AVS Official Topic - The FCC & Broadcast Spectrum - Page 50

Originally Posted by willscary

On a side note, I used to have cable (for 22 years) and I stopped subscribing when they raised my rates by over 150% in one quick step! You see, I used to pay $99/month for TV, internet and phone. One day, they raised rates to $155/month. I dropped TV and my phone and internet dropped to $65. So, my cable TV only cost was $34 and rose to $89, in package.

If you want to complain about being forced to pay for these channels, then call your provider and tell them to eliminate the channel. When I subscribed, I would have loved to have only the few channels I watched, instead of the 150 crappy channels that were forced on me. In the end, that is why I stopped subscribing.

Originally Posted by Sammer

While I don't agree that retransmission consent is extortion, I will agree with you that the current must-carry election / retransmission consent hybrid system is broken. Some might say it's the best of both worlds but from the perspective of television viewers it is becoming the worst of both worlds. Within the service contour either must-carry or retransmission consent should probably be eliminated entirely for all full service broadcast stations.

Originally Posted by justalurker

4) OPT OUT for systems. Give cable systems the right to not carry locals (as long as they carry no locals) making it "carry one carry all" like satellite.

5) OPT OUT for stations. Allow stations to completely opt out of this carriage system ... such a choice would apply to carriage by ALL cable and satellite providers. Stations could no longer choose to be carried by one provider and leverage carriage against the next provider. Be carried on on be carried on all. (Except MATV systems in defined complexes such as apartments where individual antennas would not serve all residents equally).

Originally Posted by Trip in VA

I know justalurker well enough to know he's not an enemy and shouldn't be treated as such. Hopefully we can move back to the discussion at hand.
- Trip

Originally Posted by joblo

i agree that spectrum should be licensed rather than auctioned.


So what?

Look, suppose i call in an order to a pizza store that delivers, they charge my credit card and agree to deliver to my address. 15 minutes later, i get a call that they are broken down a couple of blocks from my house, and they can’t deliver the pizza. So i tell them that’s ok, you’re almost here, i’ll send my kid out to pick it up. I give my kid a couple of bucks for his trouble. Does he owe the pizza place a cut?

No, because the pizza was already paid for.

Now, sure, it might be nice if i also sent along a tip for the driver’s trouble, but i could also rationalize not tipping because the service was poor.

Point is, there is no automatic entitlement to a cut just because someone else benefits or profits from your work. It all depends on the terms of the deal.

And the terms of the deal with broadcasters were that we provide free spectrum and they use it to deliver free programming. The deal was not that they deliver programming half of the way, to only half of the people, and then take a share of the revenue from other folks who finish their job.

since when is pizza protected by copyright laws? You really don't understand anything about this, do you? Pizza is not copyrighted. Music, art, photography and tv programming is! You have no argument here!


wrong. I already covered that. wrong? No. I have lived through several instances where cable and dbs were out as well as land line and cellular phone services, yet i could always listen to local radio and watch local tv. Even in the case where one local station might be down, there are others that are working. Cite me one example where all broadcast tv and radio were out and any other system was available to transmit information to the masses. Just one. (oh, and don't bring ham radio into this because they are also around in times of catastrophic failure, but can not quickly reach the masses as very few people actually have access to a ham unit) i want one instance where broadcast failed thousands of people but cable, dbs, land or cellular was able to alert the thousands of the emergency. Just one instance of your phone ringing telling you and each of your neighbors and townspeople that an emergency had occurred and how you were to proceed.

and again, wrong. Many local markets have cable-only local news channels. Not common, perhaps, but certainly not impossible. huh? You don't believe that local channels providing breaking news and weather reports during an emergency can be likened to the ebs, but you bring up the possibility of having a local news only channel? Perhaps you were tired? Your response maked no sense. Here was your question: "why should we, the public, most of whom are not receiving the same free service you are, maintain laws and regulations to continue that service, just for you?"

my answer clearly gave you an answer and you rebut with a statement about cable only local news?

that’s anecdotal.

Cox cable service here was extremely unreliable until they rebuilt their system with fiber to local pods. Since then, i don’t think i’ve seen a complete cable outage, even during numerous power outages, and it’s probably been at least a decade now.

Otoh, there are local tv stations whose transmitters go off air every time we have a major storm.

Point being, no one technology is inherently more reliable than any other.

You still haven’t offered anything that ota provides that cannot be matched with other technology. so, when the power goes out, you still have cable? Strange. Where i live, when the power goes out, so does the cable, even if i power up the generator. The cool thing is that when i turn on the generator, i have always found dozens of radio stations and at least several tv stations broadcasting. Yup, one broadcaster might be down, but not all 14 of them from both dmas that i receive. I can't say that i have ever been unable to get information streamed to my home, and i can say that all services other than broadcast tv and radio have been unavailable, many times.


the “product” in commercial broadcasting was not supposed to be content. The product was supposed to audience, and the customers were supposed to advertisers. wrong again. Newspapers were not created for the distribution of advertisements. They were created as a way of getting important information to the masses. Books and periodicles were printed for informational, editorial and entertainment purposes. Advertisements and the special advertisement sections came later and now we even have entire printed "buyer's guides" that have nothing in them but advertisements. Tv followed the same path. Once the medium was produced and successful, then, and only then, were advertisers willing to spend money to tout their product using the medium. Now we have entire channels dedicated to selling. The medium always comes first. If successful, then advertisers will look at it as a medium to sell their product. The internet is a current case in point.

the point of free market capitalism is not that free markets are good and state planning is evil. The point is that the decentralized decision-making in competitive markets yields better resource allocation. But when you take out the decentralized decision-making, as the current tv delivery system does, then the benefits of the market are lost, and you actually end up worse off than with government planning. this statement is completely wrong. The theory of a free market economy is that property rights are voluntarily traded between buyers and sellers with an exchange rate that is decides solely by the two parties with no interaction or coercion by any third party. This means that there is no government interference in any way, no threats or violence from any party, including the buyer and seller. Both parties engage in the trade simply because each side feels that what they are receiving is worth an equal or greater value that what they are giving. This is the most basic form of economics and is usually described as "supply and demand". The government has regulated this industry since its inception. You have no reason to speak of this subject using the tem "free market economy". In fact, it is currently a a market of mixed economy and if the government sells off the licensed spectrum permanently and without just cause, it would then be considered a market of command economy, which borders on dictatorship, where the king sells off whatever he sees fit for his own personal gain.

Selling the spectrum for permanent use is wrong, and it is about to happen!

that is, if abc, cbs, et. Al., and their affiliates are not viable on their own, without a cut from other services’ profits, i would prefer that we simply have a tax on pay services, which would be itemized on our bills like peg fees, and used to keep otherwise non-viable broadcasters in business. That would be honest. more taxes? Let's just create the mythical communist utopia, where we give everything to the government and let them give it out "each according to his need". Of course, this will only work if you can find an entire group of people who can honestly give out the goods without keeping a large amount for themselves.

of course, when the public doesn’t think the service deserves subsidization, it’s difficult to get a tax passed. It’s much easier just to back your truck up to the bank vault in the middle of the night. And that’s why we have retrans consent. So that the broadcasters’ extortion is effectively hidden from public view and understanding. wrong again on subsidization. The government does have a role here because way back when this specrum was first looked at, the intelligent people back then understood that spectrum is a limited resource and needed to be protected and licensed for use. The current administration has decided that it is better to "take the money and run" by selling it off permanently.

Wrong onwhy we have retrans fees. Again, we are dealing with copyrighted material. Go look up the definition of copyrights and how and why they are protected.

the lack of a truly free market for tv content delivery is why content prices have been rising well above inflation rates for years, and have continued to do so even in the midst of a recession. false. Spectrum needs government protection as a limited...actually a finite resource, hence the mixed economy. The reason prices have risen is that while the government has, in the past, protected spectrum, they are at the same time failing to regulate pricing. Cable has always been run as a public utility, giving them monopolistic rights. Dbs has a sort of monopoly (really a duopoly) due to the cost and complexity of satellites. These resellers are simply maximizing profits by setting prices at whatever the market will bear.

well, congratulations!

now that’s actually a reasonable argument. First one i’ve seen in while.

And on that positive note, i’m outta here for tonight...