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14 Comments
- SuckMyDigg, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Uhh.. more like the broadcasters vs the cable operators. I'm sure the FCC will side with whoever can make them $ee their $ide clearer.
- justthisguyyano, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"a la carte" is the wave of the future. The cable companies will have to get on board or the IPTV and "on demand" services will bury them.
- HMTKSteve, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3This is an interesting debate.
I think it all boils down to whether or not a cable company is a common carrier or not. Are they to be treated as an extension of the airwaves or a private network?
If they are to be considered nothing more then an extension of the airwaves then they will be forced to carry these channels. If they are considered to be a private network then they will not.
If I owned a cable company I would not want to be forced to carry a station my customers did not want or provided little to no profit potential. AFAIK channels such as QVC have to pay the cable company to be aired on their cable system. Big name companies (ABC/Disney) use their clout to force cable companies to include their channels.
I remember reading ( a few years back) that the reason ESPN was part of basic cable and not a higher tier was due to pushing from ABC/Disney. They would hold back other channels until the cable company agreed to put ESPN in the lower tier.
The problem with the lower tier is that if you have channels you have no intention of watching you can't turn them off for a lower bill. Personally I would love to see "a la carte" offerings from cable (I only watch a few channels out of the hundreds available) to help me save money. - shack95, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3So when can I drop all the religion, sports and Fox channels?
- mdshort, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Plead the fifth? Can anyone say OUT OF CONTEXT?
- TylerDurden0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2What bothers me is cable companies are able to advertise as thought they carry all these channels as well as their multi-channel counterparts. I for one subscribe to Cox and they only carry 1 local HD channel while Comcast delivers all of them for the same price.
That's ***** *****!!! - Boofster, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I really hope this does go through!
If anyone has the chance, definitely try to pick up the OTA (over the air) or QAM (over cable) local channels that are being broadcast in full HD. Everyone should have them available in their area. Other than HDDVD/BluRay, there is no better content for your new $5k HDTV at this time. The signal is uncompressed (unlike satellite) so take advantage of watching your prime time / sports while you can.
www.checkhd.com - TripinVA, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Yeah, I've been on the fence on this one.
On the one hand, a station that sets up a multicast for its viewers in hopes of making some money off it needs cable carriage to make money.
On the other hand, any valuable multicast will be picked up by local cable, such as just about anything on a CBS/ABC/NBC/Fox affiliate, a CW/My (replacing UPN/WB) affil on a subchannel, and there's already nationwide agreements for cable companies to carry PBS multicasts. (Something about carrying them all nationwide so they don't have to duplicate identical subchannels such as PBS Create in the same market or something like this)
Locally, this means the only subchannels that wouldn't be carried on cable without multicast mustcarry are maybe the local radar on NBC (the CBS here does an actual weather service that gets carried), and the waste of spectrum that is Pax/Ion. Notice that Ion and the religious broadcasters such as TBN are the largest proponents of multicast must-carry?
The networks want it too, though, so that the cable companies can't drop them.
I tend to come down in favor of multicast must-carry, just because there's must-carry now for local stations. Cable is supposed to duplicate programming available with an antenna, and then extend that with other programming. I think that should continue in the digital era.
But that's just my two cents. - TruthInTech, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Here we go again telling more companies how to run their own business.
- mabhatter, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1the deal is that cable operators begged the FCC to allow them to carry OTA channels for no or reduced cost at the beginning. The TV stations wanted to be paid by cable operators and the FCC said no... Now TV stations get to have multiple streams and they want all the streams carried. Seems fair because the cable operators got a bonus before to carry all the OTA channels.. now the TV operators just want to make sure ALL their channels are carried for free. Now it will cost something to the cable operators when the stations upgrade... but they're not paying now anyway, they can't choose just the "profitable" ones and not pay for them!
- HMTKSteve, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@just
That USED to be the case...
But the US Supreme Court screwed it up with the Kilo decison last year (eminent domain in New London CT.) That court case changed "public use" to "anyhing that might increase the tax rolls or help a private developer." - justthisguyyano, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I beg to differ. Re-read the last two clauses; "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
- Arramol, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1What's wrong with that? We're the consumers. If they want our money, they ought to pay attention to us instead of trying to strong-arm us into doing things their way like the content industry keeps doing.
- chad78, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2What a SHOCK! Another story about Telcoms and cable companies controling our content - and another series of longwinded comments supporting the big companies from everyone's favorite corporate shill - HMTKSteve.
