What Denver's Scripps station is saying...

[Inclined Orbit]

If these are local channels and some time ago both DirecTV and Dish were required by the FCC or US Gov to carry a certain number of local channels by a certain date or there would be a penalty, how can they continue to provide these local channels if the provider charges too much? I'm not up on how Dish does business, but I worked for DirecTV for 18yrs and they spent a bloody fortune in satellite BW and infrastructure to meet deadlines and carry the required locals, which by the way were free and DirecTV made no profit. At some point DirecTV learned that customers really want the locals and it became a small selling point for the service, so I guess it did pay off at some level.

Local channels are free to anyone with a local antenna, so why would the local station be demanding big $$ for what they broadcast for free anyway? Greedy bastards......

 

[ChadT41]

If these are local channels and some time ago both DirecTV and Dish were required by the FCC or US Gov to carry a certain number of local channels by a certain date or there would be a penalty, how can they continue to provide these local channels if the provider charges too much? I'm not up on how Dish does business, but I worked for DirecTV for 18yrs and they spent a bloody fortune in satellite BW and infrastructure to meet deadlines and carry the required locals, which by the way were free and DirecTV made no profit. At some point DirecTV learned that customers really want the locals and it became a small selling point for the service, so I guess it did pay off at some level.

Local channels are free to anyone with a local antenna, so why would the local station be demanding big $$ for what they broadcast for free anyway? Greedy bastards......

It’s my understanding that the entire time, the only time a provider could get in trouble for not carrying a local, is if the local is designated ‘must carry’. If the charge, there is no such requirement for carriage.

 

[pattykay]

It’s my understanding that the entire time, the only time a provider could get in trouble for not carrying a local, is if the local is designated ‘must carry’. If the charge, there is no such requirement for carriage.

Taking this even farther, the technical term is "carry one, carry all." In other words, there is no requirement that the satellite provider serve any particular local market at all. So, even if a station elects "must carry" the satellite provider is only required to carry the station if that provider also carries any other station in the market. This means that if a satellite provider happens to be in disputes with the owners of all of the retransmission consent locals in a market at the same time, then the satellite provider may as well choose not to serve that market at all, and go ahead and drop the "must carry" channels while they are at it.

The one time that Dish was required to add locals in every market by a certain date was as part of the terms of the deal that allowed Dish to get their distant network license back. At the time, Dish happened to be in disputes with the owners of all of the "consent to carry" locals in one market: Salisbury, MD. In this case, Dish was still able to meet the requirement to serve this market by adding the only "must carry" channel in that market, and by using the temporary distant network license that had been granted to Dish in order to import an out-of-market NBC station, since that market lacked an in-market NBC station. Keep in mind though that even in this situation, Dish was only required to serve every local market as long as they wanted to continue to have the ability to deliver distant networks. If Dish decided that they no longer wish to offer distant networks, then even this "must carry" requirement goes away, allowing them to drop entire local markets if they choose.