When Must Carry was a thing, it was on the Cableco to purchase the gear to redistribute the broadcaster's signal.
When the broadcasters began to choose Retransmission Consent, the channels were mostly already on systems, so the investment was sunk cost. Along the way, the digital conversion required the Cablecos to again repurchase the reception gear and reconfigure/replace off-air antennas to carry SD and HD versions of Over the Air programming.
The first contracts for retrans were for a few pennies per broadcaster, some even for nothing. But I think we all knew it was just the beginning. Since then (15ish? yrs), each negotiation (if you can call it that) has carried double digit+ increases and gotten more acrimonious, made all the worse by market consolidation, where a single firm may represent all or most of the broadcasters in a single DMA. Not bad enough? Sign the agreement and the rate is under NDA, so no comparing notes, guys....although the information is out there.
Let the dinosaurs roar. The meteor is in the sky headed their way.
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When Must Carry was a thing, it was on the Cableco to purchase the gear to redistribute the broadcaster's signal.
When the broadcasters began to choose Retransmission Consent, the channels were mostly already on systems, so the investment was sunk cost. Along the way, the digital conversion required the Cablecos to again repurchase the reception gear and reconfigure/replace off-air antennas to carry SD and HD versions of Over the Air programming.
The first contracts for retrans were for a few pennies per broadcaster, some even for nothing. But I think we all knew it was just the beginning. Since then (15ish? yrs), each negotiation (if you can call it that) has carried double digit+ increases and gotten more acrimonious, made all the worse by market consolidation, where a single firm may represent all or most of the broadcasters in a single DMA. Not bad enough? Sign the agreement and the rate is under NDA, so no comparing notes, guys....although the information is out there.
Let the dinosaurs roar. The meteor is in the sky headed their way.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Xsquid.
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