What Makes A Channel Local, Regional, or National?

[ScoBuck]

Yep - one of the current topics being discussed around here.

What exactly makes a channel National? or Regional, or Local?

Is TBS National? You know its actually an OTA local in Atlanta (channel 17).

Are the East/West Coast Major Network Feeds Nationals?

Are RSNs carried Conus and offered NATIONALLY nationals?

Are ANY channels carried by a cable company national? Remember, these are all pretty much regional systems. Just because TimeWarner offers a channel in one area - it doesn't mean they offer it in another area.

To my thinking, if a channel is able to be received in any systems receivers nationwide, it is indeed national.

And what do you all think?

 

[JAG72]

Q: Is TBS National? You know its actually an OTA local in Atlanta (channel 17).
A: Yes. Don't have a good explanation for this one.

Q: Are the East/West Coast Major Network Feeds Nationals?
A: No. They are not even available to most of the subs within the providers. It is not national if I can not subscribe to it no matter where I am.

Q: Are RSNs carried Conus and offered NATIONALLY nationals?
A: No. From what I remember when I had the package you could basically only get the programs that were carried across all of the channels. They also call them regional sports network for a reason. They are not national sports network (NSN)

 

[Pepper]

WTBS local programming is different than TBS National feed.

Major network feeds are only available to affiliates, thus making them "Local."

"National" equates to anything that's available in the Dish Network ATxxx or DirecTV Total Choice packages, minus "Locals" and "Regionals."

Clear as mud yet?

 

[FavreJL04]

Local channels are over-the-air channels that are aimed at a specific market or city (NY, LA, Chicago, Denver, etc...) WTBS is local and available to the Atlanta, GA market. TBS is a Superstation that is available everywhere, which makes it national.

RSNs are considered regional because they cover a certain teams' region and are available regionally by default (Milwaukee Brewers are available to Wisconsin on Fox Sports Wisconsin, but FOX 11 from Green Bay is available ONLY to the Green Bay market). They are available nationwide through Dish and DirecTV in a special package...minus out-of-market pro sports.

East/West network feeds are local to their originating cities, so they are local. Some people are extended the privelidge to receive them if they cannot receive networks, but that is the exception not the normal.

I tried to remove some dirt from that mud. lol

 

[TNGTony]

It's really quite simple. A channel is local/regional/national because they buy the rights to show programs in a local, regional or national area!

I'm not being funny here. It's just that simple.

TBS is a cable channel that buys the national cable rights to its stable of programming. TBS also buys the local BROADCAST rights in the Atlanta TV Market for the same programming. Essentially, WTBS channel 17 Atlanta is the sole broadcast affiliate of TBS cable. WTBS Atlanta has about 10 hours of programming a week that is different than TBS Cable for various reasons, mostly dealing with FCC requirements.

Regional sports networks are regional channels because they buy the right to broadcast games within the region of the local teams. The national rights are much more expensive and can be purchased by other networks. Sonce each individual league determines the marketing area of their respective teams, the regional sports networks areas are not confined to specific TV markets. They are rather odd at times.

A local channel can be distributed nationally without being a "superstation" as long as it owns the national rights to the programming they carry. Sky Angel right now distributes no less than 6 broadcast channels from around the country.

WGN 9 Chicago and WGN Superstation share only about 40% of their program schedule. One is a local broadcast channel, the other a national Cable channel.

Where confusion comes in is in the case of the satutory "Supertations" that remain. WWOR, WPIX, WSBK, KWGN and KTLA are the only excetion to the rule. Why? Because they are vestiges of an earlier time in Cable history when it was accepted pratice (though not quite legal and still untested in the courts) for a satellite operator to stick an antenna up near a transmitter and redistribute a popular TV station nationwide. This was usually done for baseball games. WWOR used to have the Mets, WPIX the Yankees, WSBK the Red Sox, KTLA the Dodgers and KWGN... well like I said, Usually. The Rockies came about much later.

There were dozens of "superstations" around the country. But finally the copyright contracts began to be enforced and Congress stepped in to exempt the few stations that remained from the law that would have seen them yanked from cable line-ups.

See ya
Tony

 

[Hall]

Is TBS National? You know its actually an OTA local in Atlanta (channel 17).

Didn't I explain this one, and provides links confirming this, to you already ??

 

[ScoBuck]

Didn't I explain this one, and provides links confirming this, to you already ??

hall - before you call someone out on something, it would help for you to first check youir facts.

the post in this thread that you now refer to was posted on 7/31/ at 9:26 PM
http://www.satelliteguys.us/972913-post1.html

you gave your 'explanation' back to me on 7/31 at 10:48 PM
http://www.satelliteguys.us/973000-post24.html

You explained it AFTER the post above was made - I didn't re-post AFTER you gave your info.

 

[mdonnelly]

hall - before you call someone out on something, it would help for you to first check youir facts.

the post in this thread that you now refer to was posted on 7/31/ at9:26 PM
http://www.satelliteguys.us/972913-post1.html

you gave your 'explanation on 7/31 at 10:48 PM
http://www.satelliteguys.us/973000-post24.html

So dude, you explained it AFTER the post above was made.

That's funny . Tell the guy to check his facts. Hah! You're the one that was wrong about TBS.

 

[ScoBuck]

According to Wikipedia, the TBS (and the WTBS) we see today have evolved over the past 30 or so years since Ted Turner purchased the station.

For many of those years they were in fact identical in programming - both the OTA channel 17 in Atlanta and the 'superstation' WTBS. As the article now says - today the programming is still mostly the same, but the commercials are different and there is some differences in the programming.
WTBS - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Regardless of TBS, the point of the original discussion was to see what people think makes up a 'national', 'regional' or 'local' channel.