I guess I am at a loss to really understand some of this.
It the olden days, TV stations made their money by selling advertising time. And, they still do seem to carry plenty of advertisements! It was my understanding the more viewers they had, the more they would be able to charge for an advertising spot.
To increase their viewing audience, stations spend a lot of money running as much power as the FCC will allow, with huge towers to make sure their signal reaches everyone within their coverage area. In some areas they may install translators to fill in dead spot, and all this costs money. The reason they do that is to service as many households they can -- and hence charge the advertisers as much as they can.
On the other side of the coin, since they are using a public resource
-- the frequency slice they have licensed to them, I think the FCC still mandates they offer at least one signal that viewers can receive without paying any direct charges.
Now, when a service provider, like a cable company or satellite company, picks up that broadcast and makes it available to their customers, that is a case of "one hand washing the other". That signal makes the TV signal available to the customers of the service
-- and therefore more attractive. But, on the other hand, it also makes the broadcast signal available to more viewers -- and hence increases the price that can be charged to the advertisers.
If a TV station is allowed to charge a cable company to retransmit their signal -- that charge isn't paid by the cable company, but rather is passed on to the cable company customer. Who are we kidding? The consumer always pays in the end.
Take a look at how many local stations are carried on your cable system. Multiply that by the charge being paid by the cable company back to the TV station. I'm not sure just how much that is -- but if the TV station is charging a dollar per month for every subscriber -- that ends up a tax on every subscriber for the potential ability to watch that station. And, that is whether or not the end viewer ever wants to watch a particular station.
It would seem to me that any time a TV station can get someone to help distribute their signal to more viewers, they should be paying (not charging) for that service.
...Bob
+--------------------------------------------------------------+ This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active.