Starting a Cable Station... Some FTA Questions.

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hotwire132002

hotwire132002

SatelliteGuys Family
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Sep 5, 2004
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Well, I'm working with our cable channel. Long story, but we're looking to bring in as much programming as possible via satellite. Our question is, does anyone know what, if any, FTA channels might be able to provide us with programming?

Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!
 
For a starter you should try Deutsche Welle ( www.Dwelle.de ). They offer world news from a European perspective in English, German and Spanish. They also have some very good documentaries. I may have been misinformed but I believe they offer their programming for retransmission free of charge or for a minimum fee.

Chuck
 
Elchucko said:
For a starter you should try Deutsche Welle ( www.Dwelle.de ). They offer world news from a European perspective in English, German and Spanish. They also have some very good documentaries. I may have been misinformed but I believe they offer their programming for retransmission free of charge or for a minimum fee.

Chuck
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Thanks! I'm looking into them. If anyone has any other tips regarding where we can get programming, please post here!
 
I did an install recently for a member here and the housing estate had its own little Dish Farm with 3-4 BUD cabling programming to the neighborhood, seems like a great idea and a fantastic job!

The Tube would be a GREAT channel for your system if available!
 

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Sadoun said:
If you have a lot of ethnic population in your area, you might want to consider the FTA stations on IA5.
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Unfortunately, our area is not exactly what you'd call ethnically diverse, so that idea doesn't really work around here.

On a different note--a lot of this programming sounds great, but what kind of licensing situation would we be in? I assume we'd need to contact each of the channels mentioned (and probably pay royalties) to use their content. Anybody have details there?

Thanks again for all the great ideas--hopefully we can figure out the licensing stuff and get this going!
 
The Tube is not free-to-distribute. I have approached them for broadcast rights on cable, and they are very much an "over-the-air only" service. The person I talked to (I cant think of the name at the moment, but he was one of the Vice Presidents) conceeded that this position will probably change in the future, but as of right now, no cable system is allowed to have them :(

The only channels you are going to have an easy time with, are local OTA networks, anything satellite delivered is going to have licensing fees associated with it, unless they are very specifically "Free-to-distribute".. The only one that comes to mind is C-SPAN. That channel is specifically a Cable-centric channel, and is available on AMC 11 C-band analog. It was originally designed as a Cable only news channel, but so much for that idea..

Is this a municipal cable system? or perhaps a housing development? You may want to check with your local government and the FCC for must-carry rules. If this is for a franchise, the Franchise agreements would stipulate any channels that must be carried.
 
ultatryon said:
The Tube is not free-to-distribute. I have approached them for broadcast rights on cable, and they are very much an "over-the-air only" service. The person I talked to (I cant think of the name at the moment, but he was one of the Vice Presidents) conceeded that this position will probably change in the future, but as of right now, no cable system is allowed to have them :(

The only channels you are going to have an easy time with, are local OTA networks, anything satellite delivered is going to have licensing fees associated with it, unless they are very specifically "Free-to-distribute".. The only one that comes to mind is C-SPAN. That channel is specifically a Cable-centric channel, and is available on AMC 11 C-band analog. It was originally designed as a Cable only news channel, but so much for that idea..

Is this a municipal cable system? or perhaps a housing development? You may want to check with your local government and the FCC for must-carry rules. If this is for a franchise, the Franchise agreements would stipulate any channels that must be carried.
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We're actually looking to start a channel, rather than a cable network--we're going to air on Charter (if all goes well.) We're looking for either channels or companies that can provide us with programming.

Another thing I should ask, is does anyone know who we can contact to license programming? We've been looking at some public domain programming, but for other (more modern) programs, we need to figure out who to contact.

Thanks again for your help, everyone. Hopefully this will work out, assuming we can get enough programming!
 
hotwire132002 said:
We're actually looking to start a channel, rather than a cable network-!
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This clarifies things a little bit. Where are you located? What will be theme of your channel?

There is a difference between an FTA channel and a "FREE" program. You will need to contact the production companies and negotiate with them.
 
Sadoun said:
This clarifies things a little bit. Where are you located? What will be theme of your channel?

There is a difference between an FTA channel and a "FREE" program. You will need to contact the production companies and negotiate with them.
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I realize the difference between free to receive and free to transmit.

Originally, our plan for the channel was to air a sort of shmorgusboard (did I spell that right?) of programming, but after looking at our (concept for a) logo, a number of people were reminded of TechTV. The style is sort of a high-tech, computer look--which set us thinking. A lot of people miss TechTV, (myself included) so why not create a similar network?

We started thinking it would be cool to bring in a lot of computer and tech related programming, maybe even some of the old shows TechTV used to air (A bunch of people were begging for Max Headroom, and maybe Thunderbirds. License cost could be an issue, though.)

The response for this concept has been overwhelming--and new ideas are quickly developing. In any case, our current concept is to create a new TechTV.

Anyone have any ideas as to where to get the programming? Once again--everyone here has been a great help. Keep it up :)

BTW--with some luck we'll head to FTA eventually--if the station takes off, that is!
 
Excellent idea. I used to watch TechTV on a regular bases. Very nice concept. You will also need to produce your own shows (product reviews, "how to", trade shows reports, etc).

When MPEG4 conversion start happenning on FTA, you will see the cost of satellite bandwidth will go down. More and more FTA channels will pop up and I hope yours will be one of them.
 
Sadoun said:
Excellent idea. I used to watch TechTV on a regular bases. Very nice concept. You will also need to produce your own shows (product reviews, "how to", trade shows reports, etc).

When MPEG4 conversion start happenning on FTA, you will see the cost of satellite bandwidth will go down. More and more FTA channels will pop up and I hope yours will be one of them.
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I have a lot of background in production--so we definately want to produce our own shows.

The problem is time. Because of our small staff, we don't have a lot of time to produce much programming just yet. That's why we'd like to bring in as much tech programming as we can, until we're up and running.

So, anyone who knows of any good tech shows we might be able to get hold of, let me know by posting here or emailing me (eric@freelancerproductions.com.)

With a little luck, we'll be up and running with this soon!
 
ultatryon said:
The only one that comes to mind is C-SPAN. That channel is specifically a Cable-centric channel, and is available on AMC 11 C-band analog. It was originally designed as a Cable only news channel, but so much for that idea..
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Was it really originally designed to be cable-only? Remember, the S is for Satellite: Cable / Satellite Public Affairs Network. :)
 
oschaper said:
Well but that is a long time ago. Today there are more or less cable only...
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Strange, I've been watching C-Span for years on C1 then C4 and now they call it AMC 10.

Al

Edit: It wasn't C1, I forget, maybe F3 or F4.....
But, it's still there....
 
carload said:
"BROADCASTERS:
Classic Arts Showcase is available to you for free, with no commercials, 24 hours a day, from C-band satellite from Galaxy 1R Transponder 5. Just fill out the Application."

http://www.classicartsshowcase.org/

Plus two more ideas:

1) Public domain movies. See your local Wal-Mart's $1 DVD bin.

2) Other, downloadable public domain stuff. See http://www.archive.org/details/movies
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Thanks for the concepts! We're looking into Classic Arts Showcase, but the problem is that two other channels on our local Charter also air it--which means if we want to use it as our "anchor" network, Charter probably won't like the idea.

Here's my latest concept:

I talked to the folks over at Deluxe Music (anybody checked that one out?) Who offered to let us air it. (at a cost, but a very decent price.) My thought is to use Deluxe Music as the "anchor" for our channel, and air other programming (the TechTV-style stuff, as well as public domain movies and shows) a couple hours each day. Eventually, as we gather a larger collection of programming, we'll air more of the "TechTV" stuff.

Our thinking is that Deluxe Music will be of interest to viewers, and therefore of interest to Charter.

I'd like to hear your thoughts about that concept, if anyone has any.
 
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