Rant: Hotel locals?

[carload]

Okay, so last weekend I was staying in a hotel with most of its programming provided by DirecTV. (So we have a satellite TV tie-in. )

This place reminded me of something that often bugs me about hotel TV: Why don't some hotels provide all the locals? That second PBS, or the oddball independent, even the Univision affiliate, whatever. I actually pack a small set of rabbit ears to use when the local newspaper tells me something fun is on a channel that the hotel doesn't want to give me.

If they stuck a $100 OTA antenna on the roof, couldn't they bring in these local channels and distribute them for free, or do hotels pay royalties on OTA in rooms?

PS: The dishes were next to the hotel at ground level. I had an evil thought to disrupt everyone's viewing for a minute :dev , but I fought off the urge.

 

[justsatellites]

Hotel do not pay for signals they get "off air". That being said, for every off air channel they add there is the cost of a demodulator for each off air channel, a modulator for each off air channel, a strip amp for each off air channel...etc. etc. etc...so they do not pay a monthly charge for the channels but their average cost per off air channel to add them is around $700 per channel...plus the cost of a good off air antenna. They are just trying to go the cheap route and hoping you won't mind