New Year, new local dispute

[Mr Tony]

And, of course, you immediately change it to channel 4. Grandmas are always right!!!

agreed! She may not always be right but you still listen to her

 

[Hall]

People are adamant about their favorite local channels. If one is "out" and someone suggests just watching one of the others (for news) for the time being, they act like they'd be a traitor by doing so.

Same with the local weather people - some viewers think the others "suck" and refuse to watch them.

 

[harshness]

That's not the impression I've seen with local channels, via their Facebook pages, for example, when Dish, Time Warner, or Directv drop them.

Some people believe that a particular entity can do no wrong and they will swarm to their defense. If you go to the opposing carrier's Facebook page, you probably see a lot of the same that casts the carrier as the hero who is fighting the good fight against having the pay for free TV.

 

[harshness]

Try telling that to older people who only watch one channel's newscast. My grandma is one of them.

As I get older, I've discovered that the people who market stuff are much less interested in my business or what I think about theirs. They're a whole lot less interested in loyalty than they are in when I'm going to spend money with them again. As ratings become more finely divided, the less they care about those classes outside of their primary focus.

What they haven't figured out is that I really do have quite a cache of disposable income that I could be spending if they offered a product that appealed to me.

 

[Michael Julan]

I am a DISH customer in the EVV area. The main issue I see is that both CBS and FOX at the local level have no real market share. CBS has no local news and the local FOX news is horrible. The local NBC affiliate kills them both by a long shot. Bayou says that they are bringing back local news to the CBS station but who knows. The funny thing is that I sent an email through Bayou's contact us page on their Web site last Friday night. At 7:30 that evening I got an email back from the owner/ceo from his iPhone. Now granted, the email I sent was a bit raw as I was trying to see if anyone at the company would reply at all. I never figured that the owner would respond.I don't have the exact email I initially sent as it was on a form on their site but this is the reply that I got. Note that now where does he say anything at all about working with DISH

Michael,
Thanks for your email. If you are a DISH subscriber, you nor DISH have the right to redistribute or view my programming from any source. Thanks for the heads up. I will look into this.
_______________________________________
Please excuse any abbreviations or misspellings. This message was sent from my iPhone.
Thanks

DuJuan McCoy
President & CEO
Bayou City Broadcasting, LLC
and Evansville, Inc.

And my response..

Bayou City Broadcasting does not own CBS programming. CBS owns CBS programming and I am free to view it any way CBS allows. As I stated earlier, now I can watch CBS programming without watching WEVV local commercials (your paid customers commercials). I wonder what they think about having their commercials blacked out to Tri-State DISH customers?? I am assuming that your company informed the local advertisers that their commercials will no longer be seen by DISH customers. Or better yet, offered them a discount because of the fewer number of households that their commercials will be served to.

His response

Are speaking of CBS video on demand via access from your online Dish authentication? Or my actual broadcast signal?

_______________________________________
Please excuse any abbreviations or misspellings. This message was sent from my iPhone.
Thanks

DuJuan McCoy
President & CEO
Bayou City Broadcasting, LLC
and Evansville, Inc.

My response

Nobody cares about WEVV's local broadcast signal. All you are doing is holding CBS and FOX programming hostage so you can make more money from DISH subscribers.

The fact that you have taken the time to respond to an email from an unknown individual regarding this issue instead of publishing a press release on your companies Web site as well as on WEVV's Web site explaining your side of the black out tells me that you don't have a leg to stand on other then it's a matter of pure profit.

Good luck my friend! I think you will soon find out, just as the music industry did, that These Times Are A Changing!

I did not get a response to the last reply but I thought it was kind of funny that the very next afternoon the local CBS Web site posted an article with their side of the story...

Who really knows who the greedy party is but it does seem a bit one sided. By law DISH has to offer the local channels but the local broadcasters have the right to black them out.

 

[harshness]

That was kind of mean (and most certainly disrespectful) and the conclusions you drew don't seem particularly well supported.

 

[Nyth]

The locals have the sats over a barrel because of the must-carry rules. And they are greedy. One of loacls in the Madison, WI DMA was asking for $5 last year. They, of course didn't get that. I for one am glad that dish is always fighting these stupid increases.

 

[Hall]

The locals have the sats over a barrel because of the must-carry rules. And they are greedy. One of loacls in the Madison, WI DMA was asking for $5 last year. They, of course didn't get that.

That makes no sense..... You suggest the local stations have all the power (must carry - which clearly isn't the case, otherwise Dish wouldn't drop locals when contracts run out) but Dish didn't pay what they station asked for.

Remember, if there's "must carry", the channels gets ZERO dollars (from Dish, Directv, etc). They don't get their cake and eat it too.

 

[harshness]

Must carry and demanding a carriage agreement are mutually exclusive.

 

[Nyth]

I stated it badly. Here is a better explanation:

http://www.fcc.gov/guides/cable-carriage-broadcast-stations

But that doesn't explain why the local stations are so greedy. It's maybe more to do with DMA boundaries where Dish can't bring in a different affilliate to replace the greedy one. As I stated elsewhere, the rules are NOT pro-consumer. I think things would be much more fun if the custumer could pick between the two nearest affiliates on a network-by-network basis.

 

[sam_gordon]

I stated it badly. Here is a better explanation:

http://www.fcc.gov/guides/cable-carriage-broadcast-stations

But that doesn't explain why the local stations are so greedy. It's maybe more to do with DMA boundaries where Dish can't bring in a different affilliate to replace the greedy one. As I stated elsewhere, the rules are NOT pro-consumer. I think things would be much more fun if the custumer could pick between the two nearest affiliates on a network-by-network basis.

I'm curious... have you ever turned down a raise? If not, why are you so greedy? Have you ever asked for a raise? Why are you so greedy?

Companies are in business to make money. If they price themselves too high, they don't sell their product.

The argument about "<insert network name> is going to be upset you're blacking out programming" doesn't hold water either since networks demand affiliates give them some of the retransmission money. So the networks benefit from retrans fees also.

 

[Hall]

Here is a better explanation:

http://www.fcc.gov/guides/cable-carriage-broadcast-stations

This discussion is about satellite carriage, not cable. There is a difference - there are different rules.

 

[harshness]

This discussion is about satellite carriage, not cable. There is a difference - there are different rules.

Other than the added confusion of Significantly Viewed, the rules aren't all that different. Both modes still have to observe DMA boundaries.

 

[BatStang2000]

Dish fair pledge website states "Currently, Bayou City Broadcasting is demanding we pay fees higher than what we pay any other broadcaster in the nation. We offered to match the rates paid by other satellite or cable companies; however, Bayou City Broadcasting refused this offer. We offered to pay Bayou City the same rates we pay stations with comparable ratings in the area. Unfortunately, Bayou City refused this offer as well."
Sounds like Bayou City Broadcasting is off to a not so consumer friendly start in the Evansville market.

 

[Mr Tony]

replace "Bayou City Broadcasting" with whatever company dish is fighting with and you have their "stock" letter

 

[harshness]

replace "Bayou City Broadcasting" with whatever company dish is fighting with and you have their "stock" letter

Isn't that pretty much how it goes? Station owners are panicing for revenue and they decide to double or triple their asking price. It isn't like most of them have made major improvements to their offerings or any of them are going to stop showing infomercials.

 

[truckracer]

Everyone could just go with an outdoor antenna and free to air. Watch what you can get. Let the pay tv model die a miserable death. Problem solved.

 

[Mr Tony]

Everyone could just go with an outdoor antenna .

in a lot of areas that is easier said than done. I can give some good examples
-at the lake house we are 90 miles from Duluth and 120 from Minneapolis. So OTA we get CBS, PBS and a very fuzzy Fox (yes there is a translator still in analog).
-There are plenty of short markets out there where there is not the full slate of the Big 4 OTA....satellite brings in the missing ones
-In the Duluth market most of the "outer" area has Fox in analog and CBS in SD (in the "Iron Range" area they have the CBS as a subchannel on NBC)
-terrain is huge especially in the digital age

Now I'm not complaining because I am OTA only...but I'm less than 3 miles from the towers

 

[truckracer]

I wondered if there were areas of the USA not served well by OTA. in my mind I am seeing a tall expensive tower and high gain antennas in those areas.

 

[Mr Tony]

I wondered if there were areas of the USA not served well by OTA.

plenty of them

in my mind I am seeing a tall expensive tower and high gain antennas in those areas.

and even then you may not accomplish anything. One thing that killed reception in a lot of areas is the DTV conversion. Analog translators just went off the air. I have seen too many fugly tvfool reports that show not much for reception
Analog you dealt with fuzzy picture. digital you can't. Not enough signal? no picture

And then you have those short markets where there isnt the full Big 4. Yes subchannels help that now but there are areas where it still doesnt help