you want to continue watching TV the way you are now.

If you have cable or satellite TV, you have nothing to worry about and you will not notice any changes in February.

Well-known review site cnet has completed a review of the digital converter box that was recently introduced by DISH Network. Although DISH Network’s primary business is providing satellite TV programming, the company has decided to market digital converter boxes as well.

What’s very nice about the TR-40 from DISH Network is that it costs $40, which is the same value of the coupons that the government is giving away to help consumers pay for the cost of the switch to digital. This means that the TR-40 is essentially free, excluding any shipping and handling costs that might be required.

Although I am a DISH Network satellite customer, we do still have two televisions in the house that are connected to a roof-top antenna and will require a digital converter box to continue working after the switch-over in February.

I’ll be ordering a couple of TR-40 units for our home in the near future.

For more on the switch to digital, check out this site.