Sign the petition to get the rules for Local Channels changed so DBS offer other DMA

[ARKDTVfan]

link (http://www.petitiononline.com/dmaDBS/petition.html)

[gcutler]

Even with the petition, It will happen when pigs fly. The Station owners' lobby is in the pockets of those who can change it. And a significant # of viewers don't really care.

[Richard King]

And spot beams will severely limit choices.

[Mark Holtz]

:thats: It'll happen when pigs fly. Especially if you try submitting it using a electronic petition.

I know what you mean though. I would like to get the San Francisco DMA as well as the Sacramento DMA. However, the powerful NAB insist that you watch the programming from your local station because of the advertising revenue. And, if your station decides to pre-empt regular programming to air something else, that's just too bad.

The next catch is that local stations in a market must be carried as a package, and that you cannot "pick and choose" which local stations you want to pick up.

There is another catch, and that's called "Syndication Exclusivity". This means that if a local station has the rights to air a program and another station outside the market also airs the same program, depending on the contract, the local station can insist that the outside station be "blacked out" for that program. This rule took place before Dish and DirecTV existed, and forced many cable companies to drop many out-of-market and superstations, leaving only Superstation TBS and WGN. TBS has contracts that forbids blackouts of it's beed, while WGN has modified it's programming so that any programs that would be "blacked out" are substitued with other programming. This also means that WGN airs other programming on the satellite feed when WB programming is on the schedule.

If you want to change the system, write a letter to your congresscritter. Petitions are usually ignored. E-mail can be easily deleted. Faxes can be pre-screened by computer and deleted automatically. But letters will get someones attention.

[raj2001]

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/internet.htm

[Jacob S]

If we are charged for the locals then we should be able to pick any that we want. Why should they care if they are getting money for them? Perhaps a higher price for markets out of your area would be what it would take to get them since the extra money may have to be paid to the local stations to compensate for not getting exclusive advertisement rights to you. Something like this is what it would probably take.

[gcutler]

Originally posted by Jacob S
If we are charged for the locals then we should be able to pick any that we want. Why should they care if they are getting money for them? Perhaps a higher price for markets out of your area would be what it would take to get them since the extra money may have to be paid to the local stations to compensate for not getting exclusive advertisement rights to you. Something like this is what it would probably take.

But when the politician's commericals are not seen because you watch out of town CBS, they are wasting their hard lobbied for money. So the Politicians are 100% in line with the Local networks. No matter how logical it will seem to the rest of the world it will not happen under any circumstances unless you are in a white area or get a special dispensation from the each of the locals (not likely).

[Msguy]

what should be done is the satellite companies should offer a national networks program package where if you wanted to you could subscribe to each National feed of each major network. ABC, CBS, NBC, And FOX. The National Feeds with No Local Commercials whatsoever just the national content. Incase your local channels in your local DMA decides to preempt national programming for other programs. I know they have done this in the local Memphis Market one night when they Aired an hour of Billy Graham.

[TNGTony]

Msguy,

There is absolutely nothing stopping the networks from doing this right now. NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox can do this this instant if they wished to do so. The fact is, they don't. They chose to stay with the current distribution scheme. All these laws about distants is to reaffirm the networks decision and to protect thier programming parkets and the ditributors (TV station).

Fox, NBC, WB and PBS already offer "national" channels. But they are only available to places where none of their affiliate are available over the air. If they wanted to, they could allow anyone to subscribe to them tomorrow. But they wont.

Pax, Telemundo, Univision, TBN, FamilyNet, Daystar and now Telefutura are not technically networks but they do have a network of broadcast stations. They have no problems allowing national channels right now.

See ya
Tony

[Ontarian]

Even if the laws were changed to allow viewing of any out-of-market stations that you wanted, the program rights issues would put a damper on the whole thing anyways. Local rights would always be protected by those that sell the programming to those stations. Here in Canada the CAB or (Canadian Association of Broadcasters) have an agreement in place that provides compensation to stations where program rights may be violated. We get out-of-market stations here, but mostly the ones owned by the Networks who already have national program rights. They could probably work something like that out in the U.S. where the viewing of out-of-market stations that are owned by the networks would be allowed only in cities where the local affiliate of a network is owned by the network itself.