bay news 9

[korsjs]

longhorn, is bay news 9 exclusive to brighthouse or will verizon be able to have it?

for those who don't know, bay news 9 is a local tv news channel for the tampa area.

 

[thiggin2]

I do believe they are owned by Brighthouse.
Or at least a part of them.

 

[LonghornXP]

I do believe they are owned by Brighthouse.
Or at least a part of them.

Verizon if they wanted to can get a contract for Bay News 9 but that may take a very long time as I don't doubt that Verizon would have to sue that BHN isn't offering it but if they wanted to follow through on it they can and will get it.

Remember no channel can be withheld expect under the terrestrial loophole. This loophole means that it can be withheld from any company that must use a satellite to deliver it or host the channel.

In simple terms because HBO for example and hosted on a satellite and all the companies receive the various HBO feeds via satellite it doesn't fall under that loophole which means it cannot be withheld from any company. So this loophole only applies if no satellite is involved and because BHN keeps Bay News 9 on their system and off of satellites they don't have to offer it to other "satellite" companies. Now Verizon is another story as they can also receive this feed via their fiber network right from the studio which means that Verizon can offer this channel without needing a satellite for anything. This means that Verizon is exempt from this loophole while DirecTV for example isn't as they need to use a satellite to send this channel to their customers.

I know I'm getting a little complex on this but it doesn't seem like many people quite understand how all of this works. Also keep in mind that just because Bright House can't withhold it from Verizon that doesn't mean BHN won't try to either slow the process down and/or just make it not worth the trouble for Verizon.

For example Knology just doesn't want to bother trying to spend money to fight with BHN but that doesn't mean Verizon won't fight for it.

What is nice is that Verizon is exempt from the one and only loophole as they can take in any local based feed via fiber and keep it off of a satellite which is something no satellite company can do. Why do you think the cable companies are fighting so hard against another hard wired provider coming into town. Simple they cannot stop this new company from getting any channel they wanted if this company was willing to fight it out in court for the next year.