Will the FCC closing of the "terrestrial loophole" mean that E* (if it wants to) will now be permitted to offer local channels from two DMAs, given the customer is located where both can be received?
It's always bothered me that Comcast can provide both Johnstown and Pittsburgh (PA) locals but E* is only allowed to offer me Pittsburgh. Not a very level playing field.
Mark
Mark,
The "Terrestrial Loophole" has absoultely NOTHING to do with Federally licensed DMA OTA broadcasting.
The Loophole refers to Cable and or content owners providing signals to other Third Party providers (Other Cable companies and satellite providers). In the past legislation and or Federal statues required Content owners, or vertically integrated Cable companies could NOT withhold their content from other providers if that content was distributed and or uplinked to satellite to get the Source of the broadcast to the final distribution point.
Comcast as well as a couple of other providers decided if they used Terrestrial Fiber or copper lines to get the source broadcast to that companies own headend with OUT uplinking it to satellite they could withhold that content or those channels from satellite companies.
For Years Comcast in Philladelphia used this loophole to withhold all of their Regional sports coverage. This meant any and all subscribers within the DMA for the Philadelphia Sports teams were required to subscribe the local Cable Company Comcast, effectively cutting off any Satellite competition at the knees.
This new ruling puts Cable companies and Satellite companies on equal footing, again this has nothing to do with Local OTA franchising and DMA boundaries for OTA broadcasts.
The proper term for what you are describing is called "Significantly Viewed". This was included in the last revision of the Satellite Home Viewers act. It mandated the FCC setup a database for the entire country setup by Addresses and or Zip Code whom were in these areas. The end result was most areas of the country that straddled DMA's were left out. Currently DirecTV is the only national provider eligible to carry Significantly Viewed Stations, and to my knowledge are not offering any or maybe a few subscribers this option.
The Definition of "Significantly Viewed" are Local DMA OTA stations in which their signals Bleed over into another Local DMA's market so that a Significant number of viewers can receive said signals from the secondary DMA. In these and only these conditions is a satellite provider allowed to carry Network affiliated signals from a secondary market in another Local Market. Again the FCC wrote the new maps and which residents qualified and which did not, in most cases these new maps are VERY conservative and only allow Secondary Market signals to a very small minority in their primary market.
John
