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EchoStar Asks Supreme Court to Let Unlock Local Channels
Consul writes "For a long time, satellite television systems were not allowed to broadcast local television signals outside of that local area. But EchoStar is asking the Supreme Court for that to be changed." This particular
issue drives me insane and I hope the courts throw out the lame laws. I don't
care about local programming, they shouldn't force it on me. The same tactics
with Newspapers would be obviously illegal.
I don't have the specific history in front of me, but I believe that the regulations came about to prevent a local market from losing advertising revenue to a remote market. That and the whole "Providing service to the local community" requirement that's part of every broadcaster's license.
I'll pick an extreme example - let's say you live in Napa, California. Napa has its own affiliate network stations who depend on local ad revenues. The stations wouldn't have to worry about losing business to stations from Chicago.
But if your satellite provider can't/won't/doesn't carry Napa local stations because there isn't enough of a market, but does provide San Francisco channels - it's kind of local news (weather, etc.), but the Napa stations lose ad revenues to San Francisco. Especially since reception in Napa is spotty because of the mountains, so most people go with Dish. (Purely hypothetical example, and probably not based in reality.)
This is most important for very small markets that are near a major market - small towns that are about 40 miles from a major city, for example.
The other thing that Echo is trying to do is get the FCC to tell them that they don't *have* to carry local programming because they don't have the bandwidth to do so for every market they serve. I see their point, but a lot of people are going to be upset if they can't easily get the farm report from their local channel because the nearest locals they can get from the satellite company is 60 miles away.
I'd like to have the option to watch local programming from other markets (places I've lived in the past, etc.), but I also want to make sure that most local markets are available... a difficult proposition, especially if they really don't have the bandwidth to carry them...
These are only semi-informed opinions, BTW... hopefully someone with more concrete knowledge will chime in.
Slashdot comments... splitting hairs since 1997.
Here's the gist:
:D
Originally, they just gave network stations to anyone who asked for them. Mostly New York/LA feeds. Naturally, the local stations were ticked off about this, as they have exclusive copyright over their network's programming for their area (so they argued). They tried to get it prohibited outright. But a lot of people don't get all the networks. My parents have no CBS channel over the antenna, for example.
So, in the Satellite Home Viewer Act (SHVA) (1996? 97?), Congress granted a limited exception to the exclusive programming copyrights enjoyed by TV networks and their affiliated stations because it recognized that limited numbers of households are unable to receive network signals over the air. The exception is a very narrow compulsory copyright license that direct-to-home satellite video providers may use for retransmitting signals of a defined class of television network stations to "persons who reside in unserved households." If defines "unserved household" as someone who:
"cannot receive, through the use of a conventional outdoor rooftop antenna, an over-the-air signal of grade B intensity (as defined by the Federal Communications Commission) of a primary network station affiliated with that network, and has not, with 90 days before the date on which that household subscribes, either initially or on renewal, to receive secondary transmissions by a satellite carrier of a network station affiliated with that network, subscribed to a cable system that provides the signal of a primary network station affiliated with that network."
So my parents would be able to buy CBS, but nobody else. It did provide for waivers as well, which allows my parents to obtain waivers from, say, the local NBC station, and get New York's NBC over the dish.
In 1999, the SHVA was amended by Congress, resulting in the passage of the Satellite Home Viewing Improvement Act (SHVIA). The SHVIA also amends both the 1988 copyright laws and the Communications Act of 1934. One of the key elements of the SHVIA is that it, for the first time, permits satellite carriers to transmit local television broadcast signals into local markets, also known as "local-into-local." This Act also authorizes satellite carriers to provide distant or national broadcast programming to subscribers. "Local-into-local" means that if a satellite customer lives in an area where the satellite company has decided to provide the service, the customer can receive local TV channels.
In short, the satellite company can decide to carry a local markets channels on their feed and offer those channels to that local market without getting waivers or anything. Obviously, they have to work out carry rights with the local stations involved, but that pretty well covers it.
More recently, cable companies have gotten "must-carry" approved into satellite feeds. The principle here basically says "if you carry any local stations in a market, then you have to carry all local stations in that market" in somewhat more complex terms. There's a few catches, such as they don't have to pay to carry a station if the station invokes their must-carry privilege, and so on, but the upshot is that even pointless locals like religious channels nobody watches can get satellite coverage for their area.
DirecTV responded by launching their spot beam satellite. This lets them broadcast to a single spot on the ground, covering one market. The upshot of this is that it vastly increases their total bandwidth, as they can reuse the same frequencies for locals in a bunch of different spots. St. Louis can only see St. Louis, for example. Actually, the spots are quite large, and St. Louis can probably see Chicago stations too, but the principle is basically that. Thus, by reusing all this bandwidth, they have a very simple way to put locals down all over the country without having to waste half their total bandwidth on 300+ "local" channels.
Echostar hasn't got spot beams. And they are subject to must carry too. So they're getting screwed right now. They're looking for any way out they can find. They're trying to eliminate local restrictions, they're trying to get must carry suspended, they're trying to buy DirecTV to have more bandwidth, anything. Because if they don't, they're going to go out of business. Unless they can get some spot beams up real fast. And they can't, for at least a year.
Which is the state of satellite TV.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
The fact that you can get all those papers is exactly the point. It is ILLEGAL in the US for them to do that with TV. I live in Kansas. And it is illegal for me to recieve out of market stations on a satalite dish, unless I pay extra to make up for "the economic loss that I'm causing by watching their commercials." The newspaper arguement is a perfect one. If I can get out of area news papers, why can't I get out of area TV stations? It's a stupid law.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I got a TiVo and now I don't have to worry at all when something is on. I work late and would miss all of "prime time", but with a TiVo, I can watch the stuff when I get home at 10 or 11. Or I can wait til Saturday when I have more time.
I watch it when I want and fast forward through all the commercials meaning I can get through and hour of programming in 45 minutes. I can save up episodes of a show and watch them in a row...no more, "Damn, I have to wait til next week to figure out what happens."
Changing the law would not change that, except for Congress members from NY and LA. DirectTV uses spot beams for locals, and Dish will be using spot beams soon. Spot beams aim the signal at a relatively small area. So, instead of sending the Seattle locals to the whole country, for example, they just send them to the Seattle area on a spot beam. That lets them use the same frequencies on another spot beam for the Memphis locals.
Only the LA and NY locals are on wide beams, so that they can provide those to people who are in markets whose locals are not available.
There isn't enough capacity on Dish or DirectTV to send everyone's locals everywhere.
I was a satellite dish salesman from 1994 to 2000.
On either of the little dish companies, Dish Network and DirecTV, or for that matter the BUDs (big, ugly dishes) you can get broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC or FOX) from various cities around the country. Actually you can't get them because your elected officials kowtow to the National Association of Broadcasters. If you work in the saltellite business you hate the NAB with the same passion as people here hate the RIAA and Disney. Something called the Satellite Home Viewers Act prohibits you from having broadcast channels from any city other than the one you live closest to. The thing about the newspapers is an analogy to explain the unfairness and of prohibiting you from watching NBC from any city other than the one you live near.
Do you get fuzzy recepting off the antenna from the local broadcast stations? Tough. If you live inside a line on a map called a "grade B contour" you cannot get the distant networks. The standard is severe. For example, here in Missouri, people who live 75 miles west of St. Louis as the crow flies out in the sticks who get crappy reception with big, expensive rooftop antennas are still prohibited from getting distand locals. Very few people in this country live outside the grade signal. Unless you're in the middle of Montana or someplace like that you are prohibited by law from receiving distant broadcast networks.
The NAB has an unusually powerfull hold on our congress because no politician wants to piss off the TV stations in their district. And since satellite dish owners are a small percentage of the electorate, then our elected scumbags side with the rich and powerfull NAB even though the prohibition on distant broadcast signals is unfair and certainly unconstitutional.
I got very involved writting letters to my congressman and senators and talking to customers about this issue back in '97 and '98 before the last Satellite Home Viewers Act and, at the end of it, became totally disgusted with the politcal process because it is clear that both Republicans and Democrats side with the rich and powerfull against the rights of individuals whenever they can get away with it.
Since getting out of the satellite business I've simply stopped watching TV and that's what I reccomend to you. Read a good book, meet friends at Starbucks for conversation, play the new Jedi Knight game. Screw TV.