I guess owning Time Warner media didn’t really help out that much. No more than Comcast owning NBC Universal.
2020 Price Increase for DirecTV & U-Verse TV
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I think that retransmission consent was introduced with the 1992 cable act.
Prior to that I believe there was a form of must carry.
I know that in the 80s for TVRO and some cable affiliates, PT24 and Netlink (TCI) uplinked WBBM, WABC, and WXIA, and the Denver locals just as a common carrier, without necessarily having their consent. Same with United Video and WGN and EMI with WOR and WSBK.
I believe there was some form of must carry for cable prior to the 1992 act, but no retransmission consent.
Prior to that I believe there was a form of must carry.
I know that in the 80s for TVRO and some cable affiliates, PT24 and Netlink (TCI) uplinked WBBM, WABC, and WXIA, and the Denver locals just as a common carrier, without necessarily having their consent. Same with United Video and WGN and EMI with WOR and WSBK.
I believe there was some form of must carry for cable prior to the 1992 act, but no retransmission consent.
I’m sure someone can prove me wrong, but I don’t think cell phone bills have gotten much cheaper, it’s just how it’s presented. It used to be higher monthly service rate and a 2 year contract subsidizing a flagship phone for $200. Now it’s a lower monthly rate with $1000+ phones, or monthly financing for $30-45 for a flagship phone. My first ever cell phone plan in 2002 was a Nextel family plan with two phones with unlimited talk, text and walkie talkie for $190/month. Data wasn’t a thing back then obviously, later they charged $5/line for Nextel Wireless Web. Take my current T-Mobile plan at $120 for two lines, add in $60+ for financing, and the difference isn’t that much.
Plus I refuse to finance a phone, I paid upfront for my last five phones since contract subsidies went away. The thousands of dollars I wasted on little toys that spend most of their time sitting in my unoccupied car, or face down on my desk. It was a waste. I’ll keep my current phone until it dies and then go back to a flip phone.
I mostly watch Netflix/DisneyPlus and ESPN plus, streaming nowadays it’s the way to go, I rarely watch live tv other than my Pats on Sundays.
The must-carry law has been in existence since 1972 for cable companies and only applies to full power local stations. When the FCC opened up the options of the locals in 1992 they have to either elect "must-carry" status (and forgo any compensation) or request compensation (retransmission consent) like a cable/satellite TV channel. Non-commercial stations and public stations (i.e. PBS member stations) are not allowed to chose retransmission consent and must elect "must-carry" status.
DirecTV, Dish and Orby are not required to carry locals in any DMA however if they carry at least 1 single local in a DMA they have to offer them all.
Thanks for the additional information about must carry.
I remembered reading something about legislation in the early 70’s regarding cable and must carry, but it has been long ago when I read about it.
You may choose Directv but ATT may not choose you for much longer. They are doing their best to push people off form satellite to streaming. They consider satellite a legacy service whose days are numberfed.
Yes I do agree and also going to stick with Directv. It's a known fact that for example owners of local tv stations are overcoming soft advertising revenues by increasing retransmisison fees. It defiantly is getting out of hand. Programmers say MPVD's will fold and pay insane rates for their networks knowing if they don't subscribers will become unsubscribers. Pay tv companies want to tell the programmers to get lost knowing their channels would potentially not be seen by millions of subscribers and to take what we will pay you. The pay tv providers are not totally free from guilt though. They just like to create bogus "fees" to help offset those increased programming costs and generate more revenue.
It's a vicious cycle that in the long run just screws us over.
Here's an article on it.
deadline.com
AT&T Sets DirecTV And U-Verse Price Hikes In 2020, Citing Higher Program Costs
AT&T plans a round of price hikes for some customers of its DirecTV satellite and U-verse cable services in January 2020.
deadline.com
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