Though we don't hear as much about it now since the battle here concluded, retransmission battles are still going on across the country. Broadcasting & Cable reports on the latest one, in Spokane, Wash.:
"Time Warner puts no value on over-the-air broadcasting," says Brian Brady, Chairman of the Fox affiliates and president of Northwest Broadcasting Corp., which owns KAYU among other stations in Oregon and New York. "They think because it's free, they should have the right to put that signal on their systems and charge the subscribers for it."
Sound familiar?
2 comments:
No, it doesn't.
It does sound familiar...and he's right. Cable has been making money off The Big 4 networks for decades.
The next step is HDTV. Cable companies are offering subscribers "premier" services that will include 10-15 channels of High Def programming. Four of those are The Big Four and the rest are HDNET, DiscoveryHD and the like. These plans are already in place in most of the larger cities.
A majority of the viewing of the "premier" will be on the Big Four...and they are expected to offer up their product for free to the cable companies who will then charge their customers for AN ADDITIONAL "premium" package.
It is unfair--but cable companies have broadcasters over a barrel.
Total viewership is down. Competition for the potential audience is splintered by hundreds of choices on the tube and the web.
Broadcasters can't really afford to bite the bullet and fight the way Nexstar did. It doesn't appear (stock price) that the compensation they are getting was worth their fight.
Sucks to be them.
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