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How much programming equals a channel?

1145 Views 14 Replies 9 Participants Last post by  Ken S, 
K
This is tongue-in-cheek...

The other day as I turned on my TV it was set to Discovery and an episode of "How It's Made" was on. I was pretty sure it was a rerun as they were showing how they build arks and pyramids. :)

I was on the Discovery website today and started counting how many series they actually do and how many times some shows are broadcast.

For instance...on Discovery Channel: Deadliest Catch episodes will be shown around 70 times in the next month. Cash Cab will clock in about a 125 times...and "How It's Made" will be shown over 200 times.

Just in case you were concerned you might miss that "How It's Made" episode you have been hankering for it will also be shown another 130 times on Discovery's Science Channel over the next 30 days.

Mike Rowe, who I really hope gets paid residuals, also will grace our screens with about 40 hours of Dirty Jobs and Bear Grylls will describe just how good live bugs and urine tastes about 30 times this coming month.

It's pretty obvious that they don't have enough programming to support all of their channels...this is causing all sorts of problems.

BTW, while I'm using Discovery as my example I'm not just accusing them of these horrible injustices...HBO, Showtime, Starz, ESPN, Fox Sports, and others are also guilty.

The companies have caused us all great harm and must be stopped! They have caused damages to our economy and our minds...such as.

1. The distributors (DirecTV, Dish, Cable, etc) have to dedicate a lot of bandwidth to broadcast all of these channels when their content could easily be shown on one or two channels. In the case of the satellite companies this has caused them to have to launch additional rockets which causes pollution both in our atmosphere and in space.

2. Our remote controls are wearing out much faster as we have to skip back and forth through all these channels. This is causing landfills to quickly be filled with used alkaline batteries and inoperative control.

3. Our on-screen guides now take longer than most shows to go through. So by the time you find a show you want...it is probably over.

and worst of all because these shows are ALWAYS on...

We now all have seen in way more detail than necessary...what it looks like when Mike Rowe, Bear Grylls, Les Stroud, several of the crew members and all of camera people on the boats of the Alaskan crab fleet vomit.

We now all know that goat testicle, slug, and water from elephant dung is not really delicious.

We now all know that the entire energy drink and cigarette industry would fail if not for the Alaskan crab fleet (okay, I guess the energy drink guys would survive based on the computer gaming market).

We now all know every line of dialog in every Bruce Willis movie ever made.

We now all know how one company makes and packages 400,000 snack cakes an hour and another can make 400,000 rolls of toilet paper in that same hour.

We now all know that three-of-a-kind beats two pair and that to be a good poker player you have to wear your sunglasses upside down.

and our friends in Britain are no better...as they we all know the top speed of a Bugati Veyron and the name and address of every restaurant in Europe that has moldy food in its' fridges.

Oh, and we know that Dog's wife Beth easily meets the federal standards for front bumpers and 30mph head-on collisions.

So, I'm going to propose world-wide regulations on channel creation...

How about this...in order to be a channel you must:

1. Broadcast at least three hours of new, original, programming per day. This may include news, sporting events, movies, etc.
2. Never show the same episode of any show more than twice per week.
3. Never show the same movie more than once per week.
4. Provide a list of all items to be ingested/bitten during any show beforehand.
5. After an episode has been shown 25 times it must be retired and not shown again for two years.
6. Each show with content likely to cause nausea must be balanced out with a showing of a bikini contest.

Okay, so any other suggestions?
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Doug Brott
So .. choice it is, huh? In when to get something, not what to get :)
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K
Doug Brott said:
So .. choice it is, huh? In when to get something, not what to get :)
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But everyone has a DVR by now...don't they? :)
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durl
I'm really a free-market kind of guy, but I'll play.

- Repeat programs would be acceptable if they are broadcast in place of infomercials. The number of infomercials must be curbed!

The only infomercial I really enjoyed was an old ShopSmith woodworking commercial back in the 80s. Terrible acting to laugh at and a power tool cutting wood...now that's a great man-show.
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K
durl said:
I'm really a free-market kind of guy, but I'll play.

- Repeat programs would be acceptable if they are broadcast in place of infomercials. The number of infomercials must be curbed!

The only infomercial I really enjoyed was an old ShopSmith woodworking commercial back in the 80s. Terrible acting to laugh at and a power tool cutting wood...now that's a great man-show.
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I dunno...every so often Ron Popeil would produce a classic!
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Nick
Well put, Ken. I feel your angst, but if one watches only what
they record, and records only what they want to watch, there
should be no problem.
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tonyd79
Ken S said:
I dunno...every so often Ron Popeil would produce a classic!
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[[[[[shudder]]]]] Ron Popeil in HD!

Glad to see you turn your talents to satire. Very well done. Bravo! (Is that a real channel?)
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phrelin
While we're playing a numbers game about repetition here, exactly how much bandwidth will be devoted by satellite companies to "Greatest American Dog" this week?

The same show has to be shown on a different channel for each DMA, 100's simultaneously in each time zone. Dish has over 1300 local channels in SD and apparently is aiming for 400+ in HD.

Couldn't ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and the CW be satisfied with, say, 20 regional each? Their hoggish behavior makes the bandwidth-hours used by Discovery repeating a show 200 times in a month look like small potatoes to me. "Greatest American Dog" will occupy sufficient bandwidth this Wednesday to be seen on nearly 200 CBS stations in a four hour period, in some cases in SD and HD simultaneously. Talk about bandwidth waste....
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jacksonm30354
phrelin said:
While we're playing a numbers game about repetition here, exactly how much bandwidth will be devoted by satellite companies to "Greatest American Dog" this week?

The same show has to be shown on a different channel for each DMA, 100's simultaneously in each time zone. Dish has over 1300 local channels in SD and apparently is aiming for 400+ in HD.

Couldn't ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and the CW be satisfied with, say, 20 regional each? Their hoggish behavior makes the bandwidth-hours used by Discovery repeating a show 200 times in a month look like small potatoes to me. "Greatest American Dog" will occupy sufficient bandwidth this Wednesday to be seen on nearly 200 CBS stations in a four hour period, in some cases in SD and HD simultaneously. Talk about bandwidth waste....
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CBS might be happy with that, but your local CBS station would not be happy.

Locals depend on the network to provide appealing programming so they can sell local advertising time. They also depend on the FCC to protect their territory (DMA) so that a CBS station from another market can't invade their territory.

In the future, maybe after everyone gets a DVR and commercials aimed at your household habits are uploaded to your DVR and then inserted like the local tv stations does today, things could change to 3 feeds - Eastern/Central, Mountain/Pacific, Alaska/Hawaii. But then you would lose you live local news. It possibly could uploaded and inserted (if not live) or streamed via the internet connection (if live).

It's all possible, but I think it's easier now to just broadcast all 1500 or so tv stations.
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Herdfan
jacksonm30354 said:
CBS might be happy with that, but your local CBS station would not be happy.

Locals depend on the network to provide appealing programming so they can sell local advertising time. They also depend on the FCC to protect their territory (DMA) so that a CBS station from another market can't invade their territory.
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Just because it is the law doesn't make it a good idea.:eek2:

I listen to ESPN radio on Sirius and there is nothing my local ESPN affiliate can do about it. :grin:

Slightly back on topic, the one huge hole in the original SHVERA was that it should have created a situation where one company (could have been a joint venture) provided locals. Yes you would have had a receiver change out, but you had that with some DirecTV subs (think those served by the 119) anyway and probably cheaper than launching more satellites. As for the difference in encryption, simple: don't encrypt the locals as they are free OTA anyway.
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phrelin
jacksonm30354 said:
CBS might be happy with that, but your local CBS station would not be happy.

Locals depend on the network to provide appealing programming so they can sell local advertising time. They also depend on the FCC to protect their territory (DMA) so that a CBS station from another market can't invade their territory.

In the future, maybe after everyone gets a DVR and commercials aimed at your household habits are uploaded to your DVR and then inserted like the local tv stations does today, things could change to 3 feeds - Eastern/Central, Mountain/Pacific, Alaska/Hawaii. But then you would lose you live local news. It possibly could uploaded and inserted (if not live) or streamed via the internet connection (if live).

It's all possible, but I think it's easier now to just broadcast all 1500 or so tv stations.
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I know we've got all those regulations for 1958, but it's 2008 and there's really no reason to protect local channels. They now can send out up to 4 digital signals, so let them compete on their own. I might pay for decent locally created programming, but truthfully all the "locally created" programming across the U.S. could easily be rotated on, say, 10 channels.
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B
i'm starting to get bored w/ history channel's programming. they're doing the same thing over, and over, and over. It seems like they have the same episodes of a show on each night. Its been awhile since I've seen an episode of modern marvels that wasn't a rerun. Ice road truckers was interesting for the first few episodes of the first season, but its completely boring now.
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K
phrelin said:
I know we've got all those regulations for 1958, but it's 2008 and there's really no reason to protect local channels. They now can send out up to 4 digital signals, so let them compete on their own. I might pay for decent locally created programming, but truthfully all the "locally created" programming across the U.S. could easily be rotated on, say, 10 channels.
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Except, of course, local news and public interest shows. I'm pretty sure that NBC network news isn't going to cover my local government.
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phrelin
Ken S said:
Except, of course, local news and public interest shows. I'm pretty sure that NBC network news isn't going to cover my local government.
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If the West Palm Beach stations cover Delray Beach local government to any significant extent, you're fortunate.

In my DMA which in size is comparable to combining the Miami and West Palm beach DMAs with the stations in Miami, I would guess that some of the anchors on the big 4 that get all that bandwidth for HD don't even know where my town or 50% of the other towns are on a map. Despite my annual complaints, our area does not regularly appear on the weather maps.

But why would they. Our NBC station is located 180 miles from us and services the entire San Jose, San Francisco and Oakland metropolitan area. They don't even cover Santa Rosa government, a city of 160.000, unless something stupid or gross happens. It's too small, insignificant and 90 miles from their offices.

Hence, my desire to see them set free to compete.
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K
phrelin said:
If the West Palm Beach stations cover Delray Beach local government to any significant extent, you're fortunate.

In my DMA which in size is comparable to combining the Miami and West Palm beach DMAs with the stations in Miami, I would guess that some of the anchors on the big 4 that get all that bandwidth for HD don't even know where my town or 50% of the other towns are on a map. Despite my annual complaints, our area does not regularly appear on the weather maps.

But why would they. Our NBC station is located 180 miles from us and services the entire San Jose, San Francisco and Oakland metropolitan area. They don't even cover Santa Rosa government, a city of 160.000, unless something stupid or gross happens. It's too small, insignificant and 90 miles from their offices.

Hence, my desire to see them set free to compete.
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They do cover it...most importantly we get the weather/emergency info from them during hurricanes. Obviously, they also cover our county and state government much moreso than a national broadcast would.

Football fans would probably also with local network feeds.

I understand what you're going through though...I grew up in Princeton, NJ which is almost exactly in the middle of Philadelphia and NYC. We got all of the channels from both. Neither of them covered anything in NJ.
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