[mythtv-users] End of OTA?

[Mike Perkins]

On 07/09/14 10:48, Hika van den Hoven wrote:
> Hoi Richard,
>
> Sunday, September 7, 2014, 10:17:32 AM, you wrote:
>
>> 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.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>>   mythtv-users mailing list
>>   mythtv-users at mythtv.org
>>   http://www.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>>   http://wiki.mythtv.org/Mailing_List_etiquette
>>
>> 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
>
> Luckily her in the Netherlands we have a law that tells the cable
> companies which channels they at least must transmit. This includes
> the public and the local channels. Further on top every city has a
> kind of veto on what must at least be available on cable.  Third the
> public channels will always stay free available of the air. This last
> only some time ago changed from analog to digital.
>
That's not really the problem. The problem is that, in the US, all those public 
and local channels on cable would be encrypted and marked "copy once" and so you 
would be unable to record them.

In the UK all those channels are encrypted by the cable companies using 
non-standard methods and there's no way to record from the STB except by using 
the analogue hole.

At least with OTA the signal coming in isn't encrypted, mostly. In the UK there 
are some Freeview channels (let me guess: Sky Sports?) which you have to buy a 
decoder card for.

-- 

Mike Perkins