Scarce Times for FTA - Sports Bars to Blame?

[Lone Cloud]

As I look around the cities I pass through, I see a BUD on maybe one out of 200 homes. I would not be surprised if only one or two on average actually work. This has always been the true FTA loophole. Because our numbers are so tiny, it's hard for the providers to justify expensive encryption.

Except, that is, for bars. I would say that maybe 10 percent of the bars have big dishes - around here anyway. Of course the customers watching there vary in number from a handful to hundreds. Probably this is the major cause for provider concern over their signals. I doubt it's individual FTA-ers. It's the folks who profit off of the free signals (without sending any cut of the profits to the providers).

Times are scarce in FTA right now. History - gone. NatGeo- gone, CWs - gone. BIO- gone. Etc. I am thinking that, when the issue is discussed in board rooms, It's bars that cause the concern.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I dont really think its bars. Bars rely on a signal or game being there when its on. In the FTA world a game which is on one satellite one day in the clear may not be available the next day. If sports bars relied on FTA for their sports feeds then they would probably be missing 95% of the games being played every day.

Simple fact is most encoders being used by uplinks have scrambline built in much like your wireless router lets you password protect it.

 

[Mr Tony]

bars have had C-Band dishes up long before Dish and Directv were around.
Thats how they got programming back then (especially for bars out of town)

I know there is a bar cluster (4 restaurants) here in Minneapolis who had a 1.2m KU dish up but that was for North Dakota hockey and North Dakota Sate football games because they were broadcast in FTA (and were proud of it). The announcer on UND hockey use to day "we welcome our fans in the Twin Cities watching at Joe Senser's"

bars want it for sports and its real easy to find out who is cheating and who isn't. Commercial accounts are big money and places have had their Directv/Dish accounts shut down if they have a residential account in a bar.

 

[Lone Cloud]

Whatever the reason is, I have been in the hobby since '07 and I can't recall a time where less unencrypted programming was available.

Hoping for the return of good times soon.

 

[Blindowl1234]

Most older sports bar type places here had 10 foot dishes on the roof at one point. The few I still see are rusting away.Too hard to get down without a crane. One that had been on top of a local bowling alley for many years suddenly is gone in the last few weeks. I know it wasn't being used. 99% of these places have Direct on their big screens. I wonder how many of the places you see the big dishes in your area are actually using them for something?

 

[Stargazer]

I think a lot of the newer technologies are taking people away from FTA, particularly Dish/Directv, then internet as there is more on the internet than what FTA ever imagined to have such as youtube. Then you have cell phones with data plans. For the rest that are rural without good broadband solutions and just simply want television there are the rest that still have an interest in FTA.

 

[Mr Tony]

Whatever the reason is, I have been in the hobby since '07 and I can't recall a time where less unencrypted programming was available.

more options for transmission like fibre and IP

 

[Tron]

More options and too many loose lips being amplified by search engines...

 

[madmadworld]

More options and too many loose lips being amplified by search engines...

ask a uplinker, they will tell you "the internet" or some site.
the internet giveth and the internet taketh away.