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must-carry posts

Verizon FiOS strikes multicasting deal with PBS

by Richard Lawler posted Jun 17th 2006 at 7:09PM

While the government still ponders the must-carry multicasting situation, Verizon FiOS appeared to thumb it's nose at the cable companies today by announcing a deal with PBS and the Association of Public Television Stations to carry the programming of as many as three stations in one market, and additional stations as long as they are not duplicating programming from the other three.

The cable industry struck a similar deal last year, where there is no limit on the number of stations carried, but the maximum number of multicast streams is 4. The Verizon deal has no limitation on the number of multicast streams carried, and includes PBS' high definition programming.

Read - Verizon strikes deal to carry public stations
Read - Verizon, Noncoms unveil carriage deal

NAB speaks out against downconverting

by Richard Lawler posted May 31st 2006 at 5:07PM

The National Association of Broadcasters has joined the Big Four in petitioning Congress to stop a bill that would include provisions allowing cable television providers the right to downconvert HDTV broadcasts to DTV. Between this new article and a note on TV Predictions, we were also able to better understand what all the fuss is about. If you're as confused as I was, the point of contention here are "must-carry" laws, that would require cable companies to carry multiple HDTV streams that the local affiliates broadcast. The cable companies say this would use up their valuable bandwidth, while the affiliates fear that cable companies could refuse to carry their high definition broadcast unless the affiliates paid them to.

That still seems to be a longshot, as we all know the most desirable HD programming is on the network stations, if cable companies limited that then why would their subscribers pay extra for HD? Additionally, if the reason I can't get HGTV-HD is because there are three ABC affiliates in my area, that would really suck. Of course in some areas cable is all there is and if they refused to carry an HD Super Bowl or other event without payment, customers would be stuck with HDTVs and no HD. Worse yet, they are still trying to force Broadcast Flag legislation through that could prevent you from recording high-def broadcasts. All this government talk makes me want to turn to C-SPAN, why aren't they in 720p yet?

Read - Broadcasting & Cable
Read - TV Predictions




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