[mythtv-users] End of OTA?

[Richard Morton]

On 7 Sep 2014 02:24, "Gary Buhrmaster" <gary.buhrmaster at gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, Sep 6, 2014 at 5:37 PM, Bert Haskins <bhaskins at chartermi.net> wrote:
> Among the absolutely insane number of current polycrap ads is one that
> says that our "representatives " are trying to kill free TV.
> Given the level of integrity that these guys have shown in the past this
> doesn't surprise me but I wonder if other list members have heard about
it.

It is all about the money (and who gets to collect it),
focused on re-transmission consent.  The big MSOs
do not want to pay to retransmit free OTA content,
and the OTA channels do not want to lose the revenue
from the MSOs (claiming that if they do not get the
money from the MSOs, they will have to close up shop).
Both sides are using tactics that presume people are
stupid.  Unfortunately, past experience shows such
tactics work for the aforementioned reason.

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Looking at this from a uk perspective and therefore knowing little of how
it works it appears that the channels are being paid by the cable companies
to rebroadcast the content.

This seems perverse. Are these channels that good? Do they have that high a
following?

As the cable companies appear from this side of the pond to be the gateway
to the majority of the population in the US I would expect that the
independent channels would be paying the cable company a fee for
retransmitting the channel.

Sky satellite charged even the BBC (which produces the most watched telly
channel in the uk) a retransmission fee until fairly recently until the BBC
got some balls and negotiated harder

I guess the reason that the mso's post these channels is why you have many
local channels and we only just set some up (and must don't have the
production standards we are used to in the uk so they don't get good
audiences and even close/fail)

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_television_in_the_United_Kingdom

Sky does broadcast these local channels as it is regulated to do so...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/media/9262158/Ofcom-and-Sky-on-fresh-collision-course.html

Our TV stations (local or otherwise) have to survive on advertising
revenues alone... (And when content is good enough selling individual TV
programmes for rebroadcast in other territories)

So the questions are...

1 Do the local channels have that high a following that customers would
desert the cable subscription if the local channels were removed?

2 Would the local channels prevent rebroadcast if they didn't receive cash
from the cable company? (They'd be reducing their viewer numbers
considerably and therefore advertising revenue would also be hit)

Sorry if my comments here are way off the mark as I don't understand much
of the cable history in the US.

R
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