Rants, Raves, and Praise → Re: [Rant] Must carry and clear Qam

OTA channels have a business model with income based on advertising. If a cable company carries the signals they reach more consumers thus they can charge more for advertising. Why should they be able to demand compensation from the cable company for carrying their signal? Originally the FCC had a mandate that cable companies were required to carry the local channels and could do so without paying compensation to the channels. Then some of the big local channels decided maybe they could make money off of this so they working through lobbyists at the FCC to change the requirements. Now, the consumers are the losers because we have to pay for the local channels twice, once in our cable bill and a 2nd time because we are forced to watch their advertising! Of course the consumers don't have lobbyists so the FCC will never change back to their original model.

The law was changed starting in the fall of 1993. But at the time the cable companies flat out refused to pay money to re-transmit a signal that was free over the air. Disney negotiated the requirement to carry ESPN2 in order to get permission to retransmit ABC. NBC got some special consideration for their cable channels. CBS got nothing because they owned no cable channels (even today they only own Showtime).

Over the last 20 years the networks have instituted plans to secure much more financial compensation for the right to re-transmit. You are only hearing about it now because the negotiations are making the news.

A station can still opt for "must carry status", but they forego their right to request any compensation, financial or other considerations. So basically only local news channels, religious channels, and government stations along with PBS opt for "must carry". Because clearly if they asked for money, the cable companies would just drop them. It is the final group of stations that I feel the cable companies should not scramble so you can put a TV in a classroom or in a public area or a kitchen and still get the news without a set top box or an antenna.

Starting in November 2012 the Fcc changed the law so that the cable companies were permitted to scramble local stations. Before that they could not scramble a local station, regardless of it's "must carry status". The cable companies got around that by not telling customers that they could get local channels without a set top box. Officially it was a capability that they did not support.

I am appalled that the Fcc gave in to this request, especially since they require all TV's to be manufactured with a QAM tuner which is now useless.

That business model is a thing of the past. You simply can't get enough eyes on one channel for 23 hours of prime time to make money. DVR's and fast forwarding are not helping.

The advertising money does not help much with contract negotiations. If the actors and their agents know that The Big Bang Theory makes $132 million per year in advertising dollars, they find it much easier to negotiate salary jumps from their current $8.4 million apiece.

Michael Hall is paid about $10 million for Dexter on Showtime. CBS makes money selling subscriptions to Showtime, but there are a number of series and movies available. Showtime has revenue of roughly $1 billion per year.

The agent negotiating for the actor has to produce evidence that a certain number of people only get Showtime because they like Dexter. But it is a much more complex argument. Most people get Showtime for multiple reasons.

I believe that Ashton Kutcher's salary of $16.5 million is the highest presently for any TV actor. Forbes says he makes $24 million per year, but that includes his pay for movies.

Ultimately, I don't think an actor on cable TV will ever makes as much as the top salaries on broadcast. It is more difficult to show the direct correlation in earnings.