Because you need to let Directv know EXACTLY where the receivers are located so you get the correct local channels. They are not allowed to provide locals that are not in your DMA unless: They are significantly viewed ones, or you have an waiver for the reception of distant nets. It may not be "illegal" like Scott G. says but it's against FCC rules and you could and should be shut down if you give Directv a phony address for different locals or RSN's. If you want another markets locals rather than your own, simple pack up the dish, receiver and your belongings and physically move to a new home, pretty easy isn't it. Both providers need to clamp down on this sort of dishonest activity as it deprives the local station of advertising revenue in YOUR DMA not some other market. Spotbeams help that a bit by limiting choices to a few hundred miles of said "moved" to market.
Why should I care about the advertising revenue of my local affiliates? What does that do for me?
I watch next to nothing on OTA TV networks besides sports and a small handful of primetime shows on CBS and an even smaller handful on Fox. I live in a border area. On cable, I get Buffalo locals only with my cable box, which is what I’m ‘legally’ only allowed to receive. Since my local cable headed serves a handful of rural towns in the next county that qualifies for two sets of locals, subscribers in those towns get both Buffalo and Rochester on their cable boxes, but I can get Rochester locals as well if I hook a coax line directly to the TV via unencrypted QAM. But that’s too messy for me.
For DirecTV, years ago one day I went on Google Maps, found a random plot of open land in an area that qualified for Rochester locals, got an address, called up DirecTV and lied to the CSR and had them change my service address. Do I lose sleep over it, hell no! In November, when I needed my dishes realigned, I called up DirecTV, had them change my service address back to my real address so the tech would be dispatched to the right location, and six months later I am still receiving my ‘moved’ locals, while both my billing and service addresses and 100% correct. Go figure. Saves me the phone call from ‘moving’ back.
Here’s the thing. I don’t want my content to be interrupted by local broadcasters. This past Sunday night was a prime example. I’m watching The Simpson’s on WUTV Fox Buffalo on cable and in the middle of the second to last commercial break WUTV starts experiencing technical difficulties goes to a black screen, goes to the colored bars. So I switch over to DirecTV and watch the last 10 minutes on WUHF Fox Rochester. A few years ago, some whackjob held a few people hostage on one of the local interstates, all of the local media was covering it and doing what they do best, rehash and repeat the same information over and over and over. They continued coverage into primetime. I switched over to DirecTV to watch Big Bang Theory on WROC CBS Rochester. 20+ years ago when ABC/ESPN had NASCAR for the first go around, every year our local ABC affiliate would preempt one of the races for a local telethon. I had a cheap set of rabbit ears that I would dangle out the window in order to pick up a fuzzy WOKR 13 from Roc. The local chicken little media also likes to overhype storms and had preempted programming or did JIP for winter weather. ABC in Rochester also shows the Yankees games that are on WWOR in NYC, we don't get those games in Buffalo.
Like I said, I don’t watch much local TV at all, because quite frankly there is nothing much worth watching on the over the air networks, but the content I do watch, I want it to be there. Also, while I generally don’t care for local news and hardly ever watch it, for three years I used to work three to four days a week in the greater Rochester/Finger Lakes area and it was nice to be able to flip on DirecTV and tune to my illegally received, terms of service breaking, lying, dishonest, yada yada yada ‘moved’ locals to see what I would be in store for the next day.
I’m not trying to justify anything, because I do not care at all about breaking a company’s terms of service. I will do it with a smile on my face. Breaking a companies TOS means just about as much to me as violating that farce called the Digital Millennium Copy Right Act. I just don’t care. I’m sure I broke Apple’s terms of service many times everytime I jailbroke an iPhone when I used to have one.
...
