[opendtv] Re: Two articles about sticking it to the TV consumer
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 4 Oct 2009 10:17:43 -0400
At 9:43 AM -0700 10/2/09, dan.grimes@xxxxxxxx wrote:
P.S.: As soon as you charge for entering a National Park, it is no
longer a place for the people but for the privileged. Is this what
our park system is to be? I cannot regularly visit my local
National Park, Lake Mead, with budgeting for it, even as I am
employed. Should the park system be off limits to those who aren't
or struggle to make ends meet?
An interesting observation Dan.
So the reality is that we ALL pay for the National Parks via our
taxes, and we must pay use fees as well if we choose to use the
National Parks. And if we want to stay in a National Park we pay fees
that are competitive with hotels and lodges that are not in the Parks.
Is it worth it?
You decide, but this is clearly a case of the government being in
competition with commercial enterprises while "protecting" some of
our most cherished natural resources.
Compare this with OTA TV.
The resource that is being utilized (protected) is also a highly
valuable "natural" resource. We pay taxes to support some of the
services that are delivered via Free OTA TV, specifically for PBS and
for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. We ALSO pay use fees for
PBS and CPB in the form of donations during fund raising drives -
typically the people who use PBS the most are the ones who donate the
most - and in the form of payments for the programming that is
offered in the competitive markets for packaged media (typically
DVDs).
And then there is commercial broadcasting. These broadcasters pay
noting for the use of the spectrum, only administration fees to
support the FCC. We have allowed the corporations that own OTA TV
stations to monetize the spectrum, placing hundreds of billions of
dollars in valuation on a public resource that they DO NOT OWN.
Seems to me that this is akin to giving every major hotel and condo
development company in the U.S. free land in the National Parks upon
which they can build without ever paying a dime for the land - only
small fees for a license from the National Park Service.
But wait, there is a valuable service being provided to the public - FREE TV.
1. Except that the public broadcast services ARE NOT free.
2. Commercial TV is funded primarily via advertising, the cost of
which is embedded in the products we buy. Not to mention the billions
in profits earned by the media conglomerates.
3. And both the public and corporate users of the spectrum are
totally beholden to the politicians who have granted them this sweet
deal in return for the most effective tool for manipulating public
opinion in the history of mass communications.
Yeah, this is clearly something that needs to be protected!
But wait...
less than 15% of the population uses the Free OTA service, yet the
other 85% are now expected to pay monthly retransmission consent fees
for the content that is offered for "free" OTA.
Here's n interesting editorial suggesting that these fees are
woefully inadequate, and that the rest of us need to be paying about
$3 per month for each commercial TV station delivered by cable or DBS
if we want Free TV to survive:
JESSELL AT LARGE
Is It Time To Dump Compulsory License?
By Harry A. Jessell
TVNewsCheck, Oct 2 2009, 4:04 PM ET
I'm a big believer in John Tupper's remedy for all that ails TV
broadcasting: more money - much more money - from the cable and
satellite operators who have built their multi-billion-dollar
businesses on the backs of TV stations and their networks.
http://www.tvnewscheck.com/articles/2009/10/02/daily.8/
By the way, while cable got started HELPING broadcasters reach a
larger audience, they grew and are thriving on programming
alternatives to the broadcasters. This has been so successful that
the TV networks have gobbled up over 90% of all of the non-broadcast
programming services.
Do the media conglomerates really need free spectrum to survive?
Do most of us really care about the limited amount of locally
generated content that FTA TV stations produce, when we can access
most of this information instantly (from both fixed and hand held
devices via the Internet?
Regards
Craig
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