Distant Network Broadcasts - free over the air idea

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fasted64

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Dec 5, 2006
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Free Air Network Broadcasts

How is this for an idea. On the recent Charlie Chat, Charlie said one of the alternatives for distant network channels were to use an over the air antenna.
That said, couldn't Dish Network just open up the air waves to those distand local channels, namely New York and Los Angeles at no charge. It seems that as long as they did not charge for them and as long as they left it wide open for everyone and anyone to get on any satellite dish, it would be no different than an over the air antenna. After all, there are no restrictions on FM radio or on local TV broadcasts. All you need to do to get those is to be in range of the signal. The satellites are in space, so would be in range of anyone in the western hemisphere.

Of course the drawback is anyone with a satellite dish would be able to get them and Dish would lose some revenue, but who's to say Dish can't just raise the rates on all customers to compensate for them. I don't know anyone who would not pay an extra $9.99 per month on their bills being that is what we were already paying for both East and West coast distant network feeds.:cool:
 
How is this for an idea. On the recent Charlie Chat, Charlie said one of the alternatives for distant network channels were to use an over the air antenna.
That said, couldn't Dish Network just open up the air waves to those distand local channels, namely New York and Los Angeles at no charge. It seems that as long as they did not charge for them and as long as they left it wide open for everyone and anyone to get on any satellite dish, it would be no different than an over the air antenna. After all, there are no restrictions on FM radio or on local TV broadcasts. All you need to do to get those is to be in range of the signal. The satellites are in space, so would be in range of anyone in the western hemisphere.

Of course the drawback is anyone with a satellite dish would be able to get them and Dish would lose some revenue, but who's to say Dish can't just raise the rates on all customers to compensate for them. I don't know anyone who would not pay an extra $9.99 per month on their bills being that is what we were already paying for both East and West coast distant network feeds.:cool:
 
The networks have already begun providing content to viewers outside their local broadcasters. CBS offers many of its shows over the Xbox 360 Live. ABC offers some of its shows on the web.

Why not have CBS or ABC provide its West Coast feed to E* for live rebroadcast to the East and Central time zones? This would ensure that the local broadcasters got exclusive first run broadcasts of all network programs, but it would allow the network to offer a type of distant network. Western and Mountain time zones could take the Hawaii feed.

This would be almost as good as the old distant networks, particularly if they put the HD feeds up. I know I would pay to have such a service.
 
Why wouldnt it be legal? How many stations are up there right now on FTA... Why couldnt some of them instead of leasing space on say Galaxy 10, they lease space on one of E*s birds?
 
It is illegal for the same reason that E* got in trouble over the distant networks. It runs afoul of the copyright laws.

You can't take someone elses copyrighted material and make free copies of it to distribute. The satellite companies were granted an exception to distribute distant networks to certain unserved households through the Satellite Home Viewers Act. This was done to help rural customers who could not get either OTA or cable, and it helped provide competition to the cable company monopolies.

E* was a bit overzealous in approving distant network subscribers - which is what got them in trouble. This lead to the injunction which "punishes" E* by making them take down distant networks for everyone, even those who legally qualify for them.

If E* were to now broadcast distants in the clear, the punishment could be much more severe. The courts and the FCC could revoke their broadcast liceneses.
 
The best course of action I believe is a commercial solution as I outlined earlier.

Dish Network should negotiate with one or more of the networks on a national satellite feed of network programming to replace the distant networks. So that it didn't violate the franchise agreements for the local broadcaster, the national feed would need to be delayed. They could offer that feed for say $1.5 or $2 per month (maybe HD as well). I think satellite viewers would likely pay for such a service.

Potentially this service could attract more than just the 900,000 E* subscribers who either had the service legally or knew how to game the system to get distant networks.

Let's use CBS as an example. They produce evening network programming starting with an early news program then CBS news at 6:30pm, followed by a 1-hr block of local programming (news or syndicated programs), then 3-hrs of network entertainment programs, followed by 2-hrs of late night programming. That is 6 hours of CBS programming.

CBS could provide a satellite feed of its network programs begining at 8pm with the early news show. Prime-time programs could then begin at 9pm east. CBS might even fill the daytime up with its morning and afternoon programming.

In the end all this bickering in court serves nobody except the lawyers. The networks have programming, satellite viewers want it and are willing to pay to get it. E* is willing to provide the programming, it is just a matter of working out a fair business arrangement.

NAB lawyers - are you listening???? You aren't serving the best interests of your clients!
 
The only "network" in the NAB is ABC. The rest left the NAB some time ago. Therefore, it is the affiliates that are taking this to task, to enforce the first-run exclusivity they were given by those same networks.
 
According to their website:

"About NAB[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]
The National Association of Broadcasters is a trade association that advocates on behalf of more than 8,300 free, local radio and television stations and also broadcast networks before Congress, the Federal Communications Commission and the Courts."[/SIZE][/FONT]

The interests of the NAB and the networks may be slightly different, but I was using NAB in a collective sense to cover both the network and local affiliates.

Yes, I believe the beef is over the first-run exclusivity promised to the local affiliates. Another problem is the retransmission of affiliated produced and copyrighted material (news and local programming).

The networks are already distributing their prime-time shows via other means. NBC runs the "Law and Order" franchise and other shows on its satellite/cable divisions, sometimes within a few days of the first-run. ABC makes its most popular shows available free on the internet a couple of hours after the pacific time zone runs. CBS makes its most popular shows available for purchase on XBOX live. Other network shows are available on i-Tunes or even on cellular phones.

The NAB and local affiliates have a point. They provide local news, weather, and other information as part of their service. Without the first-run exclusivity on prime-time programming they might not be able to attract viewers to locally produced shows. Distant networks potentially hurt the affiliates viewership and ratings. But they are ALREADY losing ratings to other forms of media.

The current network/local affiliate business model made some sense in the early days of television where the affiliates had substantial start up costs. But in today's world it doesn't.

It seems in everyone's best interests to find a commercial solution.
 
The network would have to be the one doing it and even then they probably would violate contracts with stations.

Its the same idea Tuner had with WTBS, he said his station was no different it was just high in the sky. The superstation was born, the copyright holders were unhappy about him paying a local rate and distributing it nationally, thats how we ended up with grandfathered superstations.
 
They can't do this because of a little thing called COPYRIGHT LAW, you know, the people who own the programming. Without their permission, its still a violation - charging money for it or not makes no difference.

Its clear that you don't even have the tiniest bit of understanding what the distant locals laws are about.
 

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