[opendtv] Re: Cable must carry
- From: "johnwillkie" <johnwillkie@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 8 Jul 2007 12:30:48 -0700
Tom;
Infomercials work because otherwise, they wouldn't air for long.
You can't second-guess the market. Nobody forces you to watch infomercials,
and nobody forces you to watch TV.
There is no question of who decides to carry a particular television event:
the broadcaster controls their channel(s), and the cable company can control
only a few of their channels.
Many common cable channels have a higher percentage of infomercials than do
commercial broadcasters.
This issue is not about carriage of a particular 'event' (aka television
program). This is an argument about the carriage on cable of channels that
non-cable subscribers get for free. To try to atomize it down to individual
events is to engage in obfuscation and tomfoolerly.
I won't deal with your last paragraph: you're off my planet.
John Willkie
-----Mensaje original-----
De: opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] En
nombre de Tom Barry
Enviado el: Sunday, July 08, 2007 4:56 AM
Para: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Asunto: [opendtv] Re: Cable must carry
I'm agreed cable companies should probably pass on supplemental PSIP
info and should not have to pass null pids.
But that still leaves the question of who gets to decide upon whether to
carry a paid for televangelist or infomercial channel. Obviously some
broadcasters do carry such material, and get paid for it. And obviously
some cable companies do also, also for a fee.
Now assume I had an endless supply of infomercial material and was
willing to pay to get it aired. I could go try to purchase time from
the cable company or I could try to find some broadcaster that had a
spare sub-channel being aired on cable under multi-must-carry, if that
rule actually existed. What possible purpose would be served by taking
that revenue and pricing decision from the cable company, the actual
vendor, and instead giving it to some broadcaster? To me that
constitutes an unlawful taking of property without even giving any
apparent public benefit.
- Tom
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