[mythtv-users] End of OTA?

Sun Sep 7 10:41:00 UTC 2014

Richard

The 'local' stations in the US are actually often affiliates of the Big US
Networks....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affiliates

often the cable companies would just retransmit the 'local' stations until
about 5 years ago when the Fox stations IIRC told the cable companies they
couldn't rebroadcast their content unless they paid them a fee.   This was
also influenced by what is known as the 'must carry' rules

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Must-carry

There were a number of stories when Fox played hardball of which this is
one.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/12/18/us-fox-timewarnercable-idUSTRE5BH2FX20091218

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carriage_dispute

In effect the 'local' stations negotiated the retransmit fee at the same
time as the removal of the must carry clause.

Now whereas in the UK sport is concentrated on the Sky premium platform in
the US the NFL is shown extensively on the broadcast networks and many
other sports also look to maximise their exposure by ensuring they are on
the Broadcast networks in some form or another so the cable companies were
suddenly presented with a situation where their customers couldn't get
major network shows (say CSI or Big Bang Theory) or major sports or local
news (much bigger deal in the US then in the UK) through their cable
provider.

This is quite a good article to give you some idea of the monies involved

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2011/11/broadcast-networks-retransmission-consent-fees.html

All of this presents a much more complicated setup then the UK.

However I would point out to you that SKY actually paid the BBC to
retransmit its broadcasts, what SKY then did though was charge huge fees
(£70m PA IIRC) for the encryption required and the placement on the listing
guide.  You may remember back in 2003 when the BBC moved from one Astra
satellite to another it went 'Free to Air' and that's when the argument
with SKY kicked off with Murdoch threatening to pull the Beeb off the
listings and getting Hollywood to boycott providing movies to the BBC,
basically the Beeb had outmanoeuvred Murdoch  and called his bluff

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/jun/13/bskyb.bbc

So the landscape is very different in the UK from the US and you should
understand that 'local' stations in the US is a bit of a misnomer, in many
cases they're actually the providers of the most popular programs on TV.

Tony

On 7 September 2014 10:48, Hika van den Hoven <hikavdh at gmail.com> 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.
>
> Tot mails,
>   Hika                            mailto:hikavdh at gmail.com
>
> "Zonder hoop kun je niet leven
> Zonder leven is er geen hoop
> Het eeuwige dilemma
> Zeker als je hoop moet vernietigen om te kunnen overleven!"
>
> De lerende Mens
>
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>
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