Are broadcast networks needed? (spin off conversation) [Archive]

Greg Bimson

07-14-10, 12:21 PM

WNET would certainly allow their signal to go farther, so I guess it's just like the big commercial networks, with a bunch of whiny little local stations.And it took that long to figure it out?

WNET probably would not let their signal "go farther" by having national carriage on Dish Network. Most PBS stations operate on local government funds and public donations. Now imagine that WNET would have to pay PBS for programming to reach a national audience. Just because WNET could contract for a national broadcast footprint doesn't mean their expenses (programming costs) would remain the same.It would do us a huge service if the networks would just run one O&O station in each time zone in HD, and then cut the affiliates off, or at the minimum provide national feeds and then let the affiiliates do OTA. Our system of affiliates is completely insane.Ah yes, the logical option for the 21st Century, both from a technological standpoint and from an economic standpoint. Rest assured, that won't happen.This is as far from logical as you can get. In addition to the points raised by HarveyLA, let's throw this list out there...

New York (East)
Chicago (Central)
Denver (Mountain)
Los Angeles (West)

So Fox will no longer have affiliates other than the four listed? So Fox Television Stations will cease to be a Fox affiliate group? Can you imagine the value of these stations once they no longer carry Fox programming:

Philadelphia
Dallas
Washington
Boston
Atlanta
Houston
Detroit
Phoenix
Tampa
Minneapolis
Orlando

Young Broadcasting paid almost $1 billion for San Francisco's NBC affiliate KRON about six years ago. That station then lost its NBC affiliation, and is now barely worth $50 million. Imagine the value of Fox Television Stations now being worth a nickel instead of a dollar. That is a good five to six billion (that's BILLION) in writeoff of assets just because those stations no longer have Fox programming.

Some of you expect because of technological advances that the economic conditions must change. Let me give the best example of all:

The entire NFC except for the Bears and the Giants cannot be broadcast locally anymore as the NFL on Fox because Fox was dismantled to be four affiliates nationwide. Where is Fox going to show the rest of their "local coverage" games?

The economic conditions DICTATE the broadcast networks' coverage for the NFL. That is why the affiliate model is so important.

Now if the question were reversed, i.e., how could DirecTV and Dish Network be setup to be de facto "network affiliates", only delivering network programming, then you may be onto something...

Bigg

07-15-10, 10:21 AM

What would life be like without your local news? (Don't answer that!)

Better. Of course, they could go independent and still do god-awful local news.

As for localized content, if independent stations can't do it, then the free market would have spoken, and they should die off. If the free market supports that endeavor, than go for it.

And it took that long to figure it out?

WNET probably would not let their signal "go farther" by having national carriage on Dish Network. Most PBS stations operate on local government funds and public donations. Now imagine that WNET would have to pay PBS for programming to reach a national audience. Just because WNET could contract for a national broadcast footprint doesn't mean their expenses (programming costs) would remain the same.This is as far from logical as you can get. In addition to the points raised by HarveyLA, let's throw this list out there...

New York (East)
Chicago (Central)
Denver (Mountain)
Los Angeles (West)

So Fox will no longer have affiliates other than the four listed? So Fox Television Stations will cease to be a Fox affiliate group? Can you imagine the value of these stations once they no longer carry Fox programming:

Philadelphia
Dallas
Washington
Boston
Atlanta
Houston
Detroit
Phoenix
Tampa
Minneapolis
Orlando

Young Broadcasting paid almost $1 billion for San Francisco's NBC affiliate KRON about six years ago. That station then lost its NBC affiliation, and is now barely worth $50 million. Imagine the value of Fox Television Stations now being worth a nickel instead of a dollar. That is a good five to six billion (that's BILLION) in writeoff of assets just because those stations no longer have Fox programming.

Some of you expect because of technological advances that the economic conditions must change. Let me give the best example of all:

The entire NFC except for the Bears and the Giants cannot be broadcast locally anymore as the NFL on Fox because Fox was dismantled to be four affiliates nationwide. Where is Fox going to show the rest of their "local coverage" games?

The economic conditions DICTATE the broadcast networks' coverage for the NFL. That is why the affiliate model is so important.

Now if the question were reversed, i.e., how could DirecTV and Dish Network be setup to be de facto "network affiliates", only delivering network programming, then you may be onto something...

The affiliate model is completely outdated, and it should die. It is ultimately more economical to run 6 feeds (including Alaska and Hawaii) instead of 210.

Football would have to go to an RSN-like model, where you get your local teams by default, and you pay more to get them all (current NFL ST).

I like that idea. They could deliver high-quality HD network programming, while continuing to carry SD LIL's.

James Long

07-15-10, 11:59 AM

The affiliate model is completely outdated, and it should die. It is ultimately more economical to run 6 feeds (including Alaska and Hawaii) instead of 210.More economical for who? At the moment the networks run their few national feeds (with ET and CT sharing a feed) leaving it up to the affiliates to pay for and maintain transmitters - with the funding of those local transmitters done locally.

Without the affiliates the networks would have to own and finance stations across the country ... and some markets would simply go without. As finances get tight and the network decides that a second feed to a major city is more important than a first feed to podunk.

What you're lobbying for isn't the end of affiliate TV ... it is the end of broadcast TV - and unfortunately there are those pushing the same goal. Seeking "consolidation" where multiple content channels in a market are forced to use the same broadcast channel. Say goodbye to HD over the air.

The affiliate model is keeping that alive and at least giving the chance that a program will air in HD. Kill the affiliates and you have killed broadcast TV.

Football would have to go to an RSN-like model, where you get your local teams by default, and you pay more to get them all (current NFL ST).

I like that idea. They could deliver high-quality HD network programming, while continuing to carry SD LIL's.You must be looking through a narrow non-broadcast window. Are you looking for a system that somehows allows local affiliates to continue to exist on cable and OTA as they do today but waters down their content via satellite (favoring a separate non-local HD feed)?

If the networks want to do this they can. There is no law preventing a network from setting up a national satellite channel (or channels) to distribute the same program they are sending their affiliates. What is stopping them is the network's agreement with their affiliates that the affiliate will get first run carriage within each local market.

If you want what you want to actually come true you need to take over a network.

Greg Bimson

07-15-10, 12:35 PM

The affiliate model is completely outdated, and it should die. It is ultimately more economical to run 6 feeds (including Alaska and Hawaii) instead of 210.The networks aren't running 210 feeds. The networks might be running 3 to 5 (one for East/Central, one for Mountain, one for West, and possibly one each for Alaska and Hawaii). It is the affiliates that pick up from network control their network programming.

Obviously, to a network like Fox, it is much more economical to run affiliates in major markets. Just because Fox may have 200+ affiliates that DirecTV and Dish Network may have to rebroadcast doesn't mean that anything is more economical or outdated.

One cannot hasten the demise of a system so despised when the networks themselves have skin in the game. The networks' livelyhood is dependent on owning some of their affiliates (most owning their large market affiliates) because the revenues are beneficial to the networks.

Simply put, I find it quite interesting some want networks which built this economic model over decades to become quite successful, to simply scuttle that model.

It would really interest me to see a non-fictional scenario from anyone how to get Fox or CBS to abandon their affiliate model so that it doesn't destroy their network.

bnborg

07-15-10, 02:47 PM

I was always under the impression that it was local advertising that controlled all this.

Local stations earn their revenue from the local advertising. If the programs they show are available from other sources, they lose watchers and the advertisers pay less. The stations get a guarantee of exclusivity from the networks to prevent this.

This is why they want you to only get your broadcast network programming from the designated local station.

phrelin

07-15-10, 03:10 PM

James Long

07-15-10, 06:28 PM

According to industry data (http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=127839) about 99.9 million or 87% of U.S. homes receive service from a pay-TV provider, cable, telco or satellite. OTA is exclusive in only 13% or 14.9 million homes.DirecTV 18 million, DISH 14 million, less than a third of the pay-TV subscribers get their service via satellite. The 14.9 million OTA only homes NEED local broadcasts ... the 68 million+ cable homes can get a localized feed of each network (cable doesn't have to serve 211 markets). What is that? 75% of US homes served via the existing affiliate carried network structure? Not counting those who have their appropriate local network stations via satellite.

DISH has reached 100% LIL carriage (all stations who demanded carriage or agreed to terms to be carried). Doing that again to carry HD versions will take more work. But it will be possible. There will likely be complete markets left in SD because of the requirement to "carry all" HDs in each HD market.

At some point, the economics of national distribution to and management of agreements with affiliates will become undesirable compared to selling national or time zone signals to pay-TV providers who won't need as much time for their own local and national advertising and who pay money to affiliates that could go to the networks.Perhaps ... but that time has not come.

IMHO (here I go again :sure:), that point was passed a few years ago and the only thing keeping national programming on broadcast channels is inertia.All four major networks already have cable/satellite networks to put their content on. If OTA affiliation wasn't working the networks would be being dismantled. They are not.

l8er

07-15-10, 06:46 PM

.... the only thing keeping national programming on broadcast channels is inertia.And money. :D

rasheed

07-16-10, 12:39 AM

There are regions in California geographically larger than the State of Connecticut that don't get OTA or have access to basic cable. And basic cable doesn't get me HD from Comcast.

Just want to point out the basic cable from Comcast should get you basic HD channels via QAM (TV must support QAM singal). In one example, I saw a cable provider in California even doing a bunch of subchannels as well not just the one main HD channel.

It is not advertised for many reasons, but should techically be there.

Rasheed

Bigg

07-16-10, 10:39 AM

More economical for who? At the moment the networks run their few national feeds (with ET and CT sharing a feed) leaving it up to the affiliates to pay for and maintain transmitters - with the funding of those local transmitters done locally.

Without the affiliates the networks would have to own and finance stations across the country ... and some markets would simply go without. As finances get tight and the network decides that a second feed to a major city is more important than a first feed to podunk.

What you're lobbying for isn't the end of affiliate TV ... it is the end of broadcast TV - and unfortunately there are those pushing the same goal. Seeking "consolidation" where multiple content channels in a market are forced to use the same broadcast channel. Say goodbye to HD over the air.

The affiliate model is keeping that alive and at least giving the chance that a program will air in HD. Kill the affiliates and you have killed broadcast TV.

You must be looking through a narrow non-broadcast window. Are you looking for a system that somehows allows local affiliates to continue to exist on cable and OTA as they do today but waters down their content via satellite (favoring a separate non-local HD feed)?

If the networks want to do this they can. There is no law preventing a network from setting up a national satellite channel (or channels) to distribute the same program they are sending their affiliates. What is stopping them is the network's agreement with their affiliates that the affiliate will get first run carriage within each local market.

If you want what you want to actually come true you need to take over a network.

There are exclusivity contracts right now. What I'd like to see are steps towards eliminating braodcast TV, and the affiliate model. Even if you just O&O'ed all the stations, in the short term, the networks would kill off the smaller ones, and then microwave in signals from a nearby city to broadcast. Ultiamtely, replicating the feed 210 times for each network is totally inefficient, and right now, and if the networks themselves were in control of everything, they would get 100% of the revenue, instead of a good chunk of it getting eaten up by small, inefficient stations.

I don't really care about the spectrum, as aside from the "sky is falling" BS we keep hearing about spectrum, the 50mhz CLR band is plenty for mobile devices, not mention PCS and AWS now, in addition to SMH.

The TV model, however, is absurd. The ultimate would be to get rid of the networks, and have one or two independent channels to do local programming and news in a few dozen of the larger markets, and then carry those on satellite and cable, as well as maybe OTA. As it is, local news is horrendous.

Even if the affiliate model is too ingrained to go away, they could set up an east coast and west coast national feed (or just use the W- and K- channels) for higher quality HD, and specify in the contract that the cable and satellite carriers have to carry it 19mbit MPEG-2 CBR (not sure what U-Verse would do...), and then offer all the local affiliates in overcompressed SD for local news and the like.

The networks aren't running 210 feeds. The networks might be running 3 to 5 (one for East/Central, one for Mountain, one for West, and possibly one each for Alaska and Hawaii). It is the affiliates that pick up from network control their network programming.

Obviously, to a network like Fox, it is much more economical to run affiliates in major markets. Just because Fox may have 200+ affiliates that DirecTV and Dish Network may have to rebroadcast doesn't mean that anything is more economical or outdated.

One cannot hasten the demise of a system so despised when the networks themselves have skin in the game. The networks' livelyhood is dependent on owning some of their affiliates (most owning their large market affiliates) because the revenues are beneficial to the networks.

Simply put, I find it quite interesting some want networks which built this economic model over decades to become quite successful, to simply scuttle that model.

It would really interest me to see a non-fictional scenario from anyone how to get Fox or CBS to abandon their affiliate model so that it doesn't destroy their network.

OK, so have a few channels O&O, get rid of the rest, and make the DMA's a lot bigger. Rebroadcast via microwave if you need to.

IMHO (here I go again :sure:), that point was passed a few years ago and the only thing keeping national programming on broadcast channels is inertia.

Yup.

The 14.9 million OTA only homes NEED local broadcasts ...

NEED??? No one NEEDs TV. The only people who have OTA only now are cheap or poor. What bothers me is how in the DTV 2009 switchover, people acted like TV is a god given right. Guess what? It's a luxury. Broadbad should be a god given right though...

Just want to point out the basic cable from Comcast should get you basic HD channels via QAM (TV must support QAM singal). In one example, I saw a cable provider in California even doing a bunch of subchannels as well not just the one main HD channel.

It is not advertised for many reasons, but should techically be there.

Rasheed

Yes, as per FCC law.

phrelin

07-16-10, 11:07 AM

Just want to point out the basic cable from Comcast should get you basic HD channels via QAM (TV must support QAM singal). In one example, I saw a cable provider in California even doing a bunch of subchannels as well not just the one main HD channel.

It is not advertised for many reasons, but should techically be there.

RasheedYes, it should be there and it may by now actually be. Comcast acquired our system in the Adelphia bankruptcy settlement. In much of our area, they're lucky to average two customers a mile. But nevertheless they have slowly and consistently been upgrading. Providing cable internet was their first achievement for which I am eternally grateful even though they can't offer the higher speeds that are available closer to San Francisco. Then they added a couple of premiums in HD and some HD VOD. It now appears that most of the infrastructure upgrade is in place, so they may very well have the locals in HD.

But Comcast TV is expensive and we still can't get the "Triple Play" package. According to the web signup, it's either TV and internet or TV and phone in a "Double Play" package. Now if they offered phone and internet, I would have signed up as I still resent AT&T not upgrading our system enough to offer DSL.

James Long

07-16-10, 11:42 AM

The TV model, however, is absurd. The ultimate would be to get rid of the networks, and have one or two independent channels to do local programming and news in a few dozen of the larger markets, and then carry those on satellite and cable, as well as maybe OTA.Who would fund those stations? You've taken away their network programming - so they don't have that to draw viewers. Most local stations that are anything more than just broadcast cable channels (airing movies or other canned material) are network stations. They get their money by attracting viewers with that network programming and making a name for themselves connected to the network.

Killing off broadcast TV is so far off the reservation that there really isn't a response that I can give you. Are you suggesting that the government step in and kill off the networks to force national feeds?

Paul Secic

07-16-10, 11:47 AM

Better. Of course, they could go independent and still do god-awful local news.

As for localized content, if independent stations can't do it, then the free market would have spoken, and they should die off. If the free market supports that endeavor, than go for it.

The affiliate model is completely outdated, and it should die. It is ultimately more economical to run 6 feeds (including Alaska and Hawaii) instead of 210.

Football would have to go to an RSN-like model, where you get your local teams by default, and you pay more to get them all (current NFL ST).

I like that idea. They could deliver high-quality HD network programming, while continuing to carry SD LIL's.

AMEN to everything you said!

runner861

07-16-10, 12:12 PM

The best and most fair option would be to uplink all stations on CONUS, but there is no space for it. However, if there were space, then allow any person to purchase any station from anywhere on an a la carte basis. Then we would see how the market would truly shake out.

That would truly force the local stations to address their local markets. That would be the way for them to retain viewers. Local news, local programming would keep the locals alive. They wouldn't get the protection of the government that allows them to just purchase syndicated programming and network programming and ignore local coverage. They would have to sink or swim in a free market, just like a car company or a gasoline company or a grocery store.

If the locals didn't do their job, they would go off the air, as should be the case. Under this scenario, probably network stations in LA and NY would prosper. As for other markets around the country, it would depend, as it should, on how well they served their local markets.

Another advantage of my proposal would be that people who moved from one market to another could still receive local news from the location of their former residence.

Three hitches that will never be overcome: satellite space, Congress, and the NAB.

Greg Bimson

07-16-10, 03:59 PM

There are exclusivity contracts right now. What I'd like to see are steps towards eliminating braodcast TV, and the affiliate model.Eliminate broadcast TV. I can't wait for the pay-per-view of the Super Bowl. LOL.

Bigg

07-16-10, 05:20 PM

Who would fund those stations? You've taken away their network programming - so they don't have that to draw viewers. Most local stations that are anything more than just broadcast cable channels (airing movies or other canned material) are network stations. They get their money by attracting viewers with that network programming and making a name for themselves connected to the network.

Killing off broadcast TV is so far off the reservation that there really isn't a response that I can give you. Are you suggesting that the government step in and kill off the networks to force national feeds?

What you people don't seem to understand is that the affiliates eat up a lot of the advertising revenue that could go directly to the networks.

Good local stations would draw people with localized news and programming. Most DMA's wouldn't have local stations, but the bigger ones would, and those bigger ones would become semi-regional stations. There would probably be 100 of them, not close to 1000, so they could be broadcast CONUS.

AMEN to everything you said!

Thanks!

The best and most fair option would be to uplink all stations on CONUS, but there is no space for it. However, if there were space, then allow any person to purchase any station from anywhere on an a la carte basis. Then we would see how the market would truly shake out.

That would truly force the local stations to address their local markets. That would be the way for them to retain viewers. Local news, local programming would keep the locals alive. They wouldn't get the protection of the government that allows them to just purchase syndicated programming and network programming and ignore local coverage. They would have to sink or swim in a free market, just like a car company or a gasoline company or a grocery store.

If the locals didn't do their job, they would go off the air, as should be the case. Under this scenario, probably network stations in LA and NY would prosper. As for other markets around the country, it would depend, as it should, on how well they served their local markets.

Another advantage of my proposal would be that people who moved from one market to another could still receive local news from the location of their former residence.

Three hitches that will never be overcome: satellite space, Congress, and the NAB.

In principal, I agree with you, but that's just not possible because of satellite space. What would be a compromise would be to "open up" the system, so everyone would get the channels being used for DNS, as well as neighboring channels that they happened to be in the spotbeam of. They would have to lock out people right on the fringe of the spot beams, so that people didn't call and complain that their signal goes out every time a cloud comes through the sky... It would be a HUGE step in the right direction, even if not the ultimate solution.

Eliminate broadcast TV. I can't wait for the pay-per-view of the Super Bowl. LOL.

It would still be on some network, somewhere, probably one of the big ones. Heck, you'd still even have basic cable with the networks being cheaper. And, even with time zone feeds, some major markets might still do OTA.

Greg Bimson

07-16-10, 05:20 PM

Three hitches that will never be overcome: satellite space, Congress, and the NAB.You've forgotten the fourth one... the networks themselves.

Look, everyone can argue unti they are blue in the face. The reality is that the affiliate model is the way the networks want to operate. And all between the networks, the affilates, the rebroadcasters, and the mission of terrestrial broadcasting according to Congress and the FCC, it is inertia that must be overcome in order to defeat the network/affiliate model. Anyone can gripe about it, but it is the cold, hard fact.

Now, for example, say NBC becomes a "cable network". How much do you think your cable bill will rise? After all, NBC gets better ratings than the ESPN suite, and carriers are paying upwards of $3 per month per subscriber for ESPN. I can easily imagine NBC being worth $5 a month per subscriber.

Oops. This is one of those cause-and-effect questions everyone has forgotten...They wouldn't get the protection of the government that allows them to just purchase syndicated programming and network programming and ignore local coverage.Uh, the protection received is from the network and the syndicator, not the government. People need to wrap their heads around that idea.

Greg Bimson

07-16-10, 05:26 PM

It would still be on some network, somewhere, probably one of the big ones. Heck, you'd still even have basic cable with the networks being cheaper. And, even with time zone feeds, some major markets might still do OTA.Let's take out some assumptions here, OK?

The Super Bowl "would be on some network, somewhere, probably one of the big ones. " Which one? I mean, if we are discussing the end of the network/affiliate model, which network?

Although I am trying to figure out how "you'd still even have basic cable with the networks being cheaper." How would they be cheaper? End the network/affiliate model, and the advertising dollars lost from the O&O network stations would be made up from carriage fees by charging cable and satellite companies BIG money.

And I'm also trying to wrap my head around "even with time zone feeds, some major markets might still do OTA." Watch the Super Bowl on the network feed, or on a local channel, which because of the end of the network/affiliate model means the affiliate would have to buy (without exclusivity) local rights for the Super Bowl.

There are way too many assumptions treated as fact.

Davenlr

07-16-10, 05:36 PM

WNET would certainly allow their signal to go farther, so I guess it's just like the big commercial networks, with a bunch of whiny little local stations.

It would do us a huge service if the networks would just run one O&O station in each time zone in HD, and then cut the affiliates off, or at the minimum provide national feeds and then let the affiiliates do OTA. Our system of affiliates is completely insane.

Let the networks offer one HD feed in each time zone to Cable/Sat distribution. Let them offer one SD feed via commercial satellite to all their affiliates. Let the FCC group all the local affiliates onto one or two channels per DMA, and quadruple the allowed power so even granny with rabbit ears 60 miles away can get her "Free TV". Would allow campers access with portable DTV sets, and greatly enhance local emergency weather coverage and public service. If you want HD, subscribe to cable or satellite.

Extra bandwidth can be sold to ATT so the Iphone can have a tower every two blocks so the calls wont get dropped.

James Long

07-16-10, 05:44 PM

What you people don't seem to understand is that the affiliates eat up a lot of the advertising revenue that could go directly to the networks.That revenue is used to keep local transmitters on the air and pay for local operations that keep the networks on the air. Without those local stations people wouldn't see network programming and the advertising revenues would drop (less viewers). The networks would also lose the fees paid by the affiliates.

If the affiliate system was not economically viable for networks they would pull their content from OTA and put it on one of their many cable networks.

Affiliate networks exist because they work.

That affiliation system works through a system of managed monopolies. The network sells their content with first run exclusivity to their affiliates that pay for that privilege. Grand schemes for a "national" channel of the networks interfere with that affiliation system. They violate the agreement the networks have with their affiliates for first run exclusivity.

I suppose you are one of those people who want the government to further interfere with free trade and force networks to violate their affiliation agreements for your own benefit?

How would you like it, Bigg, if the government walked into your successful business and told you they were shutting you down and putting you out on the street? It isn't a fun prospect. Hopefully no one will ever do to you what you are suggesting be done to broadcast TV networks.

If you really think OTA networks would work better without affiliates go buy one, cancel the affiliation agreements and see if it works. The people who own these networks know better ... they know that despite the flaws that the affiliation system WORKS. And when something works you keep doing it.

Greg Bimson

07-16-10, 05:50 PM

If you really think OTA networks would work better without affiliates go buy one, cancel the affiliation agreements and see if it works.Or look no further than KRON in San Francisco.The people who own these networks know better ... they know that despite the flaws that the affiliation system WORKS. And when something works you keep doing it.The economic system of the network/affiliate model is viable. And now the affiliates pay the networks for network programming. I suppose moving the networks to a basic cable network is possible, IF you can figure out how the networks would receive MORE MONEY by becoming a basic cable channel.

Alan Gordon

07-16-10, 05:52 PM

I'd like to have one LOCAL channel.

If the networks are still around, end exclusivity rules and allow them to FIGHT for my viewership instead of counting me regardless of whether or not I want them to.

~Alan

James Long

07-16-10, 05:59 PM

Or look no further than KRON in San Francisco.Care to elaborate?

I believe affiliates can live without a network ... there are a lot of successful independent stations in our country that are not major network stations. But networks living without affiliates? It is within the networks power to do that now ... but they have not done it because (and you agree) the network affiliation model works.

Davenlr

07-16-10, 06:09 PM

It works because of Government protectionism. Let me or my neighbors choose between the affiliates in Little Rock, or Memphis (or Springfield Mo), and see how long the Little Rock affiliates survive. Our affiliates cancel network programming to show infomercials, run 1/3 screen weather maps all over it, and are total losers. The only reason they survive is because the GOVERNMENT refuses to let us choose to watch another one.

James Long

07-16-10, 06:12 PM

It works because of Government protectionism.The government is honoring the affiliation agreement that the networks and the stations have put in place.

Please see my post above if you want the government to take over the business you're running/work in and put you out of business.

Alan Gordon

07-16-10, 06:18 PM

Please see my post above if you want the government to take over the business you're running/work in and put you out of business.

My company doesn't force people to use my product over someone else's...

~Alan

James Long

07-16-10, 06:25 PM

My company doesn't force people to use my product over someone else's...You're not forced to watch TV either.

Affiliates make the signals available ... 27% of TV viewers would not have any TV reception if it were not for the affiliate networks. I suppose some of them could be forced to convert to cable/satellite to get their programming.

Oh well ... I've wasted too many pixels on this. Bottom line, distributing network programming via affiliation agreements will continue despite the efforts of a few people who want to see otherwise.

The method works.

Alan Gordon

07-16-10, 06:32 PM

You're not forced to watch TV either.

Nope... and people aren't forced to do business with my (work) company either...

I'm actually lucky in that I can receive affiliates of two of the big four network, so technically, I'm not exactly forced myself, but I know others who are.

Affiliates make the signals available ... 27% of TV viewers would not have any TV reception if it were not for the affiliate networks. I suppose some of them could be forced to convert to cable/satellite to get their programming.

I never said to get rid of broadcast TV...

Oh well ... I've wasted too many pixels on this. Bottom line, distributing network programming via affiliation agreements will continue despite the efforts of a few people who want to see otherwise.

Absolutely! The question is... how long?!

The method works.

They usually do... when you have no choice... ;)

~Alan

runner861

07-17-10, 12:50 PM

It wasn't until 1992, when Congress passed legislation that allowed locals to either elect "must carry" status or demand payment for carriage, that we had these stations able to secure absolute protection from out-of-market stations. Prior to that time, cable systems and satellite viewers were able to freely receive out-of-market stations.

For example, in northern California, many systems were carrying network affiliates and independents from San Francisco, Monterey-Salinas, Santa Barbara-San Luis Obispo, Sacramento, and Fresno. The stations were not carried due to "significantly viewed" status. They were carried as distants. The stations at times duplicated both syndicated and network programming. The sky didn't fall. Stations in smaller markets didn't go out of business. For forty years, ABC operated two affiliates in the same market--KGO in San Francisco and KNTV in San Jose. Two stations, both affiliated with ABC, about forty miles apart, both serving the same market. KNTV also reached south to the Monterey-Salinas market, and KGO was carried on cable in the Monterey-Salinas market. Then, in 2000, ABC decided to drop KNTV and have KGO become the exclusive carrier of ABC in the San Francisco market, and the near-exclusive carrier of ABC in the Monterey-Salinas market.

You can still find a few small cable systems in northern California carrying distant network and distant independent stations.

The NAB successfully lobbied Congress for the 1992 legislation with the idea of increasing funds to local stations and decreasing competition for local stations. The idea was, the local station can demand placement if the cable company does not particularly want to carry the station, or, if the cable company wants to carry the station, the local station can negotiate for money or other things. Many local stations negotiated for deletion of the distant network station of the same network, as well as payment. (I say cable because there wasn't much carriage of local stations on satellite in 1992.)

The NAB has certainly created a lucrative market monopoly for the local stations, completely to the detriment of the viewers. Now we have networks and stations threatening to pull their stations and demanding payment, driving up cable and satellite rates. They also have little incentive to engage in local coverage, knowing that they are not subject to competition.

My point is that when I say that a viewer should be able to purchase any station on an a la carte basis from any market, it is really not that different from how things were in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, albeit on a smaller basis. All Congress has to do is to pass a law that allows the satellite and cable companies to carry any OTA station. Then the market will truly be free and viewers will decide what they want to watch, and local stations will be forced to engage in true local coverage in order to retain viewers. Then any affiliate that negotiates for exclusive rights will know that the exclusivity is for OTA reception, and that the affiliate is subject to competition from other stations on cable and satellite. It will simply be a fact that each station will figure into its market modeling and contract negotiations.

Those of us who suggest that out-of-market stations should be freely available are not suggesting something revolutionary, or something designed to destroy OTA reception. All we are suggesting is allowing viewers some choice, and returning to the laws in effect during the early days of cable.

James Long

07-17-10, 02:12 PM

(I say cable because there wasn't much carriage of local stations on satellite in 1992.)DBS, which made satellite reception trivial, wasn't available then. One could subscribe to C band but the market was so small that it really didn't hurt anyone.

I remember when the syndicated exclusivity and carriage laws hit cable. The technology wasn't as good as it is today and channels went black on the system in my town. Then the channels were dropped. I suppose it is easier not to carry a channel than to deal with which hours it should be blocked.

I believe the first distants law for satellite was put in place in 1999. The suit in Florida led up to that. The stations sued to stop carriage, congress responded by writing laws that allowed carriage in certain circumstances. Every five years the law overriding the station's and network's wishes and affiliation contracts expires - and is adjusted to meed the current situation.

Without STELA and it's predecessors the availability of OTA stations would be entirely up to the networks and stations. They would handle the situation via the courts ... suing to prevent carriage or demand "fair treatment". The law has provided a structure for the parties to meet in the middle.

My point is that when I say that a viewer should be able to purchase any station on an a la carte basis from any market, it is really not that different from how things were in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, albeit on a smaller basis. All Congress has to do is to pass a law that allows the satellite and cable companies to carry any OTA station.And that law would interfere with the contracts already in place with the stations - especially if it extended a station's carriage outside of their normal broadcast area.

I wouldn't mind a "can carry any OTA station within it's FCC defined coverage area" law. Dealing with white areas would be a secondary issue.

All we are suggesting is allowing viewers some choice, and returning to the laws in effect during the early days of cable.Scratch the laws and you lose the carriage - unless you can get a court to rule that cable/satellite can take any signal they want without compensation. The courts ruled against that. Congress disagreed and put statutory licensing in place. Life continues.

Bigg

07-17-10, 03:07 PM

Let's take out some assumptions here, OK?

The Super Bowl "would be on some network, somewhere, probably one of the big ones. " Which one? I mean, if we are discussing the end of the network/affiliate model, which network?

Although I am trying to figure out how "you'd still even have basic cable with the networks being cheaper." How would they be cheaper? End the network/affiliate model, and the advertising dollars lost from the O&O network stations would be made up from carriage fees by charging cable and satellite companies BIG money.

And I'm also trying to wrap my head around "even with time zone feeds, some major markets might still do OTA." Watch the Super Bowl on the network feed, or on a local channel, which because of the end of the network/affiliate model means the affiliate would have to buy (without exclusivity) local rights for the Super Bowl.

There are way too many assumptions treated as fact.

Ok, let's say the networks had four O&O stations, one in NYC, one in Chicago, one in Denver, and one in LA, each broadcasting OTA. That's 46 million people with OTA coverage. No local affiliates would carry the Super Bowl. Maybe the big networks would run fiber links to other cities they thought should get OTA coverage, and broadcast their signals from nearby (i.e. broadcast WCBS-DT from New York in Philidelphia and Boston). They could have regionalized content, but not local content. That would be up to independent regional channels to handle, of which there would be maybe a few dozen at most, and those would be broadcast CONUS, as well as OTA locally.

Let the networks offer one HD feed in each time zone to Cable/Sat distribution. Let them offer one SD feed via commercial satellite to all their affiliates. Let the FCC group all the local affiliates onto one or two channels per DMA, and quadruple the allowed power so even granny with rabbit ears 60 miles away can get her "Free TV". Would allow campers access with portable DTV sets, and greatly enhance local emergency weather coverage and public service. If you want HD, subscribe to cable or satellite.

Extra bandwidth can be sold to ATT so the Iphone can have a tower every two blocks so the calls wont get dropped.

Haha, well it's not quite that simple, but yeah, there's probably better uses for the spectrum.

That revenue is used to keep local transmitters on the air and pay for local operations that keep the networks on the air. Without those local stations people wouldn't see network programming and the advertising revenues would drop (less viewers). The networks would also lose the fees paid by the affiliates.

If the affiliate system was not economically viable for networks they would pull their content from OTA and put it on one of their many cable networks.

Affiliate networks exist because they work.

That affiliation system works through a system of managed monopolies. The network sells their content with first run exclusivity to their affiliates that pay for that privilege. Grand schemes for a "national" channel of the networks interfere with that affiliation system. They violate the agreement the networks have with their affiliates for first run exclusivity.

I suppose you are one of those people who want the government to further interfere with free trade and force networks to violate their affiliation agreements for your own benefit?

How would you like it, Bigg, if the government walked into your successful business and told you they were shutting you down and putting you out on the street? It isn't a fun prospect. Hopefully no one will ever do to you what you are suggesting be done to broadcast TV networks.

If you really think OTA networks would work better without affiliates go buy one, cancel the affiliation agreements and see if it works. The people who own these networks know better ... they know that despite the flaws that the affiliation system WORKS. And when something works you keep doing it.

The networks would have just as many viewers. Echostar 15 won't discriminate based on location.

No, I'm not saying the government should do it. I think the government should give Dish, DirecTV, and the cable, fiber, and IPTV guys the right to broadcast whatever OTA station wherever they want in whatever resolution they want. That may, over time cause the current system to crumble, which is currently being protected by the DMA system and regulation.

What I'd really like is for CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX to say "enough is enough" and kill off all the affiliates and turn most of the O&O's into re-broadcasts of that time zone's master channel (maybe have two masters for East and West Coast with one for central, mountain, Alaska, and Hawaii time zones).

Either that or make new national HD feeds that are all national content and feed those to the pay TV providers.

Nope... and people aren't forced to do business with my (work) company either...

I'm actually lucky in that I can receive affiliates of two of the big four network, so technically, I'm not exactly forced myself, but I know others who are.

I never said to get rid of broadcast TV...

Absolutely! The question is... how long?!

They usually do... when you have no choice... ;)

~Alan

Yeah, you're absolutely right, if we want to keep afiliates, we need to open up the market so that we can get better ones, and they have to compete. I doubt that many people would switch away, even given 3 markets in any one place, due to the size of satellite spots, and the amount of cable bandwidth, but that would be enough for the local affiliates to be pushed to do better. It's getting worse, because I have duplicates triplicates for all 5 networks (and PBS) in my area on cable, but only PBS is duplicated in HD, and DirecTV offers only CBS, NBC, and FOX, so they don't have ABC or PBS in HD. I have no clue why they don't duplicated all five, since NYC is on CONUS, and we are already in the spot for our own (Hartford-New Haven) market.

DBS, which made satellite reception trivial, wasn't available then. One could subscribe to C band but the market was so small that it really didn't hurt anyone.

I remember when the syndicated exclusivity and carriage laws hit cable. The technology wasn't as good as it is today and channels went black on the system in my town. Then the channels were dropped. I suppose it is easier not to carry a channel than to deal with which hours it should be blocked.

I believe the first distants law for satellite was put in place in 1999. The suit in Florida led up to that. The stations sued to stop carriage, congress responded by writing laws that allowed carriage in certain circumstances. Every five years the law overriding the station's and network's wishes and affiliation contracts expires - and is adjusted to meed the current situation.

Without STELA and it's predecessors the availability of OTA stations would be entirely up to the networks and stations. They would handle the situation via the courts ... suing to prevent carriage or demand "fair treatment". The law has provided a structure for the parties to meet in the middle.

And that law would interfere with the contracts already in place with the stations - especially if it extended a station's carriage outside of their normal broadcast area.

I wouldn't mind a "can carry any OTA station within it's FCC defined coverage area" law. Dealing with white areas would be a secondary issue.

Scratch the laws and you lose the carriage - unless you can get a court to rule that cable/satellite can take any signal they want without compensation. The courts ruled against that. Congress disagreed and put statutory licensing in place. Life continues.

The problem with the current system is that not only are cable and satellite under a different set of rules, but they often can't pull in out-of-market channels. Must-carry rules are fine, but cable and satellite companies should be able to pull in whatever channels they want to from other markets.

The other stupid part is that broadcast channels want money for carriage. It would be a lot harder to pull off that BS if the cable companies had the ability to just switch on a few fiber lines and get a distant network to replace the network in question, so that cable company could just stand there and tell the affiliate what they will pay them, while customers still get the network programming.

I know ABC7 was asking an absolutely insane amount of money for their programming on Cablevision, and was pumping out a bunch of BS about Cablevision at the same time.

The other thing is that the cable/SAT/telco companies paying for OTA coverage is just absurd. Anything OTA should be free for the companies to re-transmit. There are a few problems with charging for OTA content. The most obvious is that it is free OTA, so it should be free on pay service. However, the next issue is that this model is completely backwards, as the cable, satellite, and telco companies are paying for physical plant infrastructure, part of which is being used to re-transmit the local channels, so that the local channels can collect advertising revenue. Thus, if anything, the locals should pay the pay tv providers for distribution, just like it costs money to keep a 1300' guyed wire tower up in the air with megawatt-plus transmitters blasting RF energy out over civilization.

James Long

07-17-10, 03:28 PM

runner861

07-18-10, 01:38 PM

I remember when the syndicated exclusivity and carriage laws hit cable. The technology wasn't as good as it is today and channels went black on the system in my town. Then the channels were dropped. I suppose it is easier not to carry a channel than to deal with which hours it should be blocked.

You are correct that it is a pain in the neck for the cable company to delete parts of the distant station's broadcast, while allowing other parts to pass through. However, the other problem is the 1992 law allowed local stations to elect either "must carry" or to demand payment. Some of the local stations have elected to negotiate as their payment for the distant stations to be dropped altogether, thus reducing competition. Although the local stations had already gained the ability to demand network exclusivity and syndicated exclusivity, they still faced some competition from the distant stations for other programs, such as news and other related programming.

For example, many people in Monterey-Salinas market enjoyed watching the news from San Francisco. It is only 85 miles away, but is a much larger market and has much better local news coverage, including news coverage from the state capital. It also has many more hours of local news. In 1992, when the local stations gained the right to negotiate for carriage, one of the things that they negotiated was for the San Francisco stations to be removed.

That is one of the reasons that I believe this 1992 law was so destructive to cable and so damaging for the viewers. It has also led to massive rate increases to cover the costs of carrying the local stations, in addition to loss of choice of channels for the viewers. And the local stations have not improved their local coverage--in fact, knowing that they will not face competition from any distant stations, they have decreased their local coverage and just purchased a bunch of syndicated garbage.

Greg Bimson

07-19-10, 08:55 AM

If you really think OTA networks would work better without affiliates go buy one, cancel the affiliation agreements and see if it works.Or look no further than KRON in San Francisco.Care to elaborate?As you said, cancel the affiliation agreements.

Which means each of the networks would have to terminate their affiliation agreements with the Philadelphia stations. The caveat here is that the networks own their own station in the Philadelphia market.

The issue with KRON is that Young Broadcasting spent almost $1 billion outbidding NBC for KRON. When Young Broadcasting finally gained control of KRON, NBC terminated their affiliation agreement with KRON. The value of KRON went downhill. Meanwhile, NBC was happy enough to buy KNTV and have their own station in the market be their affiliate. Seems like NBC was quite happy to continue the network/affiliate model in San Francisco.

People just do not seem to understand that the networks own some of their own affiliates which would be affected by the proposal. And KRON is a perfect example of watching an equity investment and cash machine drained of life once losing their network affiliation.It works because of Government protectionism. Let me or my neighbors choose between the affiliates in Little Rock, or Memphis (or Springfield Mo), and see how long the Little Rock affiliates survive.You are forgetting that cable and satellite companies are rebroadcasters. As such, they are copying the transmission and sending through some kind of distribution system to get it to you. So what you've missed here is that the rebroadcaster must come to a carriage agreement with the broadcast station, and that broadcast station would have to agree where the rebroadcasted signal can be sent.

The government has nothing to do with it. Dish Network can go ask WCBS in New York to carry the channel nationwide. That would require WCBS to clear all copyrighted programming they've contracted. And most of the programming on WCBS comes from the CBS Network. Do you think the CBS Network will allow WCBS to broadcast all of their programming nationwide when the CBS Network has first-run affiliation agreements with other channels around the country?It wasn't until 1992, when Congress passed legislation that allowed locals to either elect "must carry" status or demand payment for carriage, that we had these stations able to secure absolute protection from out-of-market stations. Prior to that time, cable systems and satellite viewers were able to freely receive out-of-market stations.You do realize at the time, there was a study put forth regarding local channels on cable. It was found that if a cable company no longer had their local channels on cable, over 50% of consumers would demand their cable bill be halved, and another about 25% would ditch cable altogether? It appeared that cable was built on the back of the local broadcaster, and they weren't receiving anything from the cable company.Those of us who suggest that out-of-market stations should be freely available are not suggesting something revolutionary, or something designed to destroy OTA reception. All we are suggesting is allowing viewers some choice, and returning to the laws in effect during the early days of cable.Yep. Let's have Charlie Ergen and Brian Roberts and the lke make all the money selling monthly subscriptions to programming and have NONE OF IT go to the broadcast networks which still provide the most-viewed programming.

Cable TV was still in its infancy; it was the Wild West of TV throughout the 1980's. The Cable Act of 1992 was enacted to right the wrongs of allowing one company to build their business on the back of another without compensation.Ok, let's say the networks had four O&O stations, one in NYC, one in Chicago, one in Denver, and one in LA, each broadcasting OTA. That's 46 million people with OTA coverage. No local affiliates would carry the Super Bowl. Maybe the big networks would run fiber links to other cities they thought should get OTA coverage, and broadcast their signals from nearby (i.e. broadcast WCBS-DT from New York in Philidelphia and Boston). They could have regionalized content, but not local content. That would be up to independent regional channels to handle, of which there would be maybe a few dozen at most, and those would be broadcast CONUS, as well as OTA locally.Sounds exactly like the current state of network/affiliate broadcasting today, except for the "and those would be broadcast CONUS", which is just like arguments from Davenlr and runner861. This appears to be the "we can't let the networks do what they want" argument, even though lifeline cable (which includes locals) and local channel packages on cable are still routinely the cheapest-priced programming options.

The network (which you so desperately want) runs their business their way, and you all appear to be fans of their programming, but cannot stand the way they run their business. Seems to me complaining about their business methodology won't bring and end to their business practice, so I will suggest the next best thing: stop watching, and explain to everyone why you are no longer watching so they can join your crusade.

That would be the quickest way to bring about the demise of network/affiliate model. It may also destroy the network and may cost you more than you wanted in the long run, but this is only about bringing OTA stations to their knees.

Bigg

07-19-10, 10:16 AM

Bigg, I believe the problem is that you're focused too much on the "via satellite" and not enough on the existing OTA networks. These networks have relied on OTA coverage for their audiences ... and still do as that OTA coverage gets their foot in the door on local cable systems nationwide and reaches the large number of viewers that don't get OTAs via a pay TV provider.

Ok, so if the networks want their OTA, then, let them have it. However, we need to stop protecting certain stations. The law should be changed so that once a signal is OTA, any pay TV provider can take that signal and freely broadcast it anywhere they want to, so long as it is unedited (except for resolution/ compression scaling).

Greg Bimson

07-19-10, 10:49 AM

Ok, so if the networks want their OTA, then, let them have it. However, we need to stop protecting certain stations. The law should be changed so that once a signal is OTA, any pay TV provider can take that signal and freely broadcast it anywhere they want to, so long as it is unedited (except for resolution/ compression scaling).And then Dish Network can get a subscription to DirecTV, pick up DirecTV's channels and rebroadcast and repackage them onto the Dish Network system.

So instead of paying millions of dollars to ESPN, they just need to spend about $100 a month on DirecTV and rip and rebroadcast. That should save Dish Network a good $42 million a month, which is probably much more than what the local stations are receiving in agregate. After all, "we need to stop protecting certain stations."

And the only entities protecting "certain stations" are the networks themselves.

runner861

07-19-10, 11:17 AM

You do realize at the time, there was a study put forth regarding local channels on cable. It was found that if a cable company no longer had their local channels on cable, over 50% of consumers would demand their cable bill be halved, and another about 25% would ditch cable altogether? It appeared that cable was built on the back of the local broadcaster, and they weren't receiving anything from the cable company.Yep. Let's have Charlie Ergen and Brian Roberts and the lke make all the money selling monthly subscriptions to programming and have NONE OF IT go to the broadcast networks which still provide the most-viewed programming.

Cable TV was still in its infancy; it was the Wild West of TV throughout the 1980's. The Cable Act of 1992 was enacted to right the wrongs of allowing one company to build their business on the back of another without compensation.

I couldn't care less what some study said. It's irrelevant. What people say in a study and what they will actually do are two different things. Besides, "studies" are routinely rigged to achieve the result that the organization doing the study wants.

Also, I have never advocated deleting local stations from cable. I am advocating importing distant stations in addition to continuing with the local stations. Advertising will continue to support the networks and the stations. Why should broadcasters, who are transmitting a "free" product, then be allowed to charge for it when it is rebroadcast by a satellite company or cable company? The satellite company or cable company is already conferring a benefit on the broadcaster by ensuring that viewers who could not receive the signal OTA will now receive it. Remember, not everyone with a rooftop antenna can receive every local station. Local reception is highly dependent on terrain. The viewer may be five miles or less from the transmitter, but, if there is a mountain in the way, the viewer may not receive the signal OTA. The viewer will receive it via cable or satellite.

Ok, so if the networks want their OTA, then, let them have it. However, we need to stop protecting certain stations. The law should be changed so that once a signal is OTA, any pay TV provider can take that signal and freely broadcast it anywhere they want to, so long as it is unedited (except for resolution/ compression scaling).

I agree a hundred percent. Try it, people will like it, and the sky won't fall. Rates are the only thing that will fall, and viewer choice will go up. Stations will have a strong incentive to produce programming for their local market when they face real competition.

Herdfan

07-19-10, 11:19 AM

While there are good arguments on both sides of this issue, the one thing that is broken is the antiquated DMA system used to determine "markets". There is a DMA in Parkersburg WV that consists of 3 counties. Three counties (2 in WV, 1 in OH) and about 63,000 households.

The one affiliate in the DMA (WTAP) is a dual NBC/Fox and is basically a satellite of WSAZ from Huntington. Cable, but not satellite, provides CBS and ABC from Charleston.

Why does this DMA even exist? The 2 WV counties should be moved to the Charleston DMA and the OH county to either the Columbus or Stuebenville DMA. Or maybe even expend the one county Zanesville DMA.

Since the current station is owned by the same company that owns WSAZ, they could just use the existing station as a repeater and maybe do a local news show with area specific stories and provide locally inserted ads.

As for the consumer benefits, they would be in a DMA that would have all locals via satellite. The current spot beams for Charleston do reach those 3 counties. Having a 3 county DMA is not really good for anyone.

James Long

07-19-10, 11:35 AM

Imagine a national business that owns exclusive rights to a product. No other business in the US can sell that product. To distribute their product they have decided to set up a network of local affiliate distributors ... and to keep the product valuable they have decided to grant exclusive rights to each affiliate within their own territory to distribute their product. It is an agreement that all the affiliates and the national business have agreed to honor. The affiliates are not allowed to deliver the product to retailers outside of their territory.

Which means that if you are in Michigan and want that product your retailer must get that product from the distributor that has rights for Michigan. The retailer cannot get the product from a distributor in Iowa because the Iowa distributor has agreed not to compete with the Michigan distributor. (Generally the retailer would not want to go that far due to the increased shipping costs - but if the savings were great enough it may make economic sense to go from Michigan to Iowa for their product.)

And thus even though an individual may drive from Michigan to Iowa to buy a case of cola a distributor in Iowa cannot supply a retailer in Michigan with the same product.

And thus a regional sports network serving Iowa cannot distribute a professional sports game to viewers in Michigan without first obtaining rights for that distribution from the national company that owns the rights. (The league owns the rights and will most likely sell the right to view as part of a special package.)

And thus an Iowa television station cannot distribute broadcast network programming to viewers in Michigan without first obtaining rights for that distribution from the national company that owns the rights. (The network owns the rights and has most likely sold those rights to local broadcasters in Michigan.)

And thus ... it is the way the national company has decided to distribute a product that they have FULL RIGHTS to distribute any way they want - or not at all.

Those that want to break the system are just interfering with free enterprise. There isn't a compelling reason for the government to override the affiliation contracts of the networks/affiliates. There is no constitutional right to view the product being offered.

James Long

07-19-10, 11:50 AM

While there are good arguments on both sides of this issue, the one thing that is broken is the antiquated DMA system used to determine "markets".This is one area where I believe change IS needed. DMAs do not match the actual distribution areas where the affiliates have the right to broadcast the content. Cable doesn't follow the same rules as satellite ... they don't worry about DMAs and can (and in some cases MUST) carry stations from what would be another DMA.

Leveling the rules between cable and satellite so satellite at least carry the same channels that cable carries is important. A local station should be defined not only as any station within the reasonably arbitrary DMAs but any station that has predicted coverage of the customer. This could be broken down to zip code or county but technology has reached the point where it is possible to be more granular than 210 markets.

This would not violate the private affiliation contracts ... it would not extend the stations any further than they already have the right to broadcast. It would just deliver the content via satellite to the same people who could get it OTA or via cable.

runner861

07-19-10, 12:00 PM

This is one area where I believe change IS needed. DMAs do not match the actual distribution areas where the affiliates have the right to broadcast the content. Cable doesn't follow the same rules as satellite ... they don't worry about DMAs and can (and in some cases MUST) carry stations from what would be another DMA.

Leveling the rules between cable and satellite so satellite at least carry the same channels that cable carries is important. A local station should be defined not only as any station within the reasonably arbitrary DMAs but any station that has predicted coverage of the customer. This could be broken down to zip code or county but technology has reached the point where it is possible to be more granular than 210 markets.

This would not violate the private affiliation contracts ... it would not extend the stations any further than they already have the right to broadcast. It would just deliver the content via satellite to the same people who could get it OTA or via cable.

Why should affiiliates be protected when their programming is not even available OTA throughout the market? The Monterey-Salinas market is a large and hilly market, although sparsely populated. There are areas where a viewer is many miles away from the transmitter and cannot receive reception. There are other areas where a viewer may be only five miles away from the transmitter, yet still cannot receive a signal. Yet the local stations will claim these locations, even though they are not really providing service to the locations. Those viewers are forced to purchase and pay for satellite or cable in order to receive "free" tv, with some of that money going to the local station. Ethically and morally, the local station deserves no money in that situation. They are supposed to be providing a free service to the viewer. Viewers are burned time and time again by these rules that protect local stations far beyond what is reasonable.

runner861

07-19-10, 12:06 PM

And then Dish Network can get a subscription to DirecTV, pick up DirecTV's channels and rebroadcast and repackage them onto the Dish Network system.

So instead of paying millions of dollars to ESPN, they just need to spend about $100 a month on DirecTV and rip and rebroadcast. That should save Dish Network a good $42 million a month, which is probably much more than what the local stations are receiving in agregate. After all, "we need to stop protecting certain stations."

And the only entities protecting "certain stations" are the networks themselves.

The comparison is not on point. DirectTV is not a free service, so taking it and retransmitting it without permission would be video piracy. OTA is free, or at least it used to be. The local stations and the networks are doing their best to say that it is free, but at the same time to make sure that it really is not free.

Gee, the local stations and networks talking out of both sides of their mouth? What a surprise! Just like Congress and the courts, who have been talking out of both sides of their mouth on this and every other issue for years.

Greg Bimson

07-19-10, 12:21 PM

I couldn't care less what some study said. It's irrelevant. What people say in a study and what they will actually do are two different things. Besides, "studies" are routinely rigged to achieve the result that the organization doing the study wants.And although I can somewhat agree that studies can be rigged, the reality is that people expected their cable system to provide the local channels. Ditch the antenna and get all these local channels, as well as some of this other programming. Yet none of the money paid by subscribers to the local cable company was going to the local channels...I am advocating importing distant stations in addition to continuing with the local stations. Advertising will continue to support the networks and the stations. Why should broadcasters, who are transmitting a "free" product, then be allowed to charge for it when it is rebroadcast by a satellite company or cable company?The question is backwards...

Why does a satellite or cable company need to retransmit a "free" product? Could it be that without the "free" product people won't subscribe? All one needs to do is point to the passage of the SHVIA back in 1999, when DBS satellite numbers went from less than 8 million subscribers without local channels to now more than 30 million in 2010 with local channels. The reality on that point itself should be astounding. Dish Network knew they needed access to network programming in order to compete; DirecTV worked with the NAB to provide the framework to get local programming including network affiliates available to satellite consumers.

These distribution companies obviously need the local channel product. Yet these distribution companies, according to some, should be raking in billions of dollars a year and providing none of that money to these local channels. Or better yet, create laws so that not only do those local channels receive no money, but then also have all of their exclusive contracts with their programmers completely demolished so that they are no longer exclusive.

James Long

07-19-10, 12:21 PM

Why should affiiliates be protected when their programming is not even available OTA throughout the market? The Monterey-Salinas market is a large and hilly market, although sparsely populated. There are areas where a viewer is many miles away from the transmitter and cannot receive reception. There are other areas where a viewer may be only five miles away from the transmitter, yet still cannot receive a signal. Yet the local stations will claim these locations, even though they are not really providing service to the locations. Those viewers are forced to purchase and pay for satellite or cable in order to receive "free" tv, with some of that money going to the local station. Ethically and morally, the local station deserves no money in that situation. They are supposed to be providing a free service to the viewer. Viewers are burned time and time again by these rules that protect local stations far beyond what is reasonable.If these OTA viewers can pick up an out of market station great ... but getting that feed via satellite or cable? If the only way to get a signal of that network is via satellite or cable why not have it be the affiliate who actually holds the distribution rights to that area?

You'd rather interfere with the network/affiliate agreements and import signals from wherever. "Ethically and morally" we shouldn't be encouraging violation of contracts. If due to terrain and RF issues the only way to get that content is via cable/satellite fine ... just let it be the affiliate who owns the rights to that viewer.

(If an out of market affiliate happens to have overlapping OTA coverage that would qualify it for carriage - if my rules were in place. Under the real rules the out of market would have to be "significantly viewed" to gain satellite carriage. Secondary to any in market station who holds the rights.)

Greg Bimson

07-19-10, 12:23 PM

DirectTV is not a free service, so taking it and retransmitting it without permission would be video piracy.Without permission of what company?

James Long

07-19-10, 12:26 PM

The comparison is not on point. DirectTV is not a free service, so taking it and retransmitting it without permission would be video piracy.Greg's suggestion was that DISH subscribes to DirecTV and uses that source for their feed. Not piracy (although a commercial subscription would be required as a regular subscription is licensed for private in home use). DISH would be paying someone for the service.

runner861

07-19-10, 12:35 PM

If these OTA viewers can pick up an out of market station great ... but getting that feed via satellite or cable? If the only way to get a signal of that network is via satellite or cable why not have it be the affiliate who actually holds the distribution rights to that area?

You'd rather interfere with the network/affiliate agreements and import signals from wherever. "Ethically and morally" we shouldn't be encouraging violation of contracts. If due to terrain and RF issues the only way to get that content is via cable/satellite fine ... just let it be the affiliate who owns the rights to that viewer.

(If an out of market affiliate happens to have overlapping OTA coverage that would qualify it for carriage - if my rules were in place. Under the real rules the out of market would have to be "significantly viewed" to gain satellite carriage. Secondary to any in market station who holds the rights.)

Why should it be the affiliate who actually holds the distribution rights to the area, if the affiliate is not actually receivable OTA in that area? I don't believe it is ethically or morally correct for an affiliate to claim an area, yet in reality not provide OTA reception to that area. That is the case in many markets, where hills or other obstructions prevent OTA reception.

I am not advocating "moving," or any violation of contracts. What I am advocating is that Congress change the law and allow free nationwide distribution of any OTA signal. Locals should be required to be carried in every market as well. It is not a violation of the contract if Congress passes a law allowing this type of distribution. The affiliates will just have to figure the new law into their contract negotiations and market modeling.

If I am in Los Angeles, I can buy a San Francisco Chronicle. I don't have to first ask the LA Times if they will allow me to buy a Chronicle. Even if LA Times has exclusive access in the LA market to a wire service, say Pacific News Service, and if the Chronicle also has exclusive access to Pacific News in SF, I can choose either paper in LA, or SF, or anywhere. We must get over the idea that broadcast TV is different. It's not. It just has a very strong lobby, the NAB, that newspapers lack.

James Long

07-19-10, 12:43 PM

Yet none of the money paid by subscribers to the local cable company was going to the local channels...Most of it was used for the infrastructure needed to deliver signals to their customers. Equipment, overhead, etc. Eventually "cable" systems made a profit but their service is providing a common antenna (community antenna).

None of the money paid to Radio Shack or Wiengard or Jampro or any other OTA antenna provider goes to local channels. Perhaps we need to institute some sort of fee for those who buy their OTA reception instead of renting it?

All one needs to do is point to the passage of the SHVIA back in 1999, when DBS satellite numbers went from less than 8 million subscribers without local channels to now more than 30 million in 2010 with local channels.You're right. Nothing else has changed in the satellite industry. No new channels or services have been added to either satellite provider in the past 11 years that would account for the increase in subscribers. The systems have been stagnant except for the addition of locals.

Locals are an important part of pay TV - a required part of cable systems (thanks meddling Congress!) but not a required part of satellite systems. I'm embarrassed about how much of my satellite TV viewing is OTA signals ... why am I paying for "free TV"? But then the weekend comes and I watch stuff that is not on OTA ... I use my satellite system to better manage my OTA viewing (currently watching The Late Late show from last Wednesday with Thursday and Friday still waiting to be viewed) ... and even though I can receive OTA reception is more stable via satellite. So there is value added.

But I subscribed to the same level of programming before my locals were available. DISH managed to collect $5 more from me and exchange paid for a fiber link from an antenna nearby to their network and a lot of equipment to receive and move that signal around. If it were not profitable they wouldn't do it, but delivering "free TV" via satellite or cable isn't free.

James Long

07-19-10, 01:05 PM

Why should it be the affiliate who actually holds the distribution rights to the area, if the affiliate is not actually receivable OTA in that area?Because that is what the contract says. Station KAAA holds the right to air network ACN's programming within their broadcast market. No other station of that network holds that right.

And that right holds even if the local station decides not to air the network programming they hold a right to. (Although at some point the amount of deleted programing will become an issue and any content refused may be offered to another station or secondary affiliate covering the area.) The local station paid for it ... it is theirs.

I am not advocating "moving," or any violation of contracts.The contract you want violated is between the network and the affiliate and all other affiliates of that network. "Any OTA signal nationwide" is certainly advocating bringing in an affiliate that has absolutely NO RIGHT to deliver their signal to that customer.

If I am in Los Angeles, I can buy a San Francisco Chronicle. I don't have to first ask the LA Times if they will allow me to buy a Chronicle. Even if LA Times has exclusive access in the LA market to a wire service, say Pacific News Service, and if the Chronicle also has exclusive access to Pacific News in SF, I can choose either paper in LA, or SF, or anywhere. We must get over the idea that broadcast TV is different. It's not. It just has a very strong lobby, the NAB, that newspapers lack.Their affiliation agreement is not the same as the one that network television stations have agreed to. Nor regional sports networks. Nor carbonated beverage distributors.

Obviously something has been worked out with these affiliates that allows the papers to be available in each other's markets. Otherwise the news service would pull their content from the paper violating the contract. It isn't that the newspaper lobby is weak (or non-existent). It is that their agreements allow for the behavior of their affiliates. TV broadcast networks do not have the same affiliation agreements for network programming as newspapers have for wire feeds.

runner861

07-19-10, 01:42 PM

Because that is what the contract says. Station KAAA holds the right to air network ACN's programming within their broadcast market. No other station of that network holds that right.

And that right holds even if the local station decides not to air the network programming they hold a right to. (Although at some point the amount of deleted programing will become an issue and any content refused may be offered to another station or secondary affiliate covering the area.) The local station paid for it ... it is theirs.

The contract you want violated is between the network and the affiliate and all other affiliates of that network. "Any OTA signal nationwide" is certainly advocating bringing in an affiliate that has absolutely NO RIGHT to deliver their signal to that customer.

Their affiliation agreement is not the same as the one that network television stations have agreed to. Nor regional sports networks. Nor carbonated beverage distributors.

Obviously something has been worked out with these affiliates that allows the papers to be available in each other's markets. Otherwise the news service would pull their content from the paper violating the contract. It isn't that the newspaper lobby is weak (or non-existent). It is that their agreements allow for the behavior of their affiliates. TV broadcast networks do not have the same affiliation agreements for network programming as newspapers have for wire feeds.

I understand that the station as the law and contracts currently stand holds the exclusive right to the content in the market, even if the station chooses not to offer it. However, is that really moral or ethical when the station holds the exclusive right, yet does not make its signal available OTA to any subscriber with a rooftop antenna?

This is where government and private enterprise run into trouble--when they try to engage in one-sided activity that is clearly not fair. Most people will accept the rule of government and the right of private enterprise to engage in free market activity. However, when things are not fair and defy logic, such as having a monopoly on OTA broadcast of a network or syndicated program, and then not even distributing the network or program OTA to all viewers, and not allowing any distant station to be available, people begin to sense that something is not fair, something is not right.

The contract is not violated if Congress passes a law allowing the stations to be distributed nationwide. It is just a factor that the stations must include in their contract negotiations and market modeling.

If there were any law prohibiting distribution of newspapers outside of their market, the federal judges would be lining up to strike it down on First Amendment grounds. Why not with broadcasting? When will some judge have the guts to strike down the distribution restrictions that apply to signals of OTA broadcasters distributed by cable and satellite?

kevinturcotte

07-19-10, 01:56 PM

What about people who ONLY have OTA?

Greg Bimson

07-19-10, 02:02 PM

Why should it be the affiliate who actually holds the distribution rights to the area, if the affiliate is not actually receivable OTA in that area? I don't believe it is ethically or morally correct for an affiliate to claim an area, yet in reality not provide OTA reception to that area. That is the case in many markets, where hills or other obstructions prevent OTA reception.In reality, the affiliate has held the distribution rights to the area since the beginning of broadcast TV.None of the money paid to Radio Shack or Wiengard or Jampro or any other OTA antenna provider goes to local channels. Perhaps we need to institute some sort of fee for those who buy their OTA reception instead of renting it?The point being made here is that as a person, you have the right to improve upon your reception. You can buy powered antenna or towers to improve the reception of stations in your area and that was always a choice, since the beginning of TV.

The problem is that it changes once you outsource your responsibility to another party. And here is where it gets dicey:Yet none of the money paid by subscribers to the local cable company was going to the local channels...Most of it was used for the infrastructure needed to deliver signals to their customers. Equipment, overhead, etc. Eventually "cable" systems made a profit but their service is providing a common antenna (community antenna).And once the community antenna started providing more stations from other sources, such as satellite-delivered programming, they ceased to be a community antenna. It is no coincidence that "CATV" left the vernacular at about the same time all of these cable networks started to pop-up. It's also no coincidence that these cable networks started to scramble their satellite signals in the mid-1980's; both cablers and the programmers saw people defecting to BUD's which meant that people could receive their locals and basic cable programming for free.

Cable TV profited once they had a 60 channel universe, but it was all predicated on not paying for OTA content.

All I have pretty much been trying to argue is that it is CONTRACTS that make the business run. Some want to hasten the demise of the network/affiliate model, the same model that still provides the most-watched programs to the general public, on the grounds that it is "outdated". Technologically, it may be outdated. Economically, it is far from outdated, as there has been no groundswell from the existing networks to abandon the network/affilate model.

So I argue that since the most-watched programming is available on local channels that they should be entitled to some compensation from rebroadcasters, those same rebroadcasters that need local channels and their exclusive network programming in order to survive.

Greg Bimson

07-19-10, 02:27 PM

Let's have this discussion take a different tact...If there were any law prohibiting distribution of newspapers outside of their market, the federal judges would be lining up to strike it down on First Amendment grounds. Why not with broadcasting? When will some judge have the guts to strike down the distribution restrictions that apply to signals of OTA broadcasters distributed by cable and satellite?Strike down what law? There is no law restricting the distribution of OTA signals. There is a law that allows for a channel to be rebroadcast in-market on satellite, but there is no law that forbids a channel from being carried outside of its market.

James Long

07-19-10, 02:38 PM

However, is that really moral or ethical when the station holds the exclusive right, yet does not make its signal available OTA to any subscriber with a rooftop antenna?They are making the attempt required by their contract. Any failure to perform should be handled within the terms of their contract, not by ad hoc decisions made by people who are not parties to the contract.

This is where government and private enterprise run into trouble--when they try to engage in one-sided activity that is clearly not fair.What is fair about interfering with the private contract between network and affiliate? We're not talking about a life or death issue here ... there is no need for a government taking.

The contract is not violated if Congress passes a law allowing the stations to be distributed nationwide.NEWS FLASH! No such law is needed. The current law offering statutory carriage are not the only way a network can get their programming carried. If some station in Iowa wants nationwide coverage there is no law that prevents them from working out an agreement outside of the statutory carriage laws. What prevents such an outside agreement with a network station is the station's own affiliation agreements not to deliver the content outside of the market they have paid for.

If there were any law prohibiting distribution of newspapers outside of their market, the federal judges would be lining up to strike it down on First Amendment grounds. Why not with broadcasting?Because broadcasters themselves wrote those laws, campaigned for those laws and went to court to PREVENT satellite companies from carrying their signals without compensation or permission. The compromise written into the law is that if there is no other way of getting the content a distant can be provided. If there is another way the distant cannot be provided without permission from (guess who) the stations with the rights to that content.

The law you seek to overturn has been upheld by the courts. If a newspaper went to court to prevent someone else from distributing their papers outside of their area they might win. Say an Indianapolis and Fort Wayne newspaper (cities about 100 miles apart) made a non-compete agreement where in order to sell Fort Wayne newspapers the Indianapolis paper would feed them statewide stories via a wire service and not sell their Indianapolis papers in Fort Wayne. It all works out fine until one day when an enterprising paperboy picks up bundles of Indianapolis papers, drives them to Fort Wayne and sells them in gas stations and convenience stores. As his business grows the Fort Wayne newspaper notices and asks the Indianapolis paper to stop providing bundles of newspapers to that carrier. He sues - using your assumed right to sell an Indianapolis newspaper anywhere he desires. When the case reaches court he will stand against BOTH the Indianapolis and Fort Wayne newspapers who want their contract honored. Just like satellite companies stood in court against ALL of the major networks and their affiliate organization. I believe that news carrier would lose.

James Long

07-19-10, 02:48 PM

And once the community antenna started providing more stations from other sources, such as satellite-delivered programming, they ceased to be a community antenna. It is no coincidence that "CATV" left the vernacular at about the same time all of these cable networks started to pop-up. It's also no coincidence that these cable networks started to scramble their satellite signals in the mid-1980's; both cablers and the programmers saw people defecting to BUD's which meant that people could receive their locals and basic cable programming for free.Note what they were protecting ... the 'cable' channels. One can still get OTA for free. These companies EXPANDED their service offerings beyond a shared antenna and charged for those expanded offerings. The infrastructure was there from the days of being a simple community antenna. Improvements have been made but those improvements support the provision of more pay TV services (on demand, internet, phone) and really don't help OTA.

The basic monthly cost of delivering locals via cable is no where near the average cable bill. People are paying for things other than locals. And when (as required by Congress) people are given the option to subscribe to "lifeline" service they pay an infrastructure fee - and whatever fee the local broadcasters have managed to get out of the cable system for rebroadcasting their "free" signal. Lifeline services should be a reference for how much it would cost to return to the days of "CATV" with locals and community access only. Consider everything else a separate product and the money earned from that separate product NOT payable to OTA broadcasters.

runner861

07-19-10, 03:59 PM

Let's have this discussion take a different tact...Strike down what law? There is no law restricting the distribution of OTA signals. There is a law that allows for a channel to be rebroadcast in-market on satellite, but there is no law that forbids a channel from being carried outside of its market.

The current STELA law, as well as the previous SHVIA, prohibits the distribution of any OTA signal outside of its market except in very limited circumstances.

James Long

07-19-10, 04:18 PM

The current STELA law, as well as the previous SHVIA, prohibits the distribution of any OTA signal outside of its market except in very limited circumstances.Incorrect.

It prevents using the statutory license to distribute an OTA signal outside of it's own market unless the circumstances are met.
The law does not prevent networks and stations from negotiating carriage outside of the statutory licensing structure.

runner861

07-19-10, 06:07 PM

Incorrect.

It prevents using the statutory license to distribute an OTA signal outside of it's own market unless the circumstances are met.
The law does not prevent networks and stations from negotiating carriage outside of the statutory licensing structure.

How am I incorrect? Wouldn't negotiating around the statutory license be one of the limited exceptions? That is how, for example, a station could fill its schedule with programming that no other station had exclusive rights to and then it could get a satellite carrier to transmit its signal nationwide. I'm not aware of any station that is currently doing that.

At the Congressional hearings on STELA, there was a little discussion/debate between Charles Ergen and the NAB representative. Ergen wanted to have the law changed so that stations could be distributed nationwide, like newspapers. That was his analogy. The NAB representative said that was already possible if the station negotiated a separate agreement involving programming that no other station had exclusive rights to, like local news. Basically, Ergen said viewers wanted to watch news from other stations all across the nation. The NAB representative said that is already possible. Ergen said that it is too cumbersome to be switching stations on and off.

By the way, "its" is possessive--no apostrophe. "It's" is a contraction for "it is." Check a dictionary.

James Long

07-19-10, 07:24 PM

scooper

07-19-10, 08:17 PM

I like the note where someone said what needs to be fixed on DBS (and cable, by analogy) -

If the L-R filings of a broadcaster at the FCC cover a location - then they should be able to get it via pay-tv provider, This of course should EXCLUDE E-skip type reception and the like.

runner861

07-19-10, 08:58 PM

So now you know you're wrong you claim that was an "exception" and resort to grammar flames?

Oh well. As long as you agree with Greg and I that stations CAN be carried outside of their own market via satellite - and there is no law preventing such carriage - we're on the same page. STELA and the predecessors are PERMISSIVE laws, they provide a statutory license and allow carriage within that license, not restrictive laws that ban carriage.

Why do you need/want me to agree with anyone? I understand the law. I believe that you understand the law as well. I thought that this topic dealt with our opinions as to whether broadcast networks are needed, not a debate over what the law allows or does not allow. I thought that we all in this thread pretty much agreed on what the law says, but were debating what the law should be.

Whether you want to call it permissive or restrictive is a distinction without a difference. Can you cite to me one case where a court said that STELA or the predecessors are "permissive," rather than "restrictive"? I would like to read that opinion, if it exists.

I also have another question: What is your opinion on whether a satellite carrier may carry a distant digital signal from an eastern time zone and broadcast it into a western time zone? If so, under what circumstances?

James Long

07-19-10, 10:30 PM

OK, getting back to topic - the law that certain people (plural) in this thread seem to wish to strike down ...

The current STELA law, as well as the previous SHVIA, permitted the distribution of OTA signals outside of their own market using a statutory license under very limited circumstances. This carriage does not require the permission of the station carried nor the network with which the station is affiliated. The station/network cannot refuse to be carried as a distant. Use of these stations is not voluntary - therefore the stations need not be concerned with violating their affiliation agreements by providing a signal outside of their contract defined territories. (Through rewrites, the law has also been refined to attempt to exclude as many customers as possible who can receive the network some other way, including the 2004 change barring a distant signal being offered in markets where locals are offered that have a local station of the same network.)

Should this law be struck down or be allowed to expire distant network stations would cease to be available under the statutory license. Satellite providers would no longer be able to take the feed of any station without permission and would have to either find a station willing to violate their agreement with the network and other affiliates or make an agreement with the network that is willing to violate their prior agreement with affiliates.

Striking down the law would lead to LESS out of market carriage (reference: DISH losing permission to use the statutory license effective December 2006) not more.

DirecTV and DISH Network have been carrying network television via local stations for over 12 years. The networks have shown no interest in having their broadcast content shown in any other manner (other than reruns that have played on existing 'cable' distribution channels AFTER the original market exclusive network airings). Networks and their affiliates continue to support the affiliate distribution model and there is no sign that their support of that model will end.

Or are you expecting some judge to cherrypick an 11 year old law and strike out the parts that you don't like?

runner861

07-19-10, 11:56 PM

James Long

07-20-10, 01:29 AM

Hopefully we can get back to the topic of THIS THREAD soon ... but for humor ...
I have another, related question that I would like to ask you or anyone else who can answer it. Many cable systems, during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, were routinely carrying distant network and independent stations. I personally observed this on one small cable system in the Monterey-Salinas market, and I have heard about many others that did this.The cable system I watched in the early eighties also had what today would be considered out of market stations on them. Applying today's terms to yesterday's practices may be misleading. One would need to find when Congress legally defined distants before assuming the stations were distants.

They were just stations ... received on the local CATV master antenna and with ONE exception the same selection that I could have received at home with the proper antenna. Pre-CATV many homes in the neighborhood had their own 30ft towers with an antenna. A rotor would have been needed to get all the channels.

There was only one station on the system that I believe was not receivable via a high end antenna. It was brought in by microwave from an antenna 12 miles away. OTA reception on a tall tower in that town. When the "distant" station was off the air one would occasionally see a station in Maine 800 miles away.

What law allowed the cable systems to do this? Or was there no law governing this behavior, so the cable systems simply grabbed the signal of any station that they wanted?Perhaps you should ask in a cable forum? We focus on satellite around here.

For satellite there was no law and the companies did as they pleased until the networks and stations objected and took them to court to try to stop them. The outcome was Congress passing the original SHVA law providing statutory licenses and structure for carrying local broadcast stations using those licenses.

I suspect cable just did as they pleased until objections were raised and "significantly viewed" local stations were required in 70's and SYNDEX was required in the 90's (IIRC).

There are some crossovers in the law (the use of cable's Significantly Viewed list for satellite, for example) but most of the laws are separate and not quite equal between cable and satellite.

runner861

07-20-10, 06:07 AM

Hopefully we can get back to the topic of THIS THREAD soon ... but for humor ...
The cable system I watched in the early eighties also had what today would be considered out of market stations on them. Applying today's terms to yesterday's practices may be misleading. One would need to find when Congress legally defined distants before assuming the stations were distants.

They were just stations ... received on the local CATV master antenna and with ONE exception the same selection that I could have received at home with the proper antenna. Pre-CATV many homes in the neighborhood had their own 30ft towers with an antenna. A rotor would have been needed to get all the channels.

There was only one station on the system that I believe was not receivable via a high end antenna. It was brought in by microwave from an antenna 12 miles away. OTA reception on a tall tower in that town. When the "distant" station was off the air one would occasionally see a station in Maine 800 miles away.

Perhaps you should ask in a cable forum? We focus on satellite around here.

For satellite there was no law and the companies did as they pleased until the networks and stations objected and took them to court to try to stop them. The outcome was Congress passing the original SHVA law providing statutory licenses and structure for carrying local broadcast stations using those licenses.

I suspect cable just did as they pleased until objections were raised and "significantly viewed" local stations were required in 70's and SYNDEX was required in the 90's (IIRC).

There are some crossovers in the law (the use of cable's Significantly Viewed list for satellite, for example) but most of the laws are separate and not quite equal between cable and satellite.

The stations I am referring to were transmitted by microwave over hundreds of miles. There was a company in Monterey that operated a microwave system that was retransmitting stations from LA and SF, two cities about 400 miles apart. The stations were being supplied to smaller cities up and down the state of California. I am also aware of California stations being received in Oregon, Utah, and Arizona. These stations were not on the "significantly viewed" list for the communities where they were being received, and they would for the most part not be receivable on any 30-foot antenna on top of a mountain.

I am aware that cable and satellite are governed by different laws. However, these stations would be called "distants" today. Whether they were legally considered "distants," or anything else, in the past, I don't know.

Of course, satellite was generally doing what it wanted with distant stations until the first SHVA law was passed. Whether one wants to call it a permissive or a restrictive law is not really significant. The law does what it does. I'll ask again, since you didn't answer yet: Does any court opinion dealing with SHVA, or any of its successors, describe the law by using the term "permissive," or the term "restrictive?" Or is this just a distinction that you have decided to apply to the law? If it is your description, that is fine, but don't expect that others will automatically recognize your characterization or necessarily agree with it. If satellite was doing as it pleased, as you describe above, until Congress passed SHVA, then one could seem to describe the law as either restrictive or permissive, depending on one's point of view.

Anyway, your opinion doesn't matter. My opinion doesn't matter. The only opinion that matters is that of the court. The court is the institution that will interpret and apply the law when a dispute arises. I don't see the court as using the term "permissive" or "restrictive." I think we should avoid characterizations that spin the law one way or another and don't really add anything to the discussion.

Greg Bimson

07-20-10, 07:13 AM

Basically, Ergen said viewers wanted to watch news from other stations all across the nation. The NAB representative said that is already possible. Ergen said that it is too cumbersome to be switching stations on and off.But Ergen did not say it wasn't possible. He was simply posturing to get a handout.Can you cite to me one case where a court said that STELA or the predecessors are "permissive," rather than "restrictive"? I would like to read that opinion, if it exists.Sure. From the winning team, the response of the Department of Justice to the writ of certiorari:Rather than restricting speech, the SHVIA license allows satellite carriers to use the property of others without regard to background copyright restrictions. If petitioners do not wish to make use of the statutory license in any market because they are dissatisfied with the terms of that license, they remain free to negotiate the carriage of individual broadcast stations and to carry other programming as well, just as before passage of the SHVIA.This is for the response to the writ of certiorari. (http://www.justice.gov/osg/briefs/2001/0responses/2001-1332.resp.html)

However, I think you might want this, as I recall once the opinion of the SHVIA was given by the court of appeals, anyone else that could hear the appeal denied it. This is the decision from the Court of Appeals. (http://ftp.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/275/275.F3d.337.01-1271.01-1818.01-1272.01-1151.html)In other words, the voluntary decision to carry one local station in a market under the statutory copyright license will trigger an obligation to carry all the requesting stations in that market."...voluntary decision..." triggers "an obligation". Permissive. If you wish to use the license, then follow the terms given.

Anyone reading either the response to the writ of certiorari or the actual decision from the Court of Appeals will note that Congress would not pass a law that would destroy the stations' number one means of revenue, and certainly would not create a law that would invalidate exclusive contracts.

James Long

07-20-10, 09:30 AM

Anyway, your opinion doesn't matter.I disagree.My opinion doesn't matter.I agree. :D

The only opinion that matters is that of the court. The court is the institution that will interpret and apply the law when a dispute arises. I don't see the court as using the term "permissive" or "restrictive." I think we should avoid characterizations that spin the law one way or another and don't really add anything to the discussion.This isn't a new law. The provisions in the law that you are most against are at least 20 years old and have only been strengthened in revisions. If there was a legal problem with the law that a court might "fix" it would have been done years ago. It is a sound law.

You seem to have instant access to court documents ... how about you use some of your time looking into the issues you have questions about? (Especially the cable carriage issues from 30-50 years ago that have no place in a DBS satellite forum). You can write a nice blog about it for people who care about cable. Or help flesh out your claims by finding every challenge to SHVA and it's revisions. You tell us if it has ever been challenged.

The only "challenge" I know of was the vs DISH lawsuit in Florida. DISH kept fighting and failed to properly follow the statutory license that should have settled that case - and lost. I am unaware of any other case where SHVA was challenged but if you have the resources - perhaps you can find one.

Greg Bimson

07-20-10, 10:34 AM

How am I incorrect? Wouldn't negotiating around the statutory license be one of the limited exceptions?How would negotiating without using the statutory license be a "limited exception"? Either one can use the license, or not. The satellite carriers do not have to use the license at all. However, using the license absolutely destroys the bottleneck of having a station negotiate with all of its programmers for copyright license rebroadcasting rights. So let's put this back into perspective:I thought that this topic dealt with our opinions as to whether broadcast networks are needed, not a debate over what the law allows or does not allow.Fine.

The copyright exemption tied to 17 USC 122 is not mandatory. There is no law FORCING the satellite companies to provide local channels. However, both DirecTV and Dish Network are using the license. Both DirecTV and Dish Network are rebroadcasting the affiliates of local networks, and have applauded the legislation which helps them accomplish that task.

It seems to me therefore that broadcast networks are needed, as they still provide the most-watched programming in the country, and Dish Network and DirecTV are happy to use the handout given by the government to rebroadcast those local channels which happen to include broadcast networks. Heck, Dish Network is taking the FCC to court because they would rather be able to provide more of the broadcast networks to other markets in HD than to supplement their current markets with their non-commercial HD broadcasts.

The argument here has been stating the network/affiliate model is outdated. Once again, I ask that a scenario be presented to entice the networks to abandon their network/affiliate distribution system, one that has been intact for decades because the economics of the network/affilate distribution system work as-is.

runner861

07-20-10, 10:35 AM

Or help flesh out your claims by finding every challenge to SHVA and it's revisions.

But first you learn the difference between "its" and "it's."

James Long

07-20-10, 11:08 AM

But first you learn the difference between "its" and "it's."Another grammar flame. I guess that means you agree with everything else that I have said and concede that Greg and I are right.

No more off topic posts please. I've indulged this thread enough.

DBSTalk is a satellite forum, not a cable forum. This thread is about the importance (or lack thereof) of broadcast affiliate networks - being a satellite forum take that "as applied to satellite re-broadcasting". If there is no more discussion of Bigg's topic there is no need for this thread.

Bigg

07-20-10, 05:41 PM

While there are good arguments on both sides of this issue, the one thing that is broken is the antiquated DMA system used to determine "markets".

Yes, and allowing the cable and satellite companies to determine where the market lines are would eliminate this problem, as they would cobble together at least one full set of locals for that market.

Those that want to break the system are just interfering with free enterprise. There isn't a compelling reason for the government to override the affiliation contracts of the networks/affiliates. There is no constitutional right to view the product being offered.

No, you're wrong. Right now, the government, by using the DMA system, is propping up a series of partial monopolies that circumvent free market capitalism. Letting local channels compete with each other for viewers is true capitalism, and is a rather pure form of competition, since you just click a button, and you are watching the other channel.

Leveling the rules between cable and satellite so satellite at least carry the same channels that cable carries is important.

That would be a baby step in the right direction, but it still wouldn't create competition and consolidation among TV stations.

The comparison is not on point. DirectTV is not a free service, so taking it and retransmitting it without permission would be video piracy. OTA is free, or at least it used to be. The local stations and the networks are doing their best to say that it is free, but at the same time to make sure that it really is not free.

Thank god someone has a brain. :rolleyes:

Yeah, it makes no sense that their signal is available freely over the air, yet cable and satellite has to pay in order to give that station more viewers, which the station uses to generate advertising revenue. :confused:

Why does a satellite or cable company need to retransmit a "free" product? Could it be that without the "free" product people won't subscribe? All one needs to do is point to the passage of the SHVIA back in 1999, when DBS satellite numbers went from less than 8 million subscribers without local channels to now more than 30 million in 2010 with local channels.

Surely locals had something to do with the uptake in satellite, since that was before the days of OTA HD, and even today people are lazy. However, there are three other big drivers. The first was digital, while the cable companies had fuzzy analog, the second was the price, as the cable companies drove the price up and up, and the third was HD, where satellite is still way ahead of many cable systems in HD channel selection.

If it were not profitable they wouldn't do it, but delivering "free TV" via satellite or cable isn't free.

Yeah, it costs DISH money, but the affiliate shouldn't be getting money for a signal that you could get for free OTA.

Their affiliation agreement is not the same as the one that network television stations have agreed to. Nor regional sports networks.

The newspaper analogy is a good one. There is nothing stopping anyone from selling their paper anywhere, and there used to be multiple papers in each city.

Also, you can pay extra and get the RSN's, although then you'd have to pay again to get the actual games.

What about people who ONLY have OTA?

If the markets were opened up, let the free market decide. In some cases, they would have to get a dish or cable. In other cases, a distant affiliate would keep the transmitters running with a distant feed via microwave. In some cases, the local affiliate will stay around. Let the market decide.

Economically, it is far from outdated, as there has been no groundswell from the existing networks to abandon the network/affilate model.

Economically, it is totally outdated, since relatively few people receive their TV OTA anymore, and those who do aren't attractive to advertisers, because they are either cheap or poor. Neither audience is a very good consumer. It would be far more efficient and much cheaper to distribute programming nationwide to pay-tv operators via satellite.

Say an Indianapolis and Fort Wayne newspaper (cities about 100 miles apart) made a non-compete agreement where in order to sell Fort Wayne newspapers the Indianapolis paper would feed them statewide stories via a wire service and not sell their Indianapolis papers in Fort Wayne.

That's a cartel. Cartels are illegal under U.S. Federal Law, by the Sherman Antitrust Act.

Incorrect.

It prevents using the statutory license to distribute an OTA signal outside of it's own market unless the circumstances are met.
The law does not prevent networks and stations from negotiating carriage outside of the statutory licensing structure.

Then why can U-Verse carry channels from two states away, while DISH can only carry channels from in-DMA?

The NAB representative said that was already possible if the station negotiated a separate agreement involving programming that no other station had exclusive rights to, like local news.

But then, how does SV work? Even on DirecTV, my area can get duplicates of three of the big four. They are both showing prime-time programming.

STELA and the predecessors are PERMISSIVE laws, they provide a statutory license and allow carriage within that license, not restrictive laws that ban carriage.

Then why are there markets without a full set of locals, and why isn't DISH doing SV's like cable and DirecTV?

The current STELA law, as well as the previous SHVIA, permitted the distribution of OTA signals outside of their own market using a statutory license under very limited circumstances.

What about SV? Also, I am arguing that the carriers should be able to carry any channel from CONUS, HI, or AK anywhere in CONUS, HI, or AK, by law. This would break the cartel-like structure of the current network system, and allow providers to respond to their customers.

Also, does the current law require gaps to be filled in with DNS, or can they be filled with the next market over?

It seems to me therefore that broadcast networks are needed, as they still provide the most-watched programming in the country, and Dish Network and DirecTV are happy to use the handout given by the government to rebroadcast those local channels which happen to include broadcast networks.

I bet if they were allowed to, in an actual free market, both of them would light up NYC, Chicago, and LA locals to the whole country, and then skip town on some small market locals to free up TP space. That would get everyone in the US access to HD locals.

If there is no more discussion of Bigg's topic there is no need for this thread.

Let them go at it. It's an interesting topic. Thanks for splitting this off, so it didn't go out of control on the PBS thread.

runner861

07-20-10, 06:40 PM

Yes, and allowing the cable and satellite companies to determine where the market lines are would eliminate this problem, as they would cobble together at least one full set of locals for that market.

No, you're wrong. Right now, the government, by using the DMA system, is propping up a series of partial monopolies that circumvent free market capitalism. Letting local channels compete with each other for viewers is true capitalism, and is a rather pure form of competition, since you just click a button, and you are watching the other channel.

That would be a baby step in the right direction, but it still wouldn't create competition and consolidation among TV stations.

Thank god someone has a brain. :rolleyes:

Yeah, it makes no sense that their signal is available freely over the air, yet cable and satellite has to pay in order to give that station more viewers, which the station uses to generate advertising revenue. :confused:

Surely locals had something to do with the uptake in satellite, since that was before the days of OTA HD, and even today people are lazy. However, there are three other big drivers. The first was digital, while the cable companies had fuzzy analog, the second was the price, as the cable companies drove the price up and up, and the third was HD, where satellite is still way ahead of many cable systems in HD channel selection.

Yeah, it costs DISH money, but the affiliate shouldn't be getting money for a signal that you could get for free OTA.

The newspaper analogy is a good one. There is nothing stopping anyone from selling their paper anywhere, and there used to be multiple papers in each city.

Also, you can pay extra and get the RSN's, although then you'd have to pay again to get the actual games.

If the markets were opened up, let the free market decide. In some cases, they would have to get a dish or cable. In other cases, a distant affiliate would keep the transmitters running with a distant feed via microwave. In some cases, the local affiliate will stay around. Let the market decide.

Economically, it is totally outdated, since relatively few people receive their TV OTA anymore, and those who do aren't attractive to advertisers, because they are either cheap or poor. Neither audience is a very good consumer. It would be far more efficient and much cheaper to distribute programming nationwide to pay-tv operators via satellite.

That's a cartel. Cartels are illegal under U.S. Federal Law, by the Sherman Antitrust Act.

Then why can U-Verse carry channels from two states away, while DISH can only carry channels from in-DMA?

But then, how does SV work? Even on DirecTV, my area can get duplicates of three of the big four. They are both showing prime-time programming.

Then why are there markets without a full set of locals, and why isn't DISH doing SV's like cable and DirecTV?

What about SV? Also, I am arguing that the carriers should be able to carry any channel from CONUS, HI, or AK anywhere in CONUS, HI, or AK, by law. This would break the cartel-like structure of the current network system, and allow providers to respond to their customers.

Also, does the current law require gaps to be filled in with DNS, or can they be filled with the next market over?

I bet if they were allowed to, in an actual free market, both of them would light up NYC, Chicago, and LA locals to the whole country, and then skip town on some small market locals to free up TP space. That would get everyone in the US access to HD locals.

Let them go at it. It's an interesting topic. Thanks for splitting this off, so it didn't go out of control on the PBS thread.

Thank you, Bigg. I agree with everything you have said. Very intelligent and well stated. I am especially interested in cartels and the Sherman Antitrust Act. That may really get to the heart of the matter here.

James Long

07-20-10, 07:07 PM

The newspaper analogy is a good one. There is nothing stopping anyone from selling their paper anywhere, and there used to be multiple papers in each city.That is where the newspaper analogy fails. It is not the same type of affiliation agreement as network affiliates have.

Network stations have purchased and expect to have exclusive first run rights to network programming in their market. That affiliation agreement is what is being protected. Newspapers don't have the same agreement.

Also, you can pay extra and get the RSN's, although then you'd have to pay again to get the actual games.You can get the non-protected content of the RSNs ... but for any professional sports the league owns the rights and the only way to purchase those rights outside of where the RSN has purchased the rights you have to go through the league.

It's part of the deal the leagues have worked out with the RSNs ... the RSNs air the games locally to a defined audience and are not permitted to deliver those games outside of the defined audience. Programming is deleted on those RSNs for viewers outside of their own markets.

It is also good example of "not receiving the affiliate" not changing the rights. Say a RSN has the rights to a game in their market but the league has sold the rights to viewing in the rest of the US to ESPN. Within that defined market that RSN becomes the only source of the game and ESPN's feed is blacked out. Now add to the mix the unavailability of the RSN on a particular carrier - such as YES not being on DISH Network. This does not change the rights. DISH customers don't get the ESPN feed simply because the RSN isn't available. The affiliate continues to hold the rights and viewing via another affiliate is denied.

Let the market decide.The market has decided. Networks distributed via affiliates. Problem solved. :)

Greg Bimson

07-21-10, 08:27 AM

A lot of points, but some need to be countered:No, you're wrong. Right now, the government, by using the DMA system, is propping up a series of partial monopolies that circumvent free market capitalism. Letting local channels compete with each other for viewers is true capitalism, and is a rather pure form of competition, since you just click a button, and you are watching the other channel.I don't understand. Do you have only one local channel in Hartford-New Haven? If you have more than one, there is no "partial monopoly" and there certainly is a free market. If you don't like what is on your local ABC you are free to switch to your local FOX, CW, CBS or NBC.

By tying the license in 17 USC 122 to the DMA system, it allows for in-market re-delivery of the stations. This allows for "localism" to thrive, which is Congress' and the FCC's mandate. It stops cablers and DBS companies from cherry-picking.Economically, it is totally outdated, since relatively few people receive their TV OTA anymore, and those who do aren't attractive to advertisers, because they are either cheap or poor. Neither audience is a very good consumer. It would be far more efficient and much cheaper to distribute programming nationwide to pay-tv operators via satellite.Really? And what are FOX and CBS to do with their multi-billion dollar investement in affiliates they own, which generate LARGE sums of money to their bottom line?

Then there is this little business called the NFL. FOX and CBS pay large sums of money to broadcast regional games. I'm certain that the NFL doesn't want their product being distributed nationally unless they are in control of it, which is why they have Sunday Ticket.

NBC spends about $600 million annually to broadcast one Sunday night NFL game. ESPN spends about $1.1 billion annually to broadcast one Monday night NFL game. Remove copyright protections, and I can guarantee you it is the end of the NFL on network TV. The NFL would get so much more money going to basic cable, and destroying the network/affiliate model would certainly make everyone's bills go up, simply because of the competition among basic cable channels for the NFL's network package.It seems to me therefore that broadcast networks are needed, as they still provide the most-watched programming in the country, and Dish Network and DirecTV are happy to use the handout given by the government to rebroadcast those local channels which happen to include broadcast networks.I bet if they were allowed to, in an actual free market, both of them would light up NYC, Chicago, and LA locals to the whole country, and then skip town on some small market locals to free up TP space. That would get everyone in the US access to HD locals.They are allowed to. I'll even give you a hint:

The big four networks each own their affiliates in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. So all DirecTV and Dish Network would need to do is contact the station groups and simply have them clear their copyrighted programming nationwide and then come to a nationwide carriage agreement. There is no law stopping that. But something else is stopping it. And surprisingly enough, it is the free market.

greatwhitenorth

07-21-10, 08:40 AM

I bet if they were allowed to, in an actual free market, both of them would light up NYC, Chicago, and LA locals to the whole country, and then skip town on some small market locals to free up TP space. That would get everyone in the US access to HD locals.

Sure, that would be great for NYC, Chicago, and LA. But the rest of us who live outside those cities rely on our locals for more than just "The Bachelorette". If there is a severe weather warning, or other breaking immediate local news, I doubt any National Feed would break into nationally distributed programming for a tornado warning in, say, Little Rock AR. These EBS broadcasts and other local advisories are part of the station's requirement for Public Service. Yes, mathematically you're correct, but you need to see the big picture, and look how people would be affected by the change. Local TV 24-7 is part of the landscape for several reasons, and I don't see why that should change just so we can have more niche HD channels. Just my 2 cents.

Greg Bimson

07-21-10, 08:43 AM

Then why can U-Verse carry channels from two states away, while DISH can only carry channels from in-DMA?Because the rules on cable are a bit different than the rules regarding satellite.But then, how does SV work? Even on DirecTV, my area can get duplicates of three of the big four. They are both showing prime-time programming.It's a long story, but there is a list of stations for each county (and in some instances, community) that measures the stations which OTA viewers are watching, and that is the SV list. Then satellite companies (I believe cablers as well) must contract for that programming in the SV areas. You're lucky; you are one of a few people that can receive network channels from two markets. I'm 22 miles from Baltimore and DC, and can pickup DC with an antenna or cable, but not with DirecTV.Then why are there markets without a full set of locals, and why isn't DISH doing SV's like cable and DirecTV?Dish Network was doing SV. Seems they didn't like the terms of the distant network license back in 1998, so the networks and their affiliate boards sued. In 2004, the SHVERA allowed for significantly-viewed stations to be rebroadcast on satellite using the distant network license. In 2006, Dish Network was barred by the court from using that license, for egregiously failing to comply with the terms of use of that license.

Congress and the President have given Dish Network the ability to use the distant license in the 2010 STELA legislation. There is a path Dish Network must follow to get back to retransmitting SV stations.

James Long

07-21-10, 09:04 AM

Then satellite companies (I believe cablers as well) must contract for that programming in the SV areas.Cable companies MUST consider those SV channels as locals within the quota of channels required. (Cable companies have a quota for local stations based on the total number of channels on their system. Once they reach that quota they don't have to add any more locals. Once they run out of local channels to add they don't have to add any more. Being on the SV list makes the channel a required add - or at least an attempted add due to retrans consent - as long as the quota has not been met. Most cable systems are big enough that their quota is hard to meet.)

Satellite companies are not required to carry SV stations. They are entirely optional. (Satellite companies have a "carry one carry all" rule for locals instead of a quota. Regardless of the size of the system if they provide any locals in a market using the statutory license they would have to provide all locals in that market - within the retrans consent/must carry restrictions.)

There is a path Dish Network must follow to get back to retransmitting SV stations.The path is very simple ... light them up. STELA moved Significantly Viewed stations from the statutory license for distants to the statutory license for locals. Since the 2006 injunction against DISH only blocks use of the distants statutory license DISH can now (immediately) add SVs under the locals statutory license.

As a side note: The 2006 injunction only prevents DISH from using the statutory license to carry distants. Networks and stations were and are still free to negotiate carriage without using the statutory license.

runner861

07-21-10, 11:31 AM

However, I believe that the satellite carrier must first negotiate retransmission consent with the SV station before adding the SV station. In addition, if a local station does not desire a SV station to be carried, the local may negotiate during its next found of negotiations to have the SV station removed. This would be likely to occur when a local and a SV are affiliates of the same network, for example.

James Long

07-21-10, 02:58 PM

However, I believe that the satellite carrier must first negotiate retransmission consent with the SV station before adding the SV station.Correct under 47 USC § 335(b)(1)(A). "No cable system or other multichannel video programming distributor shall retransmit the signal of a broadcasting station, or any part thereof, except— (A) with the express authority of the originating station;"

The other parts of (b)(1) do not apply as the refer to section 534 for cable and section 338 for local-into-local, not section 340 where permission to carry Significantly Viewed on satellite is conferred. (Section 340(d)(2) specifically states that Section 335(b)(1) rights are not affected.)

In addition, if a local station does not desire a SV station to be carried, the local may negotiate during its next found of negotiations to have the SV station removed. This would be likely to occur when a local and a SV are affiliates of the same network, for example.Stations can ask for anything ... what they get is up for negotiation.

kenglish

08-04-10, 08:56 AM

bidger

08-04-10, 09:35 AM

The same logic that says the networks could do without local affiliates would indicate that WalMart could eliminate their local stores and just go all internet.

They might be able to do it, and it might save money, but it would cut out a lot of their customer base.

Difference is you don't have to go to a brick-and-mortar retailer every time you want to watch broadcast networks.

If I could get all the networks in HD out of NYC (ABC, CBS, CW, FOX, NBC, My9, and PBS) from DirecTV for ~ $12.50/mo., I'd do it. I have an antenna and I'm not terribly impressed by what I see. The local NBC is terrible for Sports.

Paul Secic

08-05-10, 09:24 AM

Difference is you don't have to go to a brick-and-mortar retailer every time you want to watch broadcast networks.

If I could get all the networks in HD out of NYC (ABC, CBS, CW, FOX, NBC, My9, and PBS) from DirecTV for ~ $12.50/mo., I'd do it. I have an antenna and I'm not terribly impressed by what I see. The local NBC is terrible for Sports.

Local newscasts have lousy news. Our ABC station doesn't do sports in the mornings.

runner861

08-05-10, 11:21 AM

Local newscasts have lousy news. Our ABC station doesn't do sports in the mornings.

Those that do sports in the morning are many times just playing a clip recorded the night before.

Beyond all the discussion of markets and laws governing carriage, many people want stations from other parts of the country because they, in a sense, want to feel that they are in that part of the country. They want to watch the news from places they used to live, or places they would like to live, or places they visit. Local news across the country varies in quality, and, even if local coverage is great, if I'm interested in a city 500 or a thousand miles away, I'm not going to like the local coverage where I am.

After watching the news, they'd like to watch the sports events in the distant city, then drift into the network programs. It just makes some people feel more comfortable to watch stations from another area.

Then, of course, there are those who want to receive their programs three hours early. Anyone on the west coast who receives an east coast station will be reluctant to give it up, just because of the convenience of having the option of watching programs three hours early.

I know my statement has nothing to do with the law governing what stations will be carried where. But the desires of viewers is what this discussion really comes down to. Granted, most viewers just want their local stations. But there is a significant minority of viewers who want to watch stations from distant cities.

Greg Bimson

08-15-10, 10:26 AM

I could go into a long diatribe about this, but the short version is...Beyond all the discussion of markets and laws governing carriage, many people want stations from other parts of the country because they, in a sense, want to feel that they are in that part of the country.And that is 100 percent counter to how Congress and the FCC have setup the broadcasting industry. Terrestrial broadcasters must serve their city of license and the general area. So until one can get Congress and the FCC to believe that localism should no longer exist, it is Don Quixote fighting windmills. Contrary to popular belief, it would be a large paradigm shift and an even larger lobbying fight to get St. Louis locals in Tampa.

Herdfan

08-15-10, 12:00 PM

And that is 100 percent counter to how Congress and the FCC have setup the broadcasting industry. Terrestrial broadcasters must serve their city of license and the general area.

But look at the shifts that have been made in spite of this setup. First there was cable and the ability to watch other markets independent stations. As a kid we got WGN, WTBS (and whatever it was before that) and WXIX (Cincinnati) via the local cableco. These channels were local broadcast channels, they just didn't have a network affiliation. How was this different than being able to watch an ABC station from Chicago, Atlanta or Cincinnati? I knew most of the names of carpet companies in Chicago as I watched their local commercials.

Then along came cable channels. We were no longer forced to rely on 3, now 4, main channels for our news or entertainment. Now entire series programming that would have been on the big 4 are now on any number of cable channels.

So there are now 4 channels/networks that we have to watch via the government mandated provider. How much longer are those 4 channels going to survive against the dedicated channels? The old money maker, the local/national news, are losing viewers at alarming rates and they have no answer. The networks have clung to this idea that they are protected and have not changed in the face of the changing broadcasting landscape.

To answer your question, do I think Congress and the FCC will do anything? No. But one day they will wake up and there will be half the broadcast stations that were there a few years ago and they will wonder what happened.

James Long

08-15-10, 06:47 PM

I could go into a long diatribe about this, but the short version is...And that is 100 percent counter to how Congress and the FCC have setup the broadcasting industry. Terrestrial broadcasters must serve their city of license and the general area. So until one can get Congress and the FCC to believe that localism should no longer exist, it is Don Quixote fighting windmills. Contrary to popular belief, it would be a large paradigm shift and an even larger lobbying fight to get St. Louis locals in Tampa.The FCC has their goals for "localism" but they are not the ones who divided the country into markets for the purpose of distributing broadcast network programming. The FCC wants OTA broadcasters to provide local content - the FCC isn't requiring the big networks to use local OTA feeds - that is their choice.

It is the networks that worked out the affiliate model. This was not and is not imposed by the government. The government supports the model and protects networks and local broadcasters from having their signals used outside of the affiliate model they have chosen to participate in but there is no law or government policy that would prevent a network from bypassing their affiliates via cable or satellite.

As a kid we got WGN, WTBS (and whatever it was before that) and WXIX (Cincinnati) via the local cableco. These channels were local broadcast channels, they just didn't have a network affiliation. How was this different than being able to watch an ABC station from Chicago, Atlanta or Cincinnati?Those local broadcast stations didn't sign a market exclusive affiliation deal with the ABC network. The ABC affiliates and O&Os have signed a market exclusive deal. As good as WLS Chicago is, they have a private contract that agrees not to provide ABC programming to people in Atlanta or Cincinnati.

So there are now 4 channels/networks that we have to watch via the government mandated provider. How much longer are those 4 channels going to survive against the dedicated channels?Years. Decades. However long the networks involved wish to survive.

Don't forget that all four major networks have cable channels. All four could pull all of their "good" programming off of OTA networks and place them on any of their cable networks. They have not done so because the network affiliate model still works.

To answer your question, do I think Congress and the FCC will do anything? No. But one day they will wake up and there will be half the broadcast stations that were there a few years ago and they will wonder what happened.Despite calls for localism the current push from the FCC is to shut down OTA broadcast and sell the bandwidth to wireless providers. Having half the broadcast stations would just mean more bandwidth to sell. :(

Greg Bimson

08-16-10, 07:55 AM

The old money maker, the local/national news, are losing viewers at alarming rates and they have no answer. The networks have clung to this idea that they are protected and have not changed in the face of the changing broadcasting landscape.But it is the same with any business: a cycle. The all-powerful networks of 20 years ago are not the moneymakers the cable channels are.

And the affiliates still each generally receive more ratings than their cable-distributed counterparts, but that gap has been lessened over the past decade.It is the networks that worked out the affiliate model. This was not and is not imposed by the government. The government supports the model and protects networks and local broadcasters from having their signals used outside of the affiliate model they have chosen to participate in but there is no law or government policy that would prevent a network from bypassing their affiliates via cable or satellite.But notice I didn't mention anything about networks. My issue was with the theory that "people want stations from other parts of the country because they, in a sense, want to feel that they are in that part of the country." That is the opposite of localism. And it only runs on an assumption: a station is transmitting, and therefore, wants to be carried nationally...As a kid we got WGN, WTBS (and whatever it was before that) and WXIX (Cincinnati) via the local cableco. These channels were local broadcast channels, they just didn't have a network affiliation. How was this different than being able to watch an ABC station from Chicago, Atlanta or Cincinnati?Because this is how Ted Turner made his money. He bought the rights to programming for his Channel 17 in Atlanta, then uplinked and sold it for national distribution. Welcome to the birth of superstations!

And notice that none of these were network channels. Their contracts prevented the affiliates to actively resell their programming.Despite calls for localism the current push from the FCC is to shut down OTA broadcast and sell the bandwidth to wireless providers. Having half the broadcast stations would just mean more bandwidth to sell.Sure, but having half the broadcast stations just means a reduction in the amount of frequencies. It no longer means a reduction in the amount of broadcast stations.

James Long

08-16-10, 11:02 AM

My issue was with the theory that "people want stations from other parts of the country because they, in a sense, want to feel that they are in that part of the country." That is the opposite of localism.For the people who honestly want stations from another part of the country for the local content it is still localism - just displaced localism. But for too many the desire for another market isn't a desire for the local content that station carries - it is a desire to circumvent the network's affiliate distribution.

Sure, but having half the broadcast stations just means a reduction in the amount of frequencies. It no longer means a reduction in the amount of broadcast stations.It presents a limit to the number of broadcast stations. At the moment there is room (unassigned) for new full power DTV stations. Markets that have been limited due to a lack of bandwidth first due to the nature of NTSC TV interference avoidance and then by the multiple frequency transitions now could add additional stations --- in full power with multiple subcarriers --- instead of offering less than today's level of service with no room for expansion. A reduction in bandwidth is a reduction in service.

runner861

08-16-10, 02:43 PM

I remember the good old days back in the 1970s and 1980s when cable companies carried local stations and distant stations, both independents and locals. I am not sure what exactly the state of the law was at the time. However, I recall that these stations duplicated each other's programming and the viewer got a choice about what time to watch the programming. Did you want to watch "Dinah" at 3:00 on the local, or would it be easier for you to start watching at 3:30 on the distant? Did you want to watch the national news at 5:30 or at 7:00? Did you want to watch the local news from Salinas, or did you prefer San Luis Obispo or San Francisco or Los Angeles local news? Generally the network prime-time programming was carried simultaneously across the local and distant stations. Sometimes the distant station would be blacked out during prime time, sometimes not.

Gosh, cable was a different world back then. Like I said, I'm not sure of the laws and regulations that applied to cable back then, but I know that the local stations and the small-market stations survived. The sky didn't fall.

In fact, ABC was operating two ABC affiliates in the same market. One was in San Francisco (KGO) and one was in San Jose (KNTV). Then KSBW, the NBC affiliate in Salinas, moved its transmitter north toward San Jose in an effort to pick up Bay Area viewers and compete directly with KRON, the NBC affiliate in the Bay Area. Things were great. Stations were actually competing for viewers, instead of sitting in their protected cocoons like they are now. Those days are gone forever.

Herdfan

08-16-10, 03:49 PM

But for too many the desire for another market isn't a desire for the local content that station carries - it is a desire to circumvent the network's affiliate distribution.

I would not agree that circumventing the network's affiliate agreements is the main desire, but instead an unintended consequence.

In my case, we had a CBS station that drug its feet in transitioning to HD. The ABC and FOX affiliates were also late to the table, but they had a legitimate excuse. (Their 1400' tower crashed to the ground during an ice storm). But the end result was the same for my market: only NBC in HD. So the desire of the HD addicts was to be able to get the NY DNS stations. This was because of the desire for HD, not to circumvent any affiliate agreements.

Another desire would be sports. My local CBS affiliate airs almost nothing but the Bengals, Browns and Steelers. FOX is not much better, but at least Washington plays better teams. I do have an option here with ST, but that is because I made a choice of providers and am willing to pay for it. But otherwise I would be stuck with watching what station decides I want to see.

And there are always stories of affiliates prempting networks shows for local stuff.

All of these are reasons that people might want out-of-market networks. Circumventing agreements is just an unintended consequnce.

runner861

08-16-10, 08:34 PM

Back in the 1960s and 1970s and 1980s, there were microwave systems relaying local stations up and down the great state of California. These microwave systems still exist and are operational today, although there are not as many distant stations on California cable systems. However, there are still a few.

I wonder if the local stations lost viewers or gained viewers because of the distant stations competing head on with the local stations. I think that the local stations probably gained viewers. The presence of distant stations on the cable attracted customers (prior to the days of CNN, ESPN, TBS, and other satellite stations). Cable back then was pretty much locals and distants.

Some customers were relying on rooftop antenna or rabbit ears were not getting good reception, or were missing some stations. When these viewers decided to get cable, attracted by the distant stations, they also got reliable reception of the local stations.

Alas, if only the networks, the locals, the NAB, and Congress could see the truth--allowing distant networks to be freely available on cable and satellite will only strengthen the local stations and increase the number of viewers of network programming.

James Long

08-16-10, 09:15 PM

So the desire of the HD addicts was to be able to get the NY DNS stations.The core desire is network content in higher definition ... not really caring where it came from ... not really wanting NY programming over their local stations. These people would be just as happy if their local station would do the upgrades.

You're right that the circumventing of the affiliate agreements is not the intention of the viewer ... but most don't know about those agreements so they can form no intent. Those that know about the agreements may simply not care. They never signed a limiting affiliation agreement ... to them it is just another roadblock in getting the content they want.

National content that they can't have because of distribution agreements with a local distributor that doesn't fulfill their needs. If they are looking for an out of market sports team they need to sign up for the appropriate out of market sports subscription. Circumventing distribution contracts is not the answer.

Greg Bimson

08-17-10, 06:58 PM

Gosh, cable was a different world back then. Like I said, I'm not sure of the laws and regulations that applied to cable back then, but I know that the local stations and the small-market stations survived. The sky didn't fall.Sure, but it is quite like the point I made earlier: times change, businesses evolve. And now that OTA Networks are not as valued as many of the higher-priced cable channels, it has played out that the OTA Networks are in a fight for their lives.Alas, if only the networks, the locals, the NAB, and Congress could see the truth--allowing distant networks to be freely available on cable and satellite will only strengthen the local stations and increase the number of viewers of network programming.It cannot possibly strengthen local stations. It may make many local channels go bankrupt. So it would be like strengthening GM by dumping 1100 dealerships.

runner861

08-17-10, 08:33 PM

Sure, but it is quite like the point I made earlier: times change, businesses evolve. And now that OTA Networks are not as valued as many of the higher-priced cable channels, it has played out that the OTA Networks are in a fight for their lives.It cannot possibly strengthen local stations. It may make many local channels go bankrupt. So it would be like strengthening GM by dumping 1100 dealerships.

You may be right. That is the argument that the NAB has gotten Congress to follow.

However, my argument is two-fold: First, it is not a huge shift to allow distant network and independent stations to be imported into other markets. It was like that until a relatively few years ago. The NAB decided to get Congress to cut it off. But I grew up on cable, and distant stations were what made it really appealing.

Second, the availabilty of distant network and independent stations on cable and satellite will attract additional subscribers. These subscribers will occasionally watch the distant stations. However, time and time again, viewers will generally choose the local stations. This will increase local station viewership. For the occasional viewer who finds the timing on the distant network station more appealing, that increases the exposure of the network programming to a viewer who would otherwise probably not watch it.

There is at least a credible argument that, as long as local stations are carried, the local stations can benefit by the addition of distant stations. If it worked in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, and even the earlier 1990s, I don't see why it can't work today.

James Long

08-17-10, 10:40 PM

Second, the availabilty of distant network and independent stations on cable and satellite will attract additional subscribers. These subscribers will occasionally watch the distant stations. However, time and time again, viewers will generally choose the local stations. This will increase local station viewership. For the occasional viewer who finds the timing on the distant network station more appealing, that increases the exposure of the network programming to a viewer who would otherwise probably not watch it.They will? Is there a source for this or is this speculation that the availability of distants generates more local viewership?

Greg Bimson

08-18-10, 06:19 AM

Second, the availabilty of distant network and independent stations on cable and satellite will attract additional subscribers.The market for pay-TV is at 85 percent of the households in the United States. How many more people will signup to cable or satellite because of the availability of distant stations? I'd be surprised if it is more than 1 percent, as the 85 percent penetration rate has been pretty constant for the past 10+ years.These subscribers will occasionally watch the distant stations. However, time and time again, viewers will generally choose the local stations. This will increase local station viewership.Because maybe an increase of ONE percent of the nation's households would now have increased viewership, but now a choice has been given to the entire subscriber base to watch any and every distant station?

I'm sorry. Perhaps you realize that KGO actually paid KNTV to remove their ABC affiliation. Perhaps NBC, which wanted to purchase its own affiliate and run it in the San Francisco market, was rebuffed in auction by Young Broadcasting, and then NBC simply destroyed KRON and Young Broadcasting. Where NBC offered almost $800 million for that station back in the early 2000's, the station is now worth about $25-50 million. The equipment is still the same, which means the only reason that station was worth so much more was its NBC affiliation and its estimated viewership.There is at least a credible argument that, as long as local stations are carried, the local stations can benefit by the addition of distant stations. If it worked in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, and even the earlier 1990s, I don't see why it can't work today.It worked, but there was always the guise of localism. And now more than ever, the issue is still about those pesky network-affiliate contracts.

And pay attention to this one: It is your belief that cable or satellite will get numerous new subscribers if distant stations are allowed. Why? It is obvious to me that you believe cable and satellite have value if it can offer many distant stations. Which means by inference you believe the distant stations have value based on the programming they provide. Couple that with your belief that there shouldn't be any retransmission fees, and the reality is you want the deck stacked in favor of satellite and cable, while those wonderful stations you want on satellite and cable receive nothing. Sounds like all the benefits go to cable and satellite, carrying but not paying for programming.

That is not evolution but regression to the same model that started the rise of cable TV, which was rejected by most parties in 1992. It cannot go back to the way it once was; Pandora's box has been open way too long and is now impossible to close, especially when the science of viewership has increased two-fold and network viewership has decreased two-fold. The local broadcasters are fighting for every advantage they can get.

runner861

08-18-10, 06:59 AM

They will? Is there a source for this or is this speculation that the availability of distants generates more local viewership?

It is my theory. Perhaps it should be tried in ten selected markets for three years and we can see what happens.

runner861

08-18-10, 07:19 AM

The market for pay-TV is at 85 percent of the households in the United States. How many more people will signup to cable or satellite because of the availability of distant stations? I'd be surprised if it is more than 1 percent, as the 85 percent penetration rate has been pretty constant for the past 10+ years.Because maybe an increase of ONE percent of the nation's households would now have increased viewership, but now a choice has been given to the entire subscriber base to watch any and every distant station?

I'm sorry. Perhaps you realize that KGO actually paid KNTV to remove their ABC affiliation. Perhaps NBC, which wanted to purchase its own affiliate and run it in the San Francisco market, was rebuffed in auction by Young Broadcasting, and then NBC simply destroyed KRON and Young Broadcasting. Where NBC offered almost $800 million for that station back in the early 2000's, the station is now worth about $25-50 million. The equipment is still the same, which means the only reason that station was worth so much more was its NBC affiliation and its estimated viewership.It worked, but there was always the guise of localism. And now more than ever, the issue is still about those pesky network-affiliate contracts.

And pay attention to this one: It is your belief that cable or satellite will get numerous new subscribers if distant stations are allowed. Why? It is obvious to me that you believe cable and satellite have value if it can offer many distant stations. Which means by inference you believe the distant stations have value based on the programming they provide. Couple that with your belief that there shouldn't be any retransmission fees, and the reality is you want the deck stacked in favor of satellite and cable, while those wonderful stations you want on satellite and cable receive nothing. Sounds like all the benefits go to cable and satellite, carrying but not paying for programming.

That is not evolution but regression to the same model that started the rise of cable TV, which was rejected by most parties in 1992. It cannot go back to the way it once was; Pandora's box has been open way too long and is now impossible to close, especially when the science of viewership has increased two-fold and network viewership has decreased two-fold. The local broadcasters are fighting for every advantage they can get.

As far as ending retransmission fees, I have always been opposed to retransmission fees. The tv stations should receive their revenue from selling commercial time and attracting viewers, not by taking money out of the pockets of cable and satellite subscribers. Besides, the cable/satellite company is helping the station by securing additional viewers for the station--viewers that the station might otherwise be unable to reach. So I think that the cable/satellite company is helping the station as much as or possibly more than the station is helping the cable/satellite company.

I had cable for decades, starting in the 1960s, when it was known for supplying many distant stations, and I liked that. So that is what I am accustomed to. It has been difficult to see the NAB and some government bureaucrats and politicians take that away. I am by no means anti-government, and I don't want to create that impression. I do believe that an increase in availabilty of distant stations will lead to an increase in subscribers. One percent is your figure. I say we won't know until we try it.

As far as KGO, or ABC, paying KNTV to drop its ABC affiliation, I am aware of that. I am also aware that from 1960 until 2000, some 40 years, ABC was of the opposite opinion and thought that it was a good idea to have two ABC stations in the same market. I am not sure of their reasoning, but it may have been to saturate the market with ABC programming and use KNTV to reach viewers to the south and KGO to reach viewers to the north. But the fact is, viewers in and around the Bay Area had two local ABC stations on their dial. That must have given ABC at least a slight viewership advantage in that market.

It is also a little-known fact that in the early 1980s, KSBW, the NBC affiliate in Salinas, moved its transmitter from Fremont Peak in Salinas up to the Santa Cruz mountains, to the north. This was an effort to penetrate its signal into the Bay Area and compete directly with KRON, the San Francisco NBC affiliate at the time. There were areas in San Francisco where KSBW's signal was more receivable than KRON's after KSBW moved its transmitter.

At the time KNTV went to NBC, KSBW moved its transmitter back to Fremont Peak in Salinas. I'm not sure why KSBW did that--perhaps NBC exerted pressure on the station.

As far as KRON losing value, I am aware of that. However, anyone who knows stations in that market knows that KRON was always a poorly-managed station. Its loss in value may be partially attributable to its severing of the affiliation with NBC. It is also attributable to its poor coverage of local events, and its recycling of lousy syndicated programs, and its dismissal of many of its on-air personalities. Compared to KPIX, KGO, and KTVU, KRON was never much of a player anyway. If KRON had a good local news operation, if it heavily covered Sacramento and San Francisco politics, if it picked up local sports (A's, Giants, 49ers, Warriors), its value would shoot upward very fast. KRON has never been the type of station to actually get out there and do something.

The value I see in distant stations is a few things:

1) Local news coverage. If a viewer wants to see the news from a distant city, that is what he/she wants to see, and there is no getting around that. In California, Steve Cooley is the DA in Los Angeles and he is running for attorney general. The best news coverage of him is on the Los Angeles stations. Kamala Harris is the DA in San Francisco and she is running for attorney general. The best news coverage of her in on the San Francisco stations. Some stations do not have Sacramento bureaus to cover news from the California state capital. Some viewers prefer to watch a station that does have such a bureau.

2) Network programming. If a local station preempts a network program, or shows it at an inconvenient time, the viewer has another option on a distant network.

3) Occasional outages. This is not as much of an issue now as it was a few decades ago. However, if a viewer is watching a network station and the station suffers an outage, just flip to the distant station and continue watching.