New Satellite TV and Radio Stations

[AcWxRadar]

Please don't laugh until you have heard everything.

I am actually being serious with this idea and I am simply starting an investigation into the possibility and feasibility of the venture.

Ok, the idea is how many of you would truly like to get involved in a venture from the ground up to start our own TV station and Radio broadcasts over satellite?

We would obviously have to pay for this ourselves, but if we get enough clients and customers involved, it might become relatively inexpensive, comparitively speaking.

I am thinking of a small upload station in the midwest and TP lease space on a central sat that could be viewed by all in the continental US, Canada and Mexico. Possibly a sat like 97.0W or close to that. It must be accessible to everyone, otherwise it will fail.

I don't know what the total expense will be, but I would like to see several TV channels and several Radio channels under the same network.

Let's say we offered a news and weather feed, an oldies TV series channel and one movie channel. Then for radio we could have Country, Talk, Classic Rock and Roll and maybe one or two others. One channel expressly devoted to our hobby and concerns!

We would also broadcast an EPG menu guide with all channels and broadcast in SD and HD video as well as standard and AC3 audio or any other format that the owner-members desire.

This would be a customer OWNED enterprise rather than a corporate or private ownership. Member-owners would receive stocks in the broadcast company and have all rights to vote on every issue and all broadcast content.

There would be NO commercials except from the sponsors like we have here for promoting the station and equipment required to obtain satellite TV/RADIO and related avenues.

No commercials for Viagra (bye bye smilin' Bob) or dust mops and vacuum cleaners or the lose weight quick and get hooked on a drug commercials nor the make a million overnight stuff!

There would be no encryption so it would be true FTA for everyone, even if you do not subscribe. It would be handled on the honor system. If you like it, donate or subscribe like you would for PBS stations.

Don't laugh and don't scoff just yet.

I think this could really be possible. How many FTA members do we currently have on this site alone? How many DN and DirecTV and Bell and Shaw customers would also join this team? How many other people do you know who are members of other forums or who only have OTA TV reception who might also join in?

If the monthly rate is less than $10 per month, would it be worth it all? If we get more members, then we could either cut the price or add more channels.

Completing a preliminary membership drive or polling would be needed to judge how much support we would have for such an endeavor.

Would anyone seriously be game for such an enterprise? I sincerly believe that this can be accomplished. It isn't that far out of our reach to do so.

Call me crazy, but don't make that judgment right off. Think about this for a few days and then respond with your truly honest criticisms.

In a few days I would like to conduct a poll of all members of the entire site and really see how much this idea would be supported. If the staff would send me the instruction regarding how to conduct a poll, I would appreciate it.

Let me know what you all think or even what you would like to see broadcast in a wish list.

I may be a dreamer and this may be a lofty goal, but if we get enough folks involved, it might just happen! Let's give it a try and see what we can do.

Gordy (AKA RADAR)

 

[Cadsulfide]

Gordy;

A very excellent and ambitious idea. Economically it may very well fly, WSTV is obviously a similar labor of love. A venture like this would require a great deal of time and psychic energy on the part of the founder. I for one will support your venture should you decide to take the plunge.

 

[AcWxRadar]

Gordy;

A very excellent and ambitious idea. Economically it may very well fly, WSTV is obviously a similar labor of love. A venture like this would require a great deal of time and psychic energy on the part of the founder. I for one will support your venture should you decide to take the plunge.

Cadsulfide,

I really thank you for your support! I think I will introduce the idea to my brother and his son as well.

This will be a major undertaking of course, but I believe that the results would be so rewarding for all of us that we should not pass up investigating it at least.

Funny that you mentioned WSTV as that was what was running through my mind at the time. I might try to contact Victor Ives and ask him for some directions on this.

My, wouldn't it be excellent if we could pull something like this off and really make it work? If set up properly, it could be sustained for a long time and who knows, it might really go over the top and be demanded by many! Sorry, I am drooling just thinking about how much fun it could be!

So many of us here have such great technical knowledge of this field that we could support ourselves in this endeavor. What a plus! What a better group of folks to organize a TV Broadcast company could you possibly ask for?



Just for fun, what would you think a good name for this broadcast company should be? It must be original and "catchy" while projecting a positive and clean image, but fun, too.

How about something akin to "Eureka" ????

Gordy

 

[Anole]

seriously:

Okay, I read all the way to the end before replying. -

What would the cost be for the entertainment?
Whitesprings may not pay anything for theirs, but you're suggesting far better source material.

Someone would have to "program" the station or stations. (network?)
That sort of work might require salaries for several people.
Including a lawyer.
In the beginning, you might go for an all-volunteer staff, I suppose.

What are the legal requirements and costs for an up-link site?
Should there be more than one to avoid rain-outs?
Or maybe locate it somewhere with desert weather?
We've all seen how unsatisfactory it was when uplinkers were rained out.

How about partnering with colleges, and their communications courses?
I've often wondered why none of 'em have on-satellite programming, now.
Why couldn't a dozen of 'em send in DVDs with several hours of shows per week?
Ideas include: news, entertainment, talk, public access, or get the drama department to do plays.... or come up with a grass-roots series!

What about some sort of affiliation with PBS? (what's in it for them?)
Wider distribution of some South Carolina material?

I'll bet you could find some Podunk TV stations around the country, willing to let you use their news, weather, local talk, farm report, or other material, in trade for some sort of consideration.
Give 'em an hour or two, and they supply their commercials! ?

Sounds like an uphill battle, but there's some ideas to chew on.

 

[Blindowl1234]

Radar, Count me in! I have been hoping that one of us FTA folks would win the lottery and do something like this lol. Seriously though I think it's a great idea and 97west might be the place to put it. Blind

 

[AcWxRadar]

Radar, Count me in! I have been hoping that one of us FTA folks would win the lottery and do something like this lol. Seriously though I think it's a great idea and 97west might be the place to put it. Blind

Thank you for your support, BlindOwl! I figured that I could count on folks like you to at least provide an interest. This certainly won't be easy and I know it. But with everyone pooling their support and ideas and expertise, I am thinking that we could actually pull something like this off. It is very possible.

Thanks!

Gordy

 

[AcWxRadar]

Okay, I read all the way to the end before replying. -

What would the cost be for the entertainment?
Whitesprings may not pay anything for theirs, but you're suggesting far better source material.

Someone would have to "program" the station or stations. (network?)
That sort of work might require salaries for several people.
Including a lawyer.
In the beginning, you might go for an all-volunteer staff, I suppose.

What are the legal requirements and costs for an up-link site?
Should there be more than one to avoid rain-outs?
Or maybe locate it somewhere with desert weather?
We've all seen how unsatisfactory it was when uplinkers were rained out.

How about partnering with colleges, and their communications courses?
I've often wondered why none of 'em have on-satellite programming, now.
Why couldn't a dozen of 'em send in DVDs with several hours of shows per week?
Ideas include: news, entertainment, talk, public access, or get the drama department to do plays.... or come up with a grass-roots series!

What about some sort of affiliation with PBS? (what's in it for them?)
Wider distribution of some South Carolina material?

I'll bet you could find some Podunk TV stations around the country, willing to let you use their news, weather, local talk, farm report, or other material, in trade for some sort of consideration.
Give 'em an hour or two, and they supply their commercials! ?

Sounds like an uphill battle, but there's some ideas to chew on.

Anole,

You have hit on just a few of the items that are necessary to be addressed. There is a great deal more to wade through for certain. Lawyers and fees and licenses from the FCC and much more. Please don't think that I neglected these items for even a moment, but I am just evaluating the support of such an adventure for the time being.

I do know of a small broadcasting location just 13 miles from my home that could be converted to a sat upload center. It was an old repeater station for telephone transmissions from coast to coast. Has a nice concrete block building with HVAC and it's own generator (diesel I think). It is available now for lease and could be converted for our use.

My nephew's HAM radio club is leasing some of the space for their purposes now. It has a 200 foot tower and power. We probably wouldn't utilize the tower in this case, but it might be handy for some purposes.

I think the biggest obstacle is going to be the lease of the TP on the satellite. $200K to $400K per month??? I would have to do some intense investigation on this and some really good wheeling and dealing as well.

The other great expense will be acquiring the material to broadcast. I would like to offer good stuff with good quality video and audio of course, but that might cost quite a bit. This is surely going to require a great deal of research and of course, money.

We would of course have to find some backers who are or would be willing to enjoy our idea just for the sake of it, rather than being a money making investment. There are folks like that out there, but getting to know them and convince them to do this is another story.

I am willing to go out on a limb for this adventure. My brother and I have discussed this over the years in a wishful and joking manner, but now I view it as being something that is obtainable.

Please continue to provide all the information that you can to pool the ideas here. If there are any law students or lawyers here, your input will be most helpful.

Well, I am most looking forward to the responses and ideas from everyone. If you are indeed interested, I think we will have a good chance with this. The support from the masses is what will make this happen.

Wouldn't it be just awesome?

Gordy

 

[Tron]

From a broadcast engineering standpoint (since that is my thing), the equipment required can run into serious dollars. We're talking more than just a DVD player here. You'd need either VTRs or hard-drive based DVRs (professional models in either case) as well as professional routing, signal manipulation/conversion, and test equipment. Also, you'd need good encoders. Not that there aren't legal ways to obtain such equipment cheaply (cough, fleabay, cough) ... It could be done, but you'd want to pool together a group of people with a broad knowledge base to pull it off. You'd also want to find ways to continuously fund such an operation. Anole's idea of running college-created programming is intriguing. The operation could earn revenue by selling time slots to communications departments, so their student's original programming could be uplinked for the professional world to see. Some interesting ideas, should prove to be a good thread.

 

[SatelliteAV]

Great idea! This concept is less about the ability to use technology and more about a strong business plan and running daily operations on a tight budget.

Here are a few observations for consideration.....

Content is King! There are many existing Public Access and college TV channels that would love to be uplinked, but the content is mainly "two men and a plant" (quoting Dave Barry) or low budget / low production value / niche interest programming. Do I watch this type of programming? No, usually not. Free Speech TV is an example of a long running 24/7 channel which initially started with submitted public access and privately produced content. White Springs plays public domain material, which minimizes their production cost. Content which is in distribution would require contractual purchase. Content is available for purchase and this most likely would be the majority of the stations operating cost. Many economical options exist for playout. To minimize labor expenses, the material should be files rather than linear media. Building a playout list would also generate a file suitable for EPG generation.

The mechanics of the start-up could be made up of eBay purchases and housed in your garage, but to remain a viable venture, it needs a business model to generate reoccurring dollars to introduce fresh and desirable content. You should consider having a staff to generate playout, purchase content, market the product (consider the LPTV stations and dot two digital sub channels), sell ad avails. I wouldn't forsee this type of venture to be successful as an donation honor system, though the project might consider being set-up as a not for profit group.

Space for a new SCPC or MCPC would be the major hurdle for Galaxy 19. More likely that the channels would need be included in a current mux. Estimate the cost for an uplinker to turn a signal to be $1500 per 128K stream for audio or data and $15000 per 3MB video channel. You could deliver the ready to play content to an uplinker by fiber or less expensive option by weekly hard drive with play out files and lists. Uplinking your own signal would decrease the actual uplink cost, but then would require uplink qualification, licensing, engineering, maintenance and probably be located an lesser viewed satellite. The recently vacated AMC4 KUIL TP many be available....

Satellite AV would be interested in being involved with this type of venture! Keep the ideas flying!

 

[Fizbi]

AcWxRadar,

First off, thanks for having the courage to consider this. I'm currently happy with FTA and the hunt for moving targets. My family loves PBS, NASA and the old movies and TV shows. What we really crave the most is FOX news. If you could nail that one down, life would be that much better.

The only thing that prevents my family from subscribing to Dish, or any provider for that matter, is the lack of choice for what we would be paying. The ever escalating price of satellite TV is just sick. The last time we subscribed, we discovered that the channels we wanted hardly ever deviated from FOX news and old time TV shows. $50 or more per month for two channels is not worth paying for. If those companies could ever get their act together and offer a price per channel, we might be interested. If fast food chains forced us to buy ten burgers just to get one order of french fries, well, they'd be out of business in a heart beat.

You won't make everyone happy, but you might make FTA a more fun place to participate in.

:up

 

[Stargazer]

I was wondering if such a thing could be done with broadband as well over satellite.

I think this is an excellent idea as there needs to be more GOOD AMERICAN CONTENT on FTA. It would be like a Glorystar service.

If a person could get on a satellite that required only an 18 inch dish then that would help since there are so many of those around.

One could also sell the hardware to the service like Glorystar does. Profit could be made from this equipment to help pay for some of the costs.

$10 per month for just a few channels is not worth it when you can get a number of channels on Dish Network for that. You would need advertisement on these channels to help pay for them and that still might not cover the cost. Could Dish Network receivers be flashed to receive other MPEG-2 content?

 

[LoTech]

There would be NO commercials except from the sponsors like we have here for promoting the station and equipment required to obtain satellite TV/RADIO and related avenues.

Do you mind if I ask why there would be no outside commercials? Not every three minutes like some of the networks, but maybe every half-hour or hour, or maybe even at the end of every program. It seems like a few here and there would help pay the bills.

-LoTech

 

[DirectDishNet]

I'm in.......

 

[AcWxRadar]

Do you mind if I ask why there would be no outside commercials? Not every three minutes like some of the networks, but maybe every half-hour or hour, or maybe even at the end of every program. It seems like a few here and there would help pay the bills.

-LoTech

LoTech,

Commercials just ruin the experience. I wouldn't mind seeing the retro commercials just for gags.

If PBS can survive without them and pay the bills with grants, sponsors, support drives and state/federal support then we might just find a way for this as well.

Maybe we could weasel in something like gardening products, tools and computers, etc. At breaks between shows or once a day as a fund builder. I don't know just yet. For now, it is just a notion to gather information and support.

 

[Jim S.]

Not trying to be a downer here, just a realist, but... if you provide an uplink service cheaper than everybody else, what's going to stop everybody else from just moving their content to your service with the net effect being that we still have no new content?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

If PBS can survive without them and pay the bills with grants, sponsors, support drives and state/federal support then we might just find a way for this as well.

PBS gets MILLIONS from the government. And around here, between shows our PBS has lots of ads.

 

[LoTech]

Let's say we offered a news and weather feed, an oldies TV series channel and one movie channel. Then for radio we could have Country, Talk, Classic Rock and Roll and maybe one or two others. One channel expressly devoted to our hobby and concerns!

I really like this idea. If good entertainment content were available on FTA that was truly intended for the FTA audience and not just here-today-gone-tomorrow, I think that a HUGE number of current FTA'ers would tune in. I think that quality free programming would also encourage more to enter the FTA world.

I don't know if this is outside of your intended plan, but it would also be nice if an affiliate of each network could join into the venture and help share the cost. They, of course, would get nationwide exposure, and you could possibly eliminate all the commercials from the home-grown FTA channels. The result would be something like a basic cable or satellite package, only FTA.

Perhaps a channel lineup like:

1. ABC affiliate
2. NBC affiliate
3. CBS affiliate
4. FOX affiliate
5. CW affiliate
6. FTA Information Channel
7. FTA News/Weather Channel
8. FTA Classic TV Channel
9. FTA Movies Channel
10. FTA Public Access/Talk/Educational
11-15. FTA Music Channels

Now that would be impressive.

-LoTech

 

[FTAsquirrel]

Great Idea if the biz plan can be worked. Would really be nice if it were on one of the birds that most fixed dish setups are already on. I.E. Glory Star, Globe Cast. This way it would help promote FTA even more as the setup is lower cost, easier and they get a good content line up.

 

[guapoharry]

There would be NO commercials except from the sponsors like we have here for promoting the station and equipment required to obtain satellite TV/RADIO and related avenues.

Do you mind if I ask why there would be no outside commercials? Not every three minutes like some of the networks, but maybe every half-hour or hour, or maybe even at the end of every program. It seems like a few here and there would help pay the bills.

-LoTech

LoTech,

Commercials just ruin the experience. I wouldn't mind seeing the retro commercials just for gags.

If PBS can survive without them and pay the bills with grants, sponsors, support drives and state/federal support then we might just find a way for this as well.

Maybe we could weasel in something like gardening products, tools and computers, etc. At breaks between shows or once a day as a fund builder. I don't know just yet. For now, it is just a notion to gather information and support.

This reduced-commercial agenda is most admirable, but why not wait to find out what the money flow situation would be before taking it too seriously?

I really like the idea, though.

The part about network feeds sounds OK until you consider those parochial rules about programming rights in the markets...

Is there some channel that could be used for a model? RFD TV, or something... How did they pay for that before it went commercial...?

Also, I wonder why those a-la cart C-band providers don't just hang another shingle and let us pay them for subscribing to Ku stuff via a CI smart card?

In addition to the pro's who have already weighed in on this, I'd like to know what if any opinion someone like Mike Kohl has about the topic..

 

[LoTech]

Just for fun, what would you think a good name for this broadcast company should be?

How about GratiStar - The best things in life are free!