[telecom] Networks Threaten To Pull Channels Off The Air If Aereo & Dish Win Lawsuits

[Monty Solomon]

Hilarious And Ridiculous: Networks Threaten To Pull Channels Off The
Air If Aereo & Dish Win Lawsuits

by Mike Masnick
Mon, Apr 8 2013

The entertainment industry has a long, long history of claiming that
if copyright law doesn't go their way, they'll all go out of
business. It's the adult version of "if you don't do it my way, I'm
taking my ball and going home." If court cases don't go their way, or
if the law isn't changed, we've been told over and over and over
again for the last century (and more frequently in the last two
decades) that the industry will take its ball and go home, because
they won't create under such awful circumstances (even if those
circumstances really aren't particularly different than they've
operated under for years). The latest? First, Fox's COO, Chase Carey,
claims that if they lose the Aereo case, they might shut down Fox,
the network TV channel, and move all its content to cable TV channels.

..

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130408/12161722625/hilarious-ridiculous-networks-threaten-to-pull-channels-off-air-if-aereo-dish-win-lawsuits.shtml

[Neal McLain]

> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130408/12161722625/hilarious-ridic...

If CBS and FOX go cable-only, do they really think their affiliate
stations are just going to turn in their licenses and go off the air?
There are plenty of other second-tier networks that would jump at the
chance to grab a former FOX or CBS channel. Possibilities are
endless: Bounce TV, This TV, Ion Television, Retro Television Network,
foreign language, religious, home shopping. It's also possible that
some current cable channel (CNN for example) would turn itself into a
broadcast network. Never underestimate Ted Turner.

Furthermore, if CBS and FOX go cable only, they lose all the cushy
perks their affiliates got under the 1992 Cable Act. No more mandatory
cable carriage, no more retransmission-consent, no more government-
mandated geographic monopolies, no more mandatory access to the basic-
cable tier. From the cable TV operator's point of view, they'll become
just two more advertising-supported video feeds competing for channel
space in an already-crowded market.

But their former affiliates will still have those perks!

Of course CBS and FOX could still try to play these same tricks as
cable-only channels, but they would be doing so in the free level-
playing-field market without the big stick of the Cable Act on its
side. The cable companies have ample reason so play tough if no other
reason than to seek revenge for years of abuse by the networks.

All that said, I think this whole discussion is premature. The
decision that led to the current discussion was a 2-1 vote by a three-
judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The lone
dissenter, Judge Denny Chin, wrote a vigorous dissent. The
broadcasters will surely request a rehearing en banc at the Court of
Appeals, and the loser in that case will surely appeal to the Supreme
Court. The final decision is years away.

Neal McLain
aka "Texas Cable Guy" in the comment section of the techdirt article.

[Garrett Wollman]

In article <73b8fe9b-6fa5-4bf3...@w3g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,

Neal McLain <nmclain.r...@and-this-too.annsgarden.com> wrote:

>If CBS and FOX go cable-only, do they really think their affiliate
>stations are just going to turn in their licenses and go off the air?

I think they don't care about their affiliates, but are looking at
their O&O stations as parts of a potentially lucrative
spectrum-repacking deal.

>There are plenty of other second-tier networks that would jump at the
>chance to grab a former FOX or CBS channel. Possibilities are
>endless: Bounce TV, This TV, Ion Television, Retro Television Network,

None of those pay enough to justify the electric bill.

>foreign language, religious, home shopping.

Those can be lucrative, and are generally the stations that elect
must-carry anyway.

>Furthermore, if CBS and FOX go cable only, they lose all the cushy
>perks their affiliates got under the 1992 Cable Act. No more mandatory
>cable carriage,

That's fine by them, since they weren't depending on must-carry
anyway. They were depending on their NFL and other sports rights.
(Murdoch, for his part, has been quietly accumulating sports rights
over the past few years, because he thinks six national
general-interest cable sports networks just aren't enough and plans to
launch a seventh later this year from the remnants of SPEED.) Fox and
CBS both think their programming is valuable enough to consumers that
they could get at least as favorable a deal from the big-five MSOs
(and anyone who isn't one of the big five is too small to count) and
the two satellite companies.

>no more retransmission-consent,

See above.

>no more government-mandated geographic monopolies,

A national service doesn't have any use for that anyway.

>no more mandatory access to the basic- cable tier.

See above.

>But their former affiliates will still have those perks!

But they won't have programming anyone (other than little old ladies
on Social Security, who aren't the most lucrative advertising market
out there) has the slightest interest in.

I've believed for a long time that broadcast television is
functionally obsolete, and will be gone (at least as a mainstream
commercial offering) early in the next decade. It's just a huge waste
of energy, and if the executives weren't mired in the sunk-cost
fallacy, they'd have seen that and gotten rid of it already.

-GAWollman

--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wol...@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993

[danny burstein]

In <73b8fe9b-6fa5-4bf3...@w3g2000yqb.googlegroups.com> Neal McLain <nmclain.r...@and-this-too.annsgarden.com> writes:

>If CBS and FOX go cable-only, do they really think their affiliate
>stations are just going to turn in their licenses and go off the air?
>There are plenty of other second-tier networks that would jump at the
>chance to grab a former FOX or CBS channel. Possibilities are
>endless: Bounce TV, This TV, Ion Television, Retro Television Network,
>foreign language, religious, home shopping. It's also possible that
>some current cable channel (CNN for example) would turn itself into a
>broadcast network. Never underestimate Ted Turner.

I'm pretty sure I'm remembering, or maybe hallucinating, a period
where CNN was carried by some over-the-air stations during
the late night hours.

Anybody else recall that? Thanks.

--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dan...@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

[Mark Smith]

I don't remember CNN, but Bloomberg was often carried overnight by
broadcasters willing to run tower power, but no content. It must be fairly
cheap.

Mark L. Smith
markl...@yahoo.com
http://smith.freehosting.net
Http://marksfolkmusicphotos.shutterfly.com


________________________________
From: danny burstein <dan...@panix.com>
To:
telecomdigestmode...@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2013
11:00 PM
Subject: Re: Networks Threaten To Pull Channels Off The Air If Aereo
& Dish Win Lawsuits [telecom]

[Neal McLain]

On Apr 16, 7:59 pm, woll...@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) wrote:

> Neal McLain wrote:
>> There are plenty of other second-tier networks that would jump at the
>> chance to grab a former FOX or CBS channel. Possibilities are
>> endless: Bounce TV, This TV, Ion Television, Retro Television Network,
>
> None of those pay enough to justify the electric bill.

>> foreign language, religious, home shopping.
>
> Those can be lucrative, and are generally the stations that elect
> must-carry anyway.

If you were a big broadcast group owner like Belo or Sinclair, what
would you do if your affiliated network announced that it would not
renew its affiliation agreement? Look for another network? Band
together with other group owners and create a new network? Buy CNN or
some other advertising-supported cable-only channel? Or just sell
your spectrum to the feds and go off the air?

I think the big group owners will survive.

>> Furthermore, if CBS and FOX go cable only, they lose all the cushy
>> perks their affiliates got under the 1992 Cable Act. No more mandatory
>> cable carriage,
>
> That's fine by them, since they weren't depending on must-carry
> anyway. They were depending on their NFL and other sports rights.
> (Murdoch, for his part, has been quietly accumulating sports rights
> over the past few years, because he thinks six national
> general-interest cable sports networks just aren't enough and plans to
> launch a seventh later this year from the remnants of SPEED.) Fox and
> CBS both think their programming is valuable enough to consumers that
> they could get at least as favorable a deal from the big-five MSOs
> (and anyone who isn't one of the big five is too small to count) and
> the two satellite companies.
>
>> no more retransmission-consent,
>
> See above.

I don't think it would be "fine with them" if the cable and sat
companies put sports on a separate tier. Surely you're aware of the
Cablevision v. Viacom Inc. lawsuit in which Cablevision accuses Viacom
of antitrust violations "for forcing it to carry and pay for more than
a dozen 'lesser-watched' channels in order to offer the popular ones
like Nickelodeon and MTV." (http://tinyurl.com/bwmyds4)

Whether or not Cablevision will win this suit is beyond my ability to
foresee, but if Cablevision prevails, the obvious place to start is to
isolate sports onto a separate tier.

Of course, FOX, DISNEY, YES, et al, would flood Capital Hill with
lobbyists. But so would Consumers Union and numerous other "public
interest" groups.

>> no more government-mandated geographic monopolies,
>
> A national service doesn't have any use for that anyway.
>
>> no more mandatory access to the basic- cable tier.
>
> See above.

See above.

>> But their former affiliates will still have those perks!
>
> But they won't have programming anyone (other than little old ladies
> on Social Security, who aren't the most lucrative advertising market
> out there) has the slightest interest in.

I think the big group owners will survive.

> I've believed for a long time that broadcast television is
> functionally obsolete, and will be gone (at least as a mainstream
> commercial offering) early in the next decade. It's just a huge waste
> of energy, and if the executives weren't mired in the sunk-cost
> fallacy, they'd have seen that and gotten rid of it already.

That's exactly what Bill said back in 2009. (http://tinyurl.com/y8nysmy)

At the time, I disagreed with him, citing the power of the NAB. The
NAB may not have as much power as it used to, especially if FOX and
CBS jump ship.

But I still think the big group owners will survive.

Neal McLain

***** Moderator's Note *****

Q. Is the Grasshopper book the earthly manifestation of Jon Postel's soul?
A. See above.

Bill Horne
Moderator