Why no local PBS HD on DN/DTV??

[B.J.]

I'm curious about something. When the little dish providers were forced (I thought) to put up local channels, they generally put up all the networks they could come to agreement with, generally CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, and PBS for each city.
Now, DN and DTV are putting up HD local channels, but I've noticed that for every city I've checked, they do NOT include PBS (and sometimes they don't include FOX). I'm unclear about why they would omit PBS. I got the impression that they paid each local channel for the rights to put up their channels (only saying that because in my area, DN didn't have a couple of the networks for a while, and said something about not being able to come to an agreement when DTV had been putting up these same channels for months).
Anyway, does this mean that PBS is for some reason playing hardball with DN/DTV, asking for too much money, or have DN/DTV decided on their own that nobody is interested in PBS ( I thought there was some kind of requirement for them to carry all the local channels or none at all or something like that).

Anyway, I'm not understanding something about the DBS situation with respect to local channels, and/or not understanding PBS's (or the local affiliates) motives are, if the lack of channels is due to their decisions.

 

[Mr Tony]

DirecTV does have some PBS stations in HD

Why dont they carry all of them? same reason with the Big 4...they need an agreement to carry them and if the station balks at it then there are issues...I dont know if there is some different agreement with PBS than the others

 

[JosephB]

I don't think you have a full understanding of how the locals agreements work, either, BJ. Neither provider are forced to put up ANY locals. What happens is the provider decides that they are going to put up locals in a certain market. At that point they approach the stations and the stations have three choices: They can deny retransmission, require that the provider pay the station for retransmission, or they can elect what's called 'must carry'. You'll find that the big networks will require payment (the networks don't own all their stations, so this varies by market). Smaller stations, especially independent ones will require must carry. Must carry states that if the provider has any locals in a market, they are obligated to carry all full-power stations in that market for free that request it--but it's up to the station to request it.

Now, none of those rules apply independently to HD signals. The decision of the provider to carry a station in HD vs. SD only is purely between the station and the provider. The station usually will want to be in HD, so it's pretty much up to the provider. Their decision will be based on customer demand, available bandwidth, and if the station wants additional money for the HD signal.