[mythtv-users] US Pay-TV loses subscribers for the first time ever

[Brian Wood]

On Monday, August 23, 2010 02:31:26 pm Ben Kamen wrote:
> On 8/23/2010 3:27 PM, Brian Wood wrote:
> > IF you live in an area with decent reception of several channels, and
> > have an antenna system that can deal with it.
> > 
> > In my market here I have precisely ONE OTA channel available, and I don't
> > watch CBS much, so it's pretty much useless.
> > 
> > We used to be able to get the Denver stations with a good antenna, but
> > that went bye-bye with the move to digital. My "improved" situation went
> > from 7 or 8 channels to 1. Thank-You US Government.
> 
> Yikes.
> 
> Fair enough, except for those in the boonies.
> 
> Although, I would think that your local municipality could arm-twist the
> local CATV provider to cough up OTA's on the line for something cheap.
> (Although I agree, is that really reasonable to pay $11 (comcast) for
> something that should be free?) In your case, you'd go from 1 back to 8..
> but I agree it seems unfair.

We have a classic Catch-22. If the stations were "significantly viewed" via OTA in this area, the local CATV outfit would be 
required to carry them, but since they are no longer "significantly viewed" (because it's impossible), they are not 
required to do so.

Of course the stations are not blameless, they could opt for must-carry status (if they were significantly viewed, which 
they aren't), but they want to charge carriage fees, which of course the local CATV outfit won't pay, and would just pass 
along if they were forced to.

But don't worry, I'm told everything will be great when our CATV provider (Bresnan) sells out to Cablevision soon (already 
announced).

I'm sure Cablevision will immediately remedy the situation, they are such a public-spirited altruistic outfit.