I also find it funny that the dispute also affects Showtime and Smithsonian, both channels that viewers pay extra for. Showtime subscribers (at least where I live) pay about $20 a month for the Showtime package, while Smithsonian is part of an HD pack that costs $6 a month. As subscribers are paying CBS for these channels through their cable operator, why should these channels be affected?
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CBS vs TWC
- Thread starter sathman01
- Start date
azumanga said:
in Kansas City, Time Warner is giving Showtime away to keep people away from Google fiber
crackedscreen said:
And, unlike the situation with the CBS O&O's, it seems that ALL Time Warner Internet customers (regardless of whether or not they live in a market where a CBS O&O has been blacked out) have been blocked from accessing full episodes on cbs.com.
nomadcowatbk said:
So much for that, now that Time Warner has lost Showtime.
justthenumbers said:
As mentioned before, DirecTV has taken sides with Time Warner, saying that many of their subscribers have kept cable for internet services, including Time Warner. How soon until CBS's affiliates start complaining about CBS's internet blocking actions, and which direction would CBS take, either to help or to retaliate? I won't be surprised if CBS does anything outlandish like forcing their affiliates to black out their signal (or at least, CBS programming), forcing other stations to black out CBS-distributed programming, or even mandate that retailers and video stores ask for proof of cable or satellite subscription if they what to buy or rent CBS's DVDs. If CBS doesn't do it now, someone else might down the road -- anything to take viewers hostage and make them feel mighty and powerful.
How many, if any, of the impacted CBS stations air the local NFL team's preseason games?
Well, WCBS for one.
crackedscreen said:
To my knowledge it's not illegal. There are those who'd like it to be. ("net neutrality")
_________________________________________________
That part aside... rant mode begins:
Since most people here on R-D seem to be radio types (duh!) and there doesn't seem to be much sympathy for the station side in these disputes.. let me argue their side... (this would be a lot easier if we were talking about a smaller station group
- in fact, Time-Warner is also currently in a retrans dispute with just such a group, Journal Broadcast) Since most of you *are* radio folks.. imagine you're running WXYZZ FM-109, The #1 Hit Music Station with John and Mary in the Morning.
One day, as you're tuning across the dial, you hear John and Mary on the wrong frequency! - they're both on your 109.3 *and* on 87.5.
After further investigation... you learn there's a new station in town, KLMNO 87.5 The Hill. And they've decided they can't possibly come up with enough money to hire a morning crew that can sell airtime in competition with your John and Mary show. So.. they rebroadcast your signal, through a time compressor* so they can insert & sell their own spots.
As you ask around your station, you learn *nobody* has given KLMNO permission to rebroadcast your morning show. Nobody has signed any papers; there's no grand bargain between KLMNO's Crowded Channel Inc. ownership and your owners, Cirrus Clouds LLC.. But when you talk to Legal, you learn they don't *need* your permission; the Two CHR Stations Per Market Act of 1969 gives any radio station licensed less than a year blanket permission to rebroadcast the programs of any older station.
KLMNO is using programming *your station* paid to produce, in order to attract an audience and, by extension, customers. In the process, their salespeople are competing with yours -- basically, your John and Mary in the Morning show is competing with itself, with some of the competing revenue going somewhere else & KLMNO taking it to the bank. At least, in the short term you are still able to increase the rates on the John and Mary show due to the small increased audience hearing your spots over KLMNO.
But someday, after enough people are in the habit of listening to John and Mary over KLMNO (which is, after all, more convenient at 87.5 on the dial), they'll cut you loose, using the money they made simulcasting your show & the audience that's used to listening to your programming at 87.5 instead of 107.3 to launch their own successful morning show.
Sounds rather far-fetched.
But that's EXACTLY, more or less, what the situation has been with television. TV stations were forced to allow cable to simulcast their signals. Despite the knowledge cable would import distant signals by satellite. (and before that, microwave) Despite the knowledge cable would create new channels, not available OTA. Despite the knowledge these channels would compete with broadcasters for sales revenue.
TV broadcasters were FORCED to allow cable to use the OTA signals to compete with themselves.
Now, I'm not arguing that we should have banned cable, limited the competition, and forced viewers to live with five channels of OTA television. (although some days I have to think programming would be better if we had
) (please note the smileys!)What I am arguing.. is that if cable operators are using broadcasters' signals to make a buck -- or really, quite a few bucks -- broadcasters are *owed* a cut of that revenue.
The TV programming is broadcast free of charge *for the private enjoyment of the viewing audience*. (I'm betting you've heard that disclaimer during a sporting event. It applies to *all* TV programming, OTA or otherwise) It is not broadcast to allow some other party to resell it without permission. Try recording music off the radio & selling the recordings online. See how long it takes the RIAA to put you out of business
Someone else posted a list on a different thread a week or two ago. The list showed what cable operators pay, per subscriber, for the various non-OTA channels. ESPN led the list - if I recall properly it was on the order of $5.50. You are paying $5.50 per month for ESPN, whether you watch it or not. (My mother, who doesn't know what ESPN *is*, pays $5.50/month for it.)
CBS is asking for a few cents. That's *nothing* to your cable operator. Especially when you consider that far more people are watching CBS than ESPN. Really, your local CBS affiliate deserves $10/month or more. Luckily for your pocketbook, they're not that greedy. Unluckily for your pocketbook, your local cable operator probably is.
* such devices actually exist, as has been discussed recently on another thread.
w9wi said:
No, this is not what "net neutrality" is. Proposed "net neutrality" regulations prevent ISPs (Time Warner, Verizon, Xfinity, ...) from treating traffic preferentially based on who the traffic is bound for.
Example: Imagine Comcast decides its video-on-demand service is being damaged by Netflix. So Comcast reduces the priority of Netflix traffic, meaning more stalls in the Netflix video. Net neutrality regulations would prevent such treatment.
R
Rick Rose 2.0
Guest
More reason to not even consider paid tv. You can blame the greedy cable companies or the greedy tv stations but in the end cable subscribers get screwed in the deal. Paying free over the air TV stations to retransmit their signal only adds to the bill and in the process screws potential audience via cable. Being forced to pay over 5 bucks a month for ESPN just for having cable is rude but giving in and paying for TV is a choice. Local stations trying to make the cable company look bad for not paying them for tv that anyone in the market can pick up for free with an antenna is misleading. I am not defending the station owners or cable company owners but the guaranteed loser is the customer.
E
editthis
Guest
No one forced the locals on to cable. They wanted to go there. The choice always has been MUST CARRY status or RETRANS FEE. For years and years the locals wanted to be on cable for a greater proliferation and reach of their signal. ie more ratings more $$$, yes we do have cordcutters in the 21st century but it's nowhere near going back to digital rabbit ears. Heck my NBC affiliate puts the bear MINIMUM into their transmitter. They're all about the cable and the satellite and when their parent company got into a retrans fight and were dropped for a month they were screwed. Advertisers left en masse and they still have yet to completely recover nearly 3 years later.
PTBoardOp: I would suggest what CBS is (apparently) doing is the other side of the same coin.
The must-carry/retrans fee choice is relatively recent. Must-carry was first enacted in 1965, tied with mandatory free retransmission consent. (TV stations were required to allow their signals to be carried without compensation)
At the time, network-affiliated OTA TV stations could have driven cable out of business by denying consent to carry their signals. In a time when all cable had to offer was one out-of-town superstation and an automated weather channel, any system that didn't carry ABC, CBS, and NBC would be out of business in short order.
By the time the rules were changed to allow for retransmission-consent fees (1992) cable was sufficiently entrenched that broadcasters could no longer drive cable out of business with excessive retrans fees.
Indeed, OTA TV would be far better off today if they had gone ahead & driven urban cable operators out of business in the 1960s. Don't think they weren't already thinking that 50 years ago. (there would have been no need for mandatory free retransmission consent if broadcasters had *wanted* to be on cable in their core communities, near the transmitter) I'm betting today there are a good many broadcasters who wish they'd fought a tougher battle on the 1965 legislation.
But really, the bottom line is, cable is using OTA stations' signals to make a tidy profit. Hmmm. Maybe instead of retransmission consent payments, CBS should just pick Monday Night Football off their cable box & send it to their affiliates. After all, MNF *is* being broadcast to the general public, surely CBS is within their rights to use the football broadcasts to make a buck?
editthis said:
The must-carry/retrans fee choice is relatively recent. Must-carry was first enacted in 1965, tied with mandatory free retransmission consent. (TV stations were required to allow their signals to be carried without compensation)
At the time, network-affiliated OTA TV stations could have driven cable out of business by denying consent to carry their signals. In a time when all cable had to offer was one out-of-town superstation and an automated weather channel, any system that didn't carry ABC, CBS, and NBC would be out of business in short order.
By the time the rules were changed to allow for retransmission-consent fees (1992) cable was sufficiently entrenched that broadcasters could no longer drive cable out of business with excessive retrans fees.
Indeed, OTA TV would be far better off today if they had gone ahead & driven urban cable operators out of business in the 1960s. Don't think they weren't already thinking that 50 years ago. (there would have been no need for mandatory free retransmission consent if broadcasters had *wanted* to be on cable in their core communities, near the transmitter) I'm betting today there are a good many broadcasters who wish they'd fought a tougher battle on the 1965 legislation.
But really, the bottom line is, cable is using OTA stations' signals to make a tidy profit. Hmmm. Maybe instead of retransmission consent payments, CBS should just pick Monday Night Football off their cable box & send it to their affiliates. After all, MNF *is* being broadcast to the general public, surely CBS is within their rights to use the football broadcasts to make a buck?
Add the Patriots, Cowboys, and Steelers to the NFL teams whose preseason games are affected: http://www.awfulannouncing.com/2013...tml?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
I don't think the issue is the boards being populated with "radio people" at all. I think the boards are populated with people seeing free-to-air broadcast TV dying a slow death even as it goes through the potential beginnings of a renaissance, in part because of its own efforts to kill itself.
So you get the laws changed so they have to pay you to use your programming, and now all of a sudden you PREFER if people listen on 87.5, the signal you don't own or control, because you get more money that way. So much so that if anyone comes along with a way to make it easier to listen to your programming without being counted as an 87.5 listener, especially in areas the weaker 109.3 signal doesn't reach, you accuse THEM of "pirating" your signal and threaten to take your own signal off the air and force everyone to listen on 87.5, which, keep in mind, you still don't own or control. Now say that you have to pay a regular fee in order to unscramble the 87.5 signal - it runs all the same ads but 109.3 now gets a cut of the subscription fee, which is why they prefer if you subscribe.w9wi said:Since most people here on R-D seem to be radio types (duh!) and there doesn't seem to be much sympathy for the station side in these disputes.. let me argue their side... (this would be a lot easier if we were talking about a smaller station group
Since most of you *are* radio folks.. imagine you're running WXYZZ FM-109, The #1 Hit Music Station with John and Mary in the Morning.
One day, as you're tuning across the dial, you hear John and Mary on the wrong frequency! - they're both on your 109.3 *and* on 87.5.
After further investigation... you learn there's a new station in town, KLMNO 87.5 The Hill. And they've decided they can't possibly come up with enough money to hire a morning crew that can sell airtime in competition with your John and Mary show. So.. they rebroadcast your signal, through a time compressor* so they can insert & sell their own spots.
As you ask around your station, you learn *nobody* has given KLMNO permission to rebroadcast your morning show. Nobody has signed any papers; there's no grand bargain between KLMNO's Crowded Channel Inc. ownership and your owners, Cirrus Clouds LLC.. But when you talk to Legal, you learn they don't *need* your permission; the Two CHR Stations Per Market Act of 1969 gives any radio station licensed less than a year blanket permission to rebroadcast the programs of any older station.
KLMNO is using programming *your station* paid to produce, in order to attract an audience and, by extension, customers. In the process, their salespeople are competing with yours -- basically, your John and Mary in the Morning show is competing with itself, with some of the competing revenue going somewhere else & KLMNO taking it to the bank. At least, in the short term you are still able to increase the rates on the John and Mary show due to the small increased audience hearing your spots over KLMNO.
But someday, after enough people are in the habit of listening to John and Mary over KLMNO (which is, after all, more convenient at 87.5 on the dial), they'll cut you loose, using the money they made simulcasting your show & the audience that's used to listening to your programming at 87.5 instead of 107.3 to launch their own successful morning show.
I don't think the issue is the boards being populated with "radio people" at all. I think the boards are populated with people seeing free-to-air broadcast TV dying a slow death even as it goes through the potential beginnings of a renaissance, in part because of its own efforts to kill itself.
The latest offer: TWC turns over a channel to CBS' O&Os and sells it a la carte, with CBS pocketing the entire take from that channel. Meanwhile, CBS reinstates the other channels while all concerned hammer things out. (I think I got that right).
Bring in the little girl from the Capital One ads.
Story: TheWrap
Bring in the little girl from the Capital One ads.
Story: TheWrap
blizzard59 said:
All of them...WCBS with the Jets, KTVT with the Cowboys, and KCBS with the San Diego Chargers.
I've said before that Time Warner needs CBS more than CBS needs Time Warner...and the first weekend of post-blackout ratings shows that to be true: http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/494912-CBS_TW_Cable_Dispute_Ratings_Effect_Minimal.php
Time Warner will cave in a few weeks. If not, they will lose subscribers...and then cave.
Time Warner will cave in a few weeks. If not, they will lose subscribers...and then cave.
Rick Rose 2.0 said:
True. Many people can receive the signal free without cable. However, the cable companies TAKE that free signal and CHARGE YOU for it. If you're gonna sell my product, I get a cut of that.
The overwhelming majority of "Cable"viewing is still on Broadcast TV stations. It's not even close. But the majority of your cable dollars go to channels that don't get watched much at all.
But there's blame to go around: the companies that own local TV stations may use those stations as leverage to get more money for the cable channels they often own. TWC's filing today with the FCC indicates that may be the case here: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/twc-fcc-cbs-should-have-599636 .
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