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those channels PAY dish to be on there

Iceberg said:

those channels PAY dish to be on there

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A percentage of spectrum must be allocated/dedicated to PACs (Public Access Channels); via FCC mandates.

You may not charge for carriage of a Public Access Channel... That would defeat the purpose of PACs. In all actuality, it's just the opposite... Dish must pay to carry the PAC channels to cover/compensate copyrighted materials, royalties, etc., (think in relation to music; RAII, ASCAP, BMI, etc., but in this case, it becomes far more complicated with inclusion of SAC, SWG, etc...). Carriage arrangements are usually specified and maintained to an absolute a minimum to the carrier, in the case of PACs; in Dish's case, to avoid paying, or as little as possible.

The question... how does one manage to get their PAC uplinked or even considered...? Damn good question? Obviously, there's a hell of allot of schmoozing, posturing, etc...

Thanks for posting that!

Tony

FCom911 said:

A percentage of spectrum must be allocated/dedicated to PACs (Public Access Channels); via FCC mandates.

You may not charge for carriage of a Public Access Channel... That would defeat the purpose of PACs. In all actuality, it's just the opposite... Dish must pay to carry the PAC channels to cover/compensate copyrighted materials, royalties, etc., (think in relation to music; RAII, ASCAP, BMI, etc., but in this case, it becomes far more complicated with inclusion of SAC, SWG, etc...). Carriage arrangements are usually specified and maintained to an absolute a minimum to the carrier, in the case of PACs; in Dish's case, to avoid paying, or as little as possible.

The question... how does one manage to get their PAC uplinked or even considered...? Damn good question? Obviously, there's a hell of allot of schmoozing, posturing, etc...

Click to expand...

Cable and DBS are covered by different laws. DBS is not required to provide or retransmit "public access" channels; cable is because they are awarded a franchise by local government and, it was thought, should provide facilities, etc. for locally produced programming serving the local community a cable system serves in exchange for status as a regulated monopoly. Cable is local in scope.

DBS is not required to provide any production facilities or support for any local programming serving any community because DBS is national in scope and didn't seem to make sense. Instead, Congress mandated that a small percentage of capacity on each satellite carry "Public Interest" channels. These are most often national or regional public service channels, such as university channels, with content of interest to a national audience rather than a small community.

You seem very knowledgeable of law relating to CATV. Research laws relating to DBS and you'll find many differences.

I was doing some surfing, and I noticed a station called White Springs TV. If this would qualify as a public interest channel, I think it would be a HELL of a pick-up. It looks like a vintage/made for TV movie channel from the 60's, 70's and 80's. White Springs TV - Home Page is the weblink. Why doesn't Dish make something that looks good available until people are beating down their door for it? LOL

Okay.... let's have the "Brian's Song" 24 hour Cry-a-thon!

See ya
Tony

We have 3 types of that programming here-

Public Access- Non commercial and available for free, plus the cable company supplies the production facilities and you supply the talent and manpower to produce. Requires training, also free if you are not qualified to operate the equipment.

Leased Access channel- An FCC mandated channel that forces a cable op to air your program either commercial or non-commercial for a fee that is regulated based on population subscribership. It is very cheap in most cases. Little known but if you have a show you want to get on cable, and even sold ads to help pay but need a very low rate, this can be it and even if your local cable doesn't have a dedicated Leased access channel, they still are required to make air time available. But here's the catch. You arte required to supply them with an NTSC signal, under the regulation. They are not required to supply you with a VCR to play your tape, nor server time to host your video file. Most cable companies will not quibble and simply encode your program to their sever, especially if they have a history of Leased access sales. B ut they don't have to. I once had to design my own head end for a real estate channel under Leased access rules because the management jerk at Adelphia decided to make us jump through the regulation hoop. I set it up in a U store it and tossed a cable with RF modulated NTSC signal over a chain link fence into their facility and they put it out through their distribution system. I played the 60 minute program on a 3/4 Umatic player on 24 hour 7 day a week repeat. The signal was always on and they would pick it up on the hour and run it .

Local Origination channel is usually commercial programming but not rate regulated and can be as expensive as local broadcast air charges. It is run by the Cable advertising department. Cable ad department will often run national programming as well if they didn't sell enough local to fill the times.


As far as Dish Network or direcTV goes. Couldn't you do what I did a few years back and build a "Paid Programming" for one of the existing channels? I had a series of shows, 13 of them that we aired on the old Tech TV channel called "Best of the Web TV" We bought air times between 3AM and 5 AM ET.