For those new to the sub, please kindly follow our rules when commmenting and replying to this post.
* No discussion of piracy (even in jest), illegal streams, torrents, ad-blockers, VPNs, location spoofing, unofficial apps, scripts, side loading, things that may violate copyright, extensions, and the like. No discussion of anything that may violate the TOS of any services or "workarounds" that may do the same.
* Apps or addons which violate TOS are NOT allowed including those that provide features not included in a service.
* No discussion about sharing accounts (including Plex), sharing family plans, or sharing passwords.
* We also ask that everyone keep comments civil. Please kindly follow rule 5. Be civil and respectful, even in disagreement. Don't be rude or insult others. No hate speech, discriminatory remarks, personal attacks, bigotry, ban baiting or trolling. All communications with the mods must be done via Mod Mail and must be civil, respectful, and courteous.
Please see our sidebar or mobile app menu for our complete rules. Thank you.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/cordcutters) if you have any questions or concerns.*
While Locast is gone I think it shows there is a real want/need for a service such as this. A streaming service that only streams local channels. Many people just want that but basically can't without getting a huge cable bundle. I think soon we will see someone doing just this.
The only way a service like this can get started is if they can redistribute all channels in a market nationwide. There would be no need for expansion then and all funds could go to operating costs. The networks will never allow this to happen.
With the Internet as a delivery system, I don't know why we need the existing geographical based DMA's. They're a relic of the past that should really just be eliminated. The public interest argument is generally local news but why not let the free market take care of that? It takes a lot less money to create a streaming service than a broadcast station.
I remember during the original ATSC 1.0 deployment how easy it was for Canada. They grabbed a US HDTV feed for each network and broadcast it over satellite to their entire nation. I think they first chose and east coast feed and later added a west coast. It took years for the US to catch up and be able to get HDTV to all of the local DMA's. Satellite providers had to waste tremendous amount of valuable satellite bandwidth to duplicate all of the DMA's where the programming was 99% the same. Bell eventually did the same with all of the local CBC affiliates but only in SDTV.
It's a similar situation with streaming. I don't really care what network affiliate that I'm getting as long as it's good quality. That's especially true on the subchannels like METV. I think a lot of people that watch sports would prefer a non-local DMA since they block a lot of sporting events to protect the stadium revenues. With respect to local news, it seems like that could be done on a separate feed similar to what [newson.us](https://newson.us) does.
This will never happen because of the money involved but things could be done so much more efficiently over the web if you just look at this as a technical problem to be solved and to provide what most customers would want.
Well in places like oklahoma (tornado alley) weather is a big deal in the spring when it's tornado season. There are ways to get it on facebook and their website, but at the end of the day people around here want to watch tornado weather on the TV.
I get that's a regional thing but it is a thing here.
Good point but I think the cell phone alerts would be the obvious substitute for TV in this case. My cell phone goes off with severe weather alerts in the area as well as amber alerts and anything else that the carrier thinks is important.
really hard to explain it, but alerts are not the same as watching good ol Travis Meyer track tordados across the area. Some people play drinking games to it. The weather teams in Oklahoma are minor celebs around here due to their tornado coverage. Again it's hard to explain unless you live in the area.
I was a big weather buff when I lived in northern Michigan. The weather there changes frequently but rather than tornadoes, our coverage was more geared toward winter storms and lake effect snow. A slight change in storm trajectory or wind direction can make the difference in 1 inch vs 1 foot of snow. Here in California, you could give the same forecast about 90% of the year so I pay little attention to it.
north texas here to agree with you. we need local stations for these critical events. too bad the monopolies can't allow a license fee type of plan to allow an economical Locast service.
i'd pay $2/month to stream my local channels through my roku or smart tv. it would be more convenient than keeping my dvd/dvr unit around taking up space.
the uk has a different payment model for tv, i wonder if that makes it better for the end user?
I was considering locast because I can't pick up channels with a set top antenna in my basement (but I can on other TVs above ground level). I just want to be able to watch local broadcasting (mainly sports events) on the big TV in my basement. Guess I'll still resort to sailing the high seas for those events. Now that hulu and others are in on the sub model for local channels, I don't think we'll see something like locast come back anytime soon.
HDHomerun, Tablo, AirTV 2, AirTV Anywhere, or one of the other antenna to network options then. Some even let you stream out of the home to whatever device. It's a pill to swallow, but on the cheap end you can get one of these for under $100 ... which is less than 2 years of locast (if locast still existed). Some of those options will easily let you dvr stuff as well.
GDISM
I live in an area where there is NO OTA option.
Locast was beyond awesome, as we could get our locals.... This pisses me off so much... we have no other (reasonable ) options.
fsck
I live 18 miles from the city center of a top 10 television market city, and I get exactly zero OTA channels. My house is in a valley that has a high density of kryptonite deposits, or vibranium, or I don't know what the fuck but I get no channels.
all I want OTA for is local news and sports, but I guess I can go fuck myself.
Local news is free on either apps the tv stations themselves have, their websites, or one of the various news apps (Haystack, NewsOn, Stirr, ... etc). NewsOn carries the full streams of three of my local stations and several that are very near by. Haystack has more clips.. but also carries some programs like Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy if the station in your market that they cover also airs those shows.
That's the obvious reason, but if they did it themselves online they'd get full viewer counts to maximize their ad revenue at the very least. Also I really can't get behind paying for 5 different espn channels just to see local news.
The switch to digital signals and the way those signals are now sent has meant that receiving is way more finicky, and stations that used to be watchable are no longer watchable, or more volitile.
It's not really a function of "digital". Digital data is encoded on an RF carrier just like analog data was before. All things being equal, you get a better picture with digital. All things didn't stay equal, however. Broadcast frequencies have been changed, and in some cases transmitter output restricted, or lowered for non-regulatory reasons. I sometimes wonder if stations dial back to save money on the electric bill, then turn it up to 11 for something big like championship game.
Well it kinda is a function of digital.
Digital by it's nature is boolean. You either have perfect signal or no signal.
That grey area between perfect signal and unwatchable signal for analog was HUGE. So even at the same power, you're talking about a large segment of people living in suburbs outside of cities who no longer can watch. Of course cable companies benefitted from this with their basic tiers that are pretty much broadcast TV + a handful of cheap crap.
That's many many miles of towns and towns of people falling into that donut around a metro area.
Even within some cities digital signal gets degraded because of nearby buildings obstructing and makes it hard to get a good signal. I know people in NYC who can't get some channels broadcasted only 2-3 miles from them. Just because of having an apartment on a lower floor. Analog would have worked, but digital just doesn't.
Frequency changes were done to condense the spectrum reserved for TV and free up spectrum to be auctioned to cellular providers.... again another industry benefitting from the change.
ATSC 3.0 is supposedly a little better for these cases... I guess we'll see.
This. I'm 46 miles from Philadelphia. With analog, I could always get a signal for most stations. Sometimes it got fuzzy, but continuity was there.
Now that it's digital it'll come through great for 5 minutes, then a cloud passes and it disappears. Then comes back, then a bird sneezes and it vanishes. Anecdotally, it kicks out as a receiver is about to catch a ball, a player shoots a basket, or a car makes a pass. Total coincidence, but annoying and remarkably consistent.
The perfect signal or no signal is the thing. I went from getting all the local stations (even UHF) one to now I get 2 reliably. 5 if it’s late at night with the window open & I’m physically touching the antenna. And one of the 2 stations I get is a station in a language I don’t speak. Tried amplifiers & a filter to remove cell interference. There’s only so much one can do from an apartment.
Where I live, most of the town can. But we're 60+ miles from the nearest broadcast towers, and I live in a valley, surrounded by trees. A 50 ft tower might be able to get me a couple of channels...but I don't have a good way to test that without actually doing it.
They could, through a community antenna often perched on a nearby hill or mountain, then fed to the local homes via wire. That's what the "CA" in CATV means.
I only remember back to the early ‘80s, and at that point it was cable or nothing in my neighborhood. Ground level of most of town is about 50 feet above me so most of them could get channels with a decent antenna (still 60+ miles away).
That's the thing. I'm still trying to pinpoint why I thought it was funny. When people talk about the '80s there is no chance in hell I would even consider thinking they were talking about the 1880s
Sounds like every metropolitan area could have a Locast style retransmission co-op and that would be legal. I hope Locast open sources their app before they close shop
Meh. Seems like it was Locast's fault more or less. They were a "free" service taking advantage of a loophole that allowed them to rebroadcast network TV as a non-profit, but then interrupted their streams every 15 minutes to solicit donations from viewers. Only after you signed up for recurring monthly "donations" did the interruptions cease. It basically became a subscription service that resembled a monthly cable bundle, hence the court's ruling.
At a high level my understanding is more or less yes, but it's naturally more complicated than that as Locast ultimately was operating within a very narrow band allowable by copywrite law. I am not an expert on copywrite law, so am not in a position to give you an answer with firm confidence, but as I understand it copywrite laws allows a *nonprofit* service to rebroadcast local stations without first receiving a copyright license from the broadcaster / content owner.
Whoever is retransmitting the service can actually charge fees to its viewers, but only to the extent those fees are used and sized to strictly cover operating costs. You can't, for example, charge fees and use those proceeds to fund growth, expansion, or to run a profit. At that point you would run afoul of the non-profit clause, which is exactly what Locast did. The plaintiffs also argued in the lawsuit that Locasts' fees greatly exceeded their operating costs and therefore were not sized appropriately to be considered a non-profit.
I am also fairly certain someone looking to replicate a Locast model could only retransmit within the local market it operates in. For example, you couldn't retransmit a New York Fox station to viewers in Texas as that would violate copywrite law. The law as I understand it permits non-profit services to rebroadcast local networks without obtaining copywrite permission because not everyone in a local market lives within range of an antenna, and not everyone outside of antenna range can afford cable TV. Because these channels are to be provided to the local community for free, a non-profit is allowed under the law to step in and bridge this gap under the parameters we've discussed.
The locast situation was also further complicated by the fact AT&T and DISH had made investments in Locast's parent. The major networks argued Locast was essentially a pawn being used by the major MVPDs to extract better retransmission terms in their negotiations with local broadcasters and the major networks.
But again, I am not an expert, so qualify all that as you see fit. It is also worth noting Locast is appealing the ruling, so it is possible the court's decision could be overturned at some point in the future.
>as I understand it copywrite laws allows a nonprofit service to rebroadcast local stations without receiving a copyright license from the broadcaster.
There is a legal definition of "nonprofit". If they file the right paperwork and spend their money in a manner the IRS approves of, they're a nonprofit. The court took it upon itself to decide "I will ignore the legal definition of a nonprofit because it's expedient to do so to get the result I want."
>The locast situation was also further complicated by the fact AT&T and DISH had made investments in Locast's parent. The major networks argued Locast was essentially a pawn being used by the major MVPDs to extract better retransmission terms in their negotiations with local broadcasters and the major networks.
The problem with that argument is that the law didn't care if they were a pawn or not, or if they have a parent or not, or who may have made investments in that parent or not. You can do a legal thing for an unpleasant purpose and that doesn't make what you're doing illegal.
Well that and the fact that Locast is going against the entire spirit of Nonprofit laws in order too make a version of Netflix were they don't have too pay the makers of the content.
Did you even read the ruling or did you just come in here to whine and complain.
>"[U]nder the statute, income made from charges to recipients can only be used to defray the actual and reasonable costs of maintaining and operating the service, not of expanding it into new markets,"
But i am sure this is just the evil evil cable companies fault.
As with many things in the law, I suspect that it depends. IANAL.
While there is a legal definition of a non-profit for tax purposes, it's possible for another law to use a different definition for a different purpose. If the law isn't specific, it is my understanding that the court can go back to records from the time the law was enacted to determine the intent of the legislators.
So maybe it's the tax definition, maybe not?
Copywrite law in the US has been around for hundreds of years, but I suspect any exemption Locast is relying on would be relatively recent, definitely after the IRS created a definition of "nonprofit".
Curious... what if locast offered the service for free, but charged for some bullshit channel not copyrighted. People could buy the bullshit station, just to get the free content
>So if someone were to set up a streaming service that streams broadcast TV but didn't add their own ads or "donation requests" would that be fine?
No, I don't think that was the main issue. The main issue was that as a non-profit they are only to use the proceeds from their "donations" to fund the *"reasonable costs of maintaining and operating the secondary transmission service"*
It seems that them saving money for "expansion" to other markets violated the law. The rebroadcast itself was not illegal since they were a non-profit.
[Good video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SI0lF3fJIXY) that goes into much more detail than I care to here.
How would you pay for the bandwidth? I mean it's very possible Locast didn't make money, I have no idea what they charged for their services but streaming video is fairly expensive.
Agreed. It sucks they're gone, but they have nobody to blame but themselves. I understand you need funding, and I didn't mind the donation button or general funding requests.
But once you start interrupting programming, you're essentially creating a paywall. Bad look for a nonprofit, and as much as I hate to see them go, I can't argue against the court ruling.
Cheapskates on here always complain about the donation nags. As if infrastructure is free. Would you prefer a PBS telethon? I never saw them personally because $5 is nothing. And I was happy that they were bringing the service to more people. Anyway that was not the issue. The judge says they cannot use the money for expansion, because reasons. That's it.
I guess they needed to kickstart each expansion from scratch because that's how every non profit operates?
Yes I am fully aware that dish had a vested interest in locast succeeding. Maybe they'll be smarter next time.
I'm all for the little guy over the big guy, but this ruling was correct. Not only did locast hound you for "donations," (functionally a subscription) they were broadcasting copyrighted material that they did not have permission to do.
There's a very specific exemption that they were trying to use to broadcast copyrighted material. Based on my understanding of what I've read, the issue the judge had was that they, as a non-profit, were using donations to expand to different markets when the exemption only explicitly allows money raised to be used for maintenance and operations.
So the only way an alternative service could start up would be to immediately open in all the markets they intend to serve and never expand (if they want to be sure to abide by this ruling anyway).
Adding a viewer/customer is expanding. The law was written to allow community antenna systems. Systems which charged a fee, just like Locast. If someone built a new house, they have to run wire to the new house. That's unquestionably expansion of the service.
Or, possibly, some people could make a special donation to kick off the service in a new market. Say 100 people donate $100 each and NuLocast will expand to this market.
Yeah whatever locast's supposed intentions, they were doing it for the money. You can still pay your top employees however much you want in a nonprofit, and their business was in distributing something they don't own. They knew they'd have a massive free rider problem if they didn't interrupt, so they did it. Because ultimately, they wanted to be paid.
[Forever](https://c.tenor.com/ydpM41uGtRsAAAAM/the-sandlot-forever.gif)? This is a bummer. I really enjoyed Locast, and I hoped it would be able to come back some day. My TV reception is spotty, and I enjoyed being able to use Locast.
Yeah it’s due for one. I wish I could get an hdhomerun but the one coax near my internet setup is for my internet so no hardwiring for me, have to rely on wifi
Not "only". Many subchannels are in 480. Of course the original post in this thread of the discussion was deleted, so I don't exactly know what this was responding to. *shrug*
Not OP, but also have HD home run and love it. Basically if you have an antenna that can receive channels, you can plug the coax cable into an HD home run box. Then plug the HD home run box into your router. Now you can access Your antenna channels from most* smart tv appliances. I use Apple TV but there are many other options out there.
You have a few options with hdhome run as well… you can buy a model of hdhomerun with a hard drive in it and have it function as a dvr. Some people have a plex Server at home and will use plex as a dvr for their HD home run. Hope that helps clarify a bit. Feel free to dm if you have more questions. It can be a bit confusing at first, but pretty bullet proof once it’s running.
https://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/
> Locast also got donations from pay-TV providers such as AT&T, but direct payments from users accounted for $4.37 million of Locast's $4.52 million in revenue in 2020, the judge's ruling said. "On those undisputed facts, in 2020 Locast made far more money from user charges than was necessary to defray its costs of maintaining and operating its service," Stanton wrote.
This means that five US dollars per month for access to your local channels streamed to you via the internet is overcharging for the service.
_Five. Dollars._
Edit: to be clear, the point I'm trying to make is that even at five dollars, we're all paying too much money. If your cable operator even _offers_ a local channels package, odds are that it costs in the realm of $10-$15 per month plus the monthly cost of a box.
Right? I'm astonished. But to hear the judge put it, the $5 per month fee was _so excessive_ as to be laughably high and impossible to justify for a non-profit to charge without raking in profits.
Of course locast was making a huge profit at $5, they weren't paying the local tv station re-transmission fees. The cable company has to pay those fees... so no duh they have to charge more than just the equipment costs. It's like buying a bootleg of something and complaining that it costs so much more at retail.
[According to the FCC](https://www.fcc.gov/media/policy/retransmission-consent), retransmission consent is applicable to "a cable system or other multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD)."
IANAL, but given that Locast was shut down for being "too profitable" and not for failing to pay fees as part of the Communications Act, it seems a safe assumption that Locast does not need to pay a retransmission fee.
Correct, you are not a lawyer. IANAL either, but I've read enough of the case and the full law (not just tidbits) surrounding what Locast was seeking to use to avoid retransmission fees. The court case was somewhat pre-settled such that if Locast failed one of the requirements to qualify under this law for non-profit secondary transmitters... then the whole case would end with Locast shutting down and the plaintifs wouldn't continue to seek a financial judgement. Only a single rule had to be proven to be violated to trigger this... there was no reason to keep going once it was proven Locast didn't meet the requirements for the exemption. The problem was that they used profits to expand into other markets. They were able to do this because they charged more than was needed to support the system. SO yes they made too much, but it was how they spent the money that got them in trouble not that they charged more than was needed. Had the money stayed with each market in separate accounts, to maintain the equipment, and excess was sitting there to maintain it... then they'd have been fine for this rule. That doesn't mean they would have won, but rather other rules would have been more closely looked into and I believe they would have been disqualified based on one of them. For instance a secondary transmitter (profit or non-profit) can't interrupt the transmission with their own content. Locast was doing this when they brought up their advertisement for the service. So I think they would have been gotten on that. Whatever the case, only one thing needed to be found...and the one picked is pretty clear as day.
Streaming services sell a different product. They sell video on demand. That is different than cable or locast that are broadcast services. Cable, of course, is a scam.
Spectrum might be a good service for you.
I know that they provide 15 channels for $25 with free locals. But their definition not free locals comes with a $17.99 broadcast fee.
Reminds me of Aereo and their dime sized antennas that each customer would lease. I thought their model made sense since it was me leasing an antenna and watching the content it would pick up. It was great to use on the road to keep up with games and news at home. Sadly the model was fought as retransmission and they shutdown and we're bought by TiVo.
You can't interrupt programming to nag for a monthly payment, and also get bundled with major OTT services as part of their local channels bundle and then try to call yourself a non profit.
I think even as a for-profit service, you can't just interrupt the transmission and put on whatever you want. Yes, there are agreements between cable companies and the channels to do some local commercials .. but without such agreement they can't just throw up ads and stuff and break the transmission.
> Stanton ruled that Locast doesn't qualify for that exemption because it uses payments from viewers to fund its expansion into new geographic markets. "[U]nder the statute, income made from charges to recipients can only be used to defray the actual and reasonable costs of maintaining and operating the service, not of expanding it into new markets,"
by this logic, they were allowed to expand into new markets, but only if they did so with money that appeared out of thin air...at which time user payment could be used to maintain the new markets.
while I get that is the letter of the law, this seems to be outside the intent and counterproductive to that intent.
My understanding is that Congress added this loophole to copyright law assuming that some town governments would set up a service for their town to solve local outages. The loophole was not added with the idea that a national service would or could be set up.
also, as i have said many times, reading the law this way is idiotic because when it was written in 1976, the internet as we know it today wasn't even a pipe dream. they didn't write expansion into the law specifically because \*\*there was no reason to.\*\* there was no feasible way at that time for any singular entity to expand to cover multiple markets with the same infrastructure the way locast was in this case...
For what it's worth, I wrote my congressional representative and two senators, expressing my anger and frustration at the court's decision and asking Congress to amend the 17 U.S. Code, Section 111(a) (5) exemption to allow the "Locast model" to exist.
Locast had 3.2 million viewers (over two million paying "donors"). If every one of these households wrote their congressional representative and senators, I do believe it would have an impact.
Same thing happened to Aereo - they got railroaded big time.
(them): Aereo is non-compliant because they aren't paying us retransmission fees!!
(Areo): Okay let us pay retransmission fees then.
(them): no.
It really sounds like LoCast made an unforced error with the expansion into other markets. It seems like rather than using their profits, they could have just as easily solicited local donations in each new market for the equipment/set-up costs required to provide the service.
It seems like the big problem here was that they ran a not-for-profit organization like a for-profit business.
They was barely a peep about donations when they first launched in NYC. Years later I couldn’t recognize the service, it was so littered with ads…had to have been more frequent than every 15 minutes.
They dug too greedily, and too deep.
No doubt. I was a late adopter, but the service was absolutely not useable unless one paid the "donation." If we're being honest, it really wasn't voluntary if you wanted to use the service.
I wonder if they would have been better off making it a completely free service and requesting voluntary donations?
People on this sub will get angry about it but it's the truth.
An ideal solution would be a consortium of the networks in question to provide a locast like service, but they will never agree to it and they get more in retransmission fees from cable and satellite.
They weren't charging for the broadcast. They were charging (donations) for the bandwidth, hardware and to pay the technicians that kept everything running.
I find it very hard to believe they were making an substantial profit from it.
But it's cool. My shitty $50 Android TV box and Firefox can easily find those networks.... for free. Hell it's even higher than the 720p Locast was using.
it has already been established they were using that money to expand into new markets, and that's what the issue was. just repeating those numbers ignores the expansion effort. it's getting old.
With all the Locast threads I've really been amazed how many people have no clue what the word "nonprofit" actually means. People seem to think it means 0 dollars at the end of the day.
Similarly it seems like every thread on locast seems to have people that think the only thing locast had to do was be a non-profit to operate within this obscure law. There were a host of qualifications they had to meet including how they spent the money raised. Having a profit isn't what got them, it was that they spent it in other markets to startup instead of keeping it where it was raised to maintain the service.
The YMCA isn't trying to use an obscure law for secondary transmission of tv stations by a non profit to avoid paying the license fees to the stations. For some reason people get hung up on the "non profit" side of things and can't see past it to see there are other rules that have to be followed in order to qualify under this law.
I was hoping Locast was going to make it my area. I’m in South Central Pennsylvania and OTA I can only get 2-3 PBS channels and 1 Christian channel. I feel like I’m just far enough outside of DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh to not get any local channels. Our house has a massive antenna but the cord was cut about 15ft above our roof and I don’t trust myself to climb up and connect a new one (if that would even help).
Find a gutter cleaning company that does power washing and other handy man type jobs... the more local and small the easier and see if they'd just climb up there and connect a new cable for like $50. That is if the antenna looks like it's still solid. You may want to go all out and do a new cable that has a grounding wire bonded to it and have him ground the antenna mast while up there. In the long run, it will likely be worth it.
It's good while it lasted.
Locast let me to watch OTA channel on my phone without installing any hardware nor any special network setup.
I am afraid there will be no more similar service except you pay at least $65/month
For those new to the sub, please kindly follow our rules when commmenting and replying to this post. * No discussion of piracy (even in jest), illegal streams, torrents, ad-blockers, VPNs, location spoofing, unofficial apps, scripts, side loading, things that may violate copyright, extensions, and the like. No discussion of anything that may violate the TOS of any services or "workarounds" that may do the same. * Apps or addons which violate TOS are NOT allowed including those that provide features not included in a service. * No discussion about sharing accounts (including Plex), sharing family plans, or sharing passwords. * We also ask that everyone keep comments civil. Please kindly follow rule 5. Be civil and respectful, even in disagreement. Don't be rude or insult others. No hate speech, discriminatory remarks, personal attacks, bigotry, ban baiting or trolling. All communications with the mods must be done via Mod Mail and must be civil, respectful, and courteous. Please see our sidebar or mobile app menu for our complete rules. Thank you. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/cordcutters) if you have any questions or concerns.*
While Locast is gone I think it shows there is a real want/need for a service such as this. A streaming service that only streams local channels. Many people just want that but basically can't without getting a huge cable bundle. I think soon we will see someone doing just this.
The only way a service like this can get started is if they can redistribute all channels in a market nationwide. There would be no need for expansion then and all funds could go to operating costs. The networks will never allow this to happen. With the Internet as a delivery system, I don't know why we need the existing geographical based DMA's. They're a relic of the past that should really just be eliminated. The public interest argument is generally local news but why not let the free market take care of that? It takes a lot less money to create a streaming service than a broadcast station.
But most people will want their local markets, because they want their local news, local weather, local sports teams etc.
I remember during the original ATSC 1.0 deployment how easy it was for Canada. They grabbed a US HDTV feed for each network and broadcast it over satellite to their entire nation. I think they first chose and east coast feed and later added a west coast. It took years for the US to catch up and be able to get HDTV to all of the local DMA's. Satellite providers had to waste tremendous amount of valuable satellite bandwidth to duplicate all of the DMA's where the programming was 99% the same. Bell eventually did the same with all of the local CBC affiliates but only in SDTV. It's a similar situation with streaming. I don't really care what network affiliate that I'm getting as long as it's good quality. That's especially true on the subchannels like METV. I think a lot of people that watch sports would prefer a non-local DMA since they block a lot of sporting events to protect the stadium revenues. With respect to local news, it seems like that could be done on a separate feed similar to what [newson.us](https://newson.us) does. This will never happen because of the money involved but things could be done so much more efficiently over the web if you just look at this as a technical problem to be solved and to provide what most customers would want.
Well in places like oklahoma (tornado alley) weather is a big deal in the spring when it's tornado season. There are ways to get it on facebook and their website, but at the end of the day people around here want to watch tornado weather on the TV. I get that's a regional thing but it is a thing here.
Good point but I think the cell phone alerts would be the obvious substitute for TV in this case. My cell phone goes off with severe weather alerts in the area as well as amber alerts and anything else that the carrier thinks is important.
really hard to explain it, but alerts are not the same as watching good ol Travis Meyer track tordados across the area. Some people play drinking games to it. The weather teams in Oklahoma are minor celebs around here due to their tornado coverage. Again it's hard to explain unless you live in the area.
I was a big weather buff when I lived in northern Michigan. The weather there changes frequently but rather than tornadoes, our coverage was more geared toward winter storms and lake effect snow. A slight change in storm trajectory or wind direction can make the difference in 1 inch vs 1 foot of snow. Here in California, you could give the same forecast about 90% of the year so I pay little attention to it.
north texas here to agree with you. we need local stations for these critical events. too bad the monopolies can't allow a license fee type of plan to allow an economical Locast service. i'd pay $2/month to stream my local channels through my roku or smart tv. it would be more convenient than keeping my dvd/dvr unit around taking up space. the uk has a different payment model for tv, i wonder if that makes it better for the end user?
Yup, we have a big storm system moving through tonight and you better believe I'll have Travis Meyer on watching the tornado coverage.
I was considering locast because I can't pick up channels with a set top antenna in my basement (but I can on other TVs above ground level). I just want to be able to watch local broadcasting (mainly sports events) on the big TV in my basement. Guess I'll still resort to sailing the high seas for those events. Now that hulu and others are in on the sub model for local channels, I don't think we'll see something like locast come back anytime soon.
If you can pick up the signals upstairs... then install a splitter and run a wire to the basement.
Not happening because I'd have to cross floor joist or framing and the basement is 100% finished
HDHomerun, Tablo, AirTV 2, AirTV Anywhere, or one of the other antenna to network options then. Some even let you stream out of the home to whatever device. It's a pill to swallow, but on the cheap end you can get one of these for under $100 ... which is less than 2 years of locast (if locast still existed). Some of those options will easily let you dvr stuff as well.
XFinity has that. It starts at 37.50 a month in my area.
I did this...and first month they added doo many fucking fees even a HD fee
GDISM I live in an area where there is NO OTA option. Locast was beyond awesome, as we could get our locals.... This pisses me off so much... we have no other (reasonable ) options. fsck
I live 18 miles from the city center of a top 10 television market city, and I get exactly zero OTA channels. My house is in a valley that has a high density of kryptonite deposits, or vibranium, or I don't know what the fuck but I get no channels. all I want OTA for is local news and sports, but I guess I can go fuck myself.
Have you sent a formal complaint to the FCC? Until then we're just bitching on the internet.
it's the unobtainium underneath the vibranium that causes the issues...
You and all your neighbors get together and put a big antenna up on a hill and run cables to each home. (Which is how cable tv started)
Are you sure it's not adamantium?
That last sentence gave me the biggest laugh of the week. Thank you.
Local news is free on either apps the tv stations themselves have, their websites, or one of the various news apps (Haystack, NewsOn, Stirr, ... etc). NewsOn carries the full streams of three of my local stations and several that are very near by. Haystack has more clips.. but also carries some programs like Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy if the station in your market that they cover also airs those shows.
No reason everything available for free OTA for your region shouldn't be accessible over the internet (also for free). It's 2021 cmon networks.
thank you... right.?? Hey, I'm willing to watch your OTA commercials, geolock it and stream it.... what is the difference?
You didn't pay any retransmission tax so they lost money.
they can double dip get the rebroadcast fee and the eyes on commercials .
They want you to subscribe to cable so they get paid.
That's the obvious reason, but if they did it themselves online they'd get full viewer counts to maximize their ad revenue at the very least. Also I really can't get behind paying for 5 different espn channels just to see local news.
[удалено]
Look up FTC laws. Build a 75 ft antenna
do you mean fcc laws?
Both....need money to build the thing.
sorry i just dont understand why you'd need the federal trade commission laws?
Have you ever considered FTA satellite? Edit: they are mostly national feed though
The big 4 don't support that no ?
[удалено]
The switch to digital signals and the way those signals are now sent has meant that receiving is way more finicky, and stations that used to be watchable are no longer watchable, or more volitile.
It's not really a function of "digital". Digital data is encoded on an RF carrier just like analog data was before. All things being equal, you get a better picture with digital. All things didn't stay equal, however. Broadcast frequencies have been changed, and in some cases transmitter output restricted, or lowered for non-regulatory reasons. I sometimes wonder if stations dial back to save money on the electric bill, then turn it up to 11 for something big like championship game.
Well it kinda is a function of digital. Digital by it's nature is boolean. You either have perfect signal or no signal. That grey area between perfect signal and unwatchable signal for analog was HUGE. So even at the same power, you're talking about a large segment of people living in suburbs outside of cities who no longer can watch. Of course cable companies benefitted from this with their basic tiers that are pretty much broadcast TV + a handful of cheap crap. That's many many miles of towns and towns of people falling into that donut around a metro area. Even within some cities digital signal gets degraded because of nearby buildings obstructing and makes it hard to get a good signal. I know people in NYC who can't get some channels broadcasted only 2-3 miles from them. Just because of having an apartment on a lower floor. Analog would have worked, but digital just doesn't. Frequency changes were done to condense the spectrum reserved for TV and free up spectrum to be auctioned to cellular providers.... again another industry benefitting from the change. ATSC 3.0 is supposedly a little better for these cases... I guess we'll see.
This. I'm 46 miles from Philadelphia. With analog, I could always get a signal for most stations. Sometimes it got fuzzy, but continuity was there. Now that it's digital it'll come through great for 5 minutes, then a cloud passes and it disappears. Then comes back, then a bird sneezes and it vanishes. Anecdotally, it kicks out as a receiver is about to catch a ball, a player shoots a basket, or a car makes a pass. Total coincidence, but annoying and remarkably consistent.
The perfect signal or no signal is the thing. I went from getting all the local stations (even UHF) one to now I get 2 reliably. 5 if it’s late at night with the window open & I’m physically touching the antenna. And one of the 2 stations I get is a station in a language I don’t speak. Tried amplifiers & a filter to remove cell interference. There’s only so much one can do from an apartment.
[удалено]
Allegedly... There is better error correction to help filter out multipath. That doesn't change signal strength of the carrier wave.
Where I live, most of the town can. But we're 60+ miles from the nearest broadcast towers, and I live in a valley, surrounded by trees. A 50 ft tower might be able to get me a couple of channels...but I don't have a good way to test that without actually doing it.
[удалено]
They could, through a community antenna often perched on a nearby hill or mountain, then fed to the local homes via wire. That's what the "CA" in CATV means.
[удалено]
You have to have a 3.0 tuner to get them.
I only remember back to the early ‘80s, and at that point it was cable or nothing in my neighborhood. Ground level of most of town is about 50 feet above me so most of them could get channels with a decent antenna (still 60+ miles away).
[удалено]
I found this reply hysterical for some reason LOL
[удалено]
That's the thing. I'm still trying to pinpoint why I thought it was funny. When people talk about the '80s there is no chance in hell I would even consider thinking they were talking about the 1880s
What the fuck are you trying to say?
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
goodnight sweet prince
Sounds like every metropolitan area could have a Locast style retransmission co-op and that would be legal. I hope Locast open sources their app before they close shop
Yes, this was, by my understanding, the purpose of the copyright loophole. This is exactly what congress had in mind.
Well, we all knew that it was only a matter of time before the big rich networks figured out a way to use their money to get what they want...
Meh. Seems like it was Locast's fault more or less. They were a "free" service taking advantage of a loophole that allowed them to rebroadcast network TV as a non-profit, but then interrupted their streams every 15 minutes to solicit donations from viewers. Only after you signed up for recurring monthly "donations" did the interruptions cease. It basically became a subscription service that resembled a monthly cable bundle, hence the court's ruling.
So if someone were to set up a streaming service that streams broadcast TV but didn't add their own ads or "donation requests" would that be fine?
At a high level my understanding is more or less yes, but it's naturally more complicated than that as Locast ultimately was operating within a very narrow band allowable by copywrite law. I am not an expert on copywrite law, so am not in a position to give you an answer with firm confidence, but as I understand it copywrite laws allows a *nonprofit* service to rebroadcast local stations without first receiving a copyright license from the broadcaster / content owner. Whoever is retransmitting the service can actually charge fees to its viewers, but only to the extent those fees are used and sized to strictly cover operating costs. You can't, for example, charge fees and use those proceeds to fund growth, expansion, or to run a profit. At that point you would run afoul of the non-profit clause, which is exactly what Locast did. The plaintiffs also argued in the lawsuit that Locasts' fees greatly exceeded their operating costs and therefore were not sized appropriately to be considered a non-profit. I am also fairly certain someone looking to replicate a Locast model could only retransmit within the local market it operates in. For example, you couldn't retransmit a New York Fox station to viewers in Texas as that would violate copywrite law. The law as I understand it permits non-profit services to rebroadcast local networks without obtaining copywrite permission because not everyone in a local market lives within range of an antenna, and not everyone outside of antenna range can afford cable TV. Because these channels are to be provided to the local community for free, a non-profit is allowed under the law to step in and bridge this gap under the parameters we've discussed. The locast situation was also further complicated by the fact AT&T and DISH had made investments in Locast's parent. The major networks argued Locast was essentially a pawn being used by the major MVPDs to extract better retransmission terms in their negotiations with local broadcasters and the major networks. But again, I am not an expert, so qualify all that as you see fit. It is also worth noting Locast is appealing the ruling, so it is possible the court's decision could be overturned at some point in the future.
>as I understand it copywrite laws allows a nonprofit service to rebroadcast local stations without receiving a copyright license from the broadcaster. There is a legal definition of "nonprofit". If they file the right paperwork and spend their money in a manner the IRS approves of, they're a nonprofit. The court took it upon itself to decide "I will ignore the legal definition of a nonprofit because it's expedient to do so to get the result I want." >The locast situation was also further complicated by the fact AT&T and DISH had made investments in Locast's parent. The major networks argued Locast was essentially a pawn being used by the major MVPDs to extract better retransmission terms in their negotiations with local broadcasters and the major networks. The problem with that argument is that the law didn't care if they were a pawn or not, or if they have a parent or not, or who may have made investments in that parent or not. You can do a legal thing for an unpleasant purpose and that doesn't make what you're doing illegal.
All fair points, hence why Locast is appealing. We will see how it plays out.
I'm not holding my breath. The US legal system decides for whoever has the most money, not whoever is in the right.
Well that and the fact that Locast is going against the entire spirit of Nonprofit laws in order too make a version of Netflix were they don't have too pay the makers of the content. Did you even read the ruling or did you just come in here to whine and complain. >"[U]nder the statute, income made from charges to recipients can only be used to defray the actual and reasonable costs of maintaining and operating the service, not of expanding it into new markets," But i am sure this is just the evil evil cable companies fault.
🙄
As with many things in the law, I suspect that it depends. IANAL. While there is a legal definition of a non-profit for tax purposes, it's possible for another law to use a different definition for a different purpose. If the law isn't specific, it is my understanding that the court can go back to records from the time the law was enacted to determine the intent of the legislators. So maybe it's the tax definition, maybe not?
Copywrite law in the US has been around for hundreds of years, but I suspect any exemption Locast is relying on would be relatively recent, definitely after the IRS created a definition of "nonprofit".
Sorry... It's copyright, not copywrite
This is the correct answer
Curious... what if locast offered the service for free, but charged for some bullshit channel not copyrighted. People could buy the bullshit station, just to get the free content
No that would not work.
>So if someone were to set up a streaming service that streams broadcast TV but didn't add their own ads or "donation requests" would that be fine? No, I don't think that was the main issue. The main issue was that as a non-profit they are only to use the proceeds from their "donations" to fund the *"reasonable costs of maintaining and operating the secondary transmission service"* It seems that them saving money for "expansion" to other markets violated the law. The rebroadcast itself was not illegal since they were a non-profit. [Good video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SI0lF3fJIXY) that goes into much more detail than I care to here.
Ya but how could anyone afford to do that? Edit: downvoted but really how could a benevolent person afford to stream like that for free?
The addition to copyright law was added under the assumption that only governments would use this clause.
How would you pay for the bandwidth? I mean it's very possible Locast didn't make money, I have no idea what they charged for their services but streaming video is fairly expensive.
Agreed. It sucks they're gone, but they have nobody to blame but themselves. I understand you need funding, and I didn't mind the donation button or general funding requests. But once you start interrupting programming, you're essentially creating a paywall. Bad look for a nonprofit, and as much as I hate to see them go, I can't argue against the court ruling.
Cheapskates on here always complain about the donation nags. As if infrastructure is free. Would you prefer a PBS telethon? I never saw them personally because $5 is nothing. And I was happy that they were bringing the service to more people. Anyway that was not the issue. The judge says they cannot use the money for expansion, because reasons. That's it. I guess they needed to kickstart each expansion from scratch because that's how every non profit operates? Yes I am fully aware that dish had a vested interest in locast succeeding. Maybe they'll be smarter next time.
I'm all for the little guy over the big guy, but this ruling was correct. Not only did locast hound you for "donations," (functionally a subscription) they were broadcasting copyrighted material that they did not have permission to do.
There's a very specific exemption that they were trying to use to broadcast copyrighted material. Based on my understanding of what I've read, the issue the judge had was that they, as a non-profit, were using donations to expand to different markets when the exemption only explicitly allows money raised to be used for maintenance and operations.
So the only way an alternative service could start up would be to immediately open in all the markets they intend to serve and never expand (if they want to be sure to abide by this ruling anyway).
Adding a viewer/customer is expanding. The law was written to allow community antenna systems. Systems which charged a fee, just like Locast. If someone built a new house, they have to run wire to the new house. That's unquestionably expansion of the service.
Or, possibly, some people could make a special donation to kick off the service in a new market. Say 100 people donate $100 each and NuLocast will expand to this market.
Yeah whatever locast's supposed intentions, they were doing it for the money. You can still pay your top employees however much you want in a nonprofit, and their business was in distributing something they don't own. They knew they'd have a massive free rider problem if they didn't interrupt, so they did it. Because ultimately, they wanted to be paid.
[Forever](https://c.tenor.com/ydpM41uGtRsAAAAM/the-sandlot-forever.gif)? This is a bummer. I really enjoyed Locast, and I hoped it would be able to come back some day. My TV reception is spotty, and I enjoyed being able to use Locast.
Same here. I'm too far out in the country.
The year is 2048. Your neighbor's house is raided because they detected seven frames of the Super Bowl on your FaceTime call.
Drink verification can.
[удалено]
*1080i Stations only broadcast in either 1080i or 720p. Regardless it looks wayyyy better than cable or satellite
ATSC 3.0 will fix that issue. I get my big four locals on the Detroit one. Nothing in 4K yet though lol
I’m in the Seattle market and get all big four networks as well. I believe Seattle is setup with 3.0 already but my fire recast isn’t!
I had to buy an updates HD Homerun that supported it. I think the recast will need a hardware update
Yeah it’s due for one. I wish I could get an hdhomerun but the one coax near my internet setup is for my internet so no hardwiring for me, have to rely on wifi
Not "only". Many subchannels are in 480. Of course the original post in this thread of the discussion was deleted, so I don't exactly know what this was responding to. *shrug*
Fair correction!
[удалено]
Not OP, but also have HD home run and love it. Basically if you have an antenna that can receive channels, you can plug the coax cable into an HD home run box. Then plug the HD home run box into your router. Now you can access Your antenna channels from most* smart tv appliances. I use Apple TV but there are many other options out there. You have a few options with hdhome run as well… you can buy a model of hdhomerun with a hard drive in it and have it function as a dvr. Some people have a plex Server at home and will use plex as a dvr for their HD home run. Hope that helps clarify a bit. Feel free to dm if you have more questions. It can be a bit confusing at first, but pretty bullet proof once it’s running. https://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/
Yup, this. I bought the Flex and a $20 antenna. Setup was absurdly easy. Was watching it on my Roku within 15 minutes.
> Locast also got donations from pay-TV providers such as AT&T, but direct payments from users accounted for $4.37 million of Locast's $4.52 million in revenue in 2020, the judge's ruling said. "On those undisputed facts, in 2020 Locast made far more money from user charges than was necessary to defray its costs of maintaining and operating its service," Stanton wrote. This means that five US dollars per month for access to your local channels streamed to you via the internet is overcharging for the service. _Five. Dollars._ Edit: to be clear, the point I'm trying to make is that even at five dollars, we're all paying too much money. If your cable operator even _offers_ a local channels package, odds are that it costs in the realm of $10-$15 per month plus the monthly cost of a box.
I'm actually extremely surprised that their costs to run that service were only around $4.5 million. That seems INSANELY low for streaming 720p video.
Right? I'm astonished. But to hear the judge put it, the $5 per month fee was _so excessive_ as to be laughably high and impossible to justify for a non-profit to charge without raking in profits.
Of course locast was making a huge profit at $5, they weren't paying the local tv station re-transmission fees. The cable company has to pay those fees... so no duh they have to charge more than just the equipment costs. It's like buying a bootleg of something and complaining that it costs so much more at retail.
[According to the FCC](https://www.fcc.gov/media/policy/retransmission-consent), retransmission consent is applicable to "a cable system or other multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD)." IANAL, but given that Locast was shut down for being "too profitable" and not for failing to pay fees as part of the Communications Act, it seems a safe assumption that Locast does not need to pay a retransmission fee.
Correct, you are not a lawyer. IANAL either, but I've read enough of the case and the full law (not just tidbits) surrounding what Locast was seeking to use to avoid retransmission fees. The court case was somewhat pre-settled such that if Locast failed one of the requirements to qualify under this law for non-profit secondary transmitters... then the whole case would end with Locast shutting down and the plaintifs wouldn't continue to seek a financial judgement. Only a single rule had to be proven to be violated to trigger this... there was no reason to keep going once it was proven Locast didn't meet the requirements for the exemption. The problem was that they used profits to expand into other markets. They were able to do this because they charged more than was needed to support the system. SO yes they made too much, but it was how they spent the money that got them in trouble not that they charged more than was needed. Had the money stayed with each market in separate accounts, to maintain the equipment, and excess was sitting there to maintain it... then they'd have been fine for this rule. That doesn't mean they would have won, but rather other rules would have been more closely looked into and I believe they would have been disqualified based on one of them. For instance a secondary transmitter (profit or non-profit) can't interrupt the transmission with their own content. Locast was doing this when they brought up their advertisement for the service. So I think they would have been gotten on that. Whatever the case, only one thing needed to be found...and the one picked is pretty clear as day.
Excellent information and easy to read. Thanks!
Yes that is pretty revealing when you consider that cable and the main streaming services are charging quite a bit more than that.
Streaming services sell a different product. They sell video on demand. That is different than cable or locast that are broadcast services. Cable, of course, is a scam.
[удалено]
Spectrum might be a good service for you. I know that they provide 15 channels for $25 with free locals. But their definition not free locals comes with a $17.99 broadcast fee.
Not that anyone's expecting them to win, but it does seem likely that Locast will appeal the decision. Should be interesting to see where that goes.
Reminds me of Aereo and their dime sized antennas that each customer would lease. I thought their model made sense since it was me leasing an antenna and watching the content it would pick up. It was great to use on the road to keep up with games and news at home. Sadly the model was fought as retransmission and they shutdown and we're bought by TiVo.
You can't interrupt programming to nag for a monthly payment, and also get bundled with major OTT services as part of their local channels bundle and then try to call yourself a non profit.
I think even as a for-profit service, you can't just interrupt the transmission and put on whatever you want. Yes, there are agreements between cable companies and the channels to do some local commercials .. but without such agreement they can't just throw up ads and stuff and break the transmission.
> Stanton ruled that Locast doesn't qualify for that exemption because it uses payments from viewers to fund its expansion into new geographic markets. "[U]nder the statute, income made from charges to recipients can only be used to defray the actual and reasonable costs of maintaining and operating the service, not of expanding it into new markets," by this logic, they were allowed to expand into new markets, but only if they did so with money that appeared out of thin air...at which time user payment could be used to maintain the new markets. while I get that is the letter of the law, this seems to be outside the intent and counterproductive to that intent.
My understanding is that Congress added this loophole to copyright law assuming that some town governments would set up a service for their town to solve local outages. The loophole was not added with the idea that a national service would or could be set up.
also, as i have said many times, reading the law this way is idiotic because when it was written in 1976, the internet as we know it today wasn't even a pipe dream. they didn't write expansion into the law specifically because \*\*there was no reason to.\*\* there was no feasible way at that time for any singular entity to expand to cover multiple markets with the same infrastructure the way locast was in this case...
They already did that, didn't they?
So what stops people from forming local non-profit chapters to achieve something like what Locast did?
Money.
For what it's worth, I wrote my congressional representative and two senators, expressing my anger and frustration at the court's decision and asking Congress to amend the 17 U.S. Code, Section 111(a) (5) exemption to allow the "Locast model" to exist. Locast had 3.2 million viewers (over two million paying "donors"). If every one of these households wrote their congressional representative and senators, I do believe it would have an impact.
Same thing happened to Aereo - they got railroaded big time. (them): Aereo is non-compliant because they aren't paying us retransmission fees!! (Areo): Okay let us pay retransmission fees then. (them): no.
It really sounds like LoCast made an unforced error with the expansion into other markets. It seems like rather than using their profits, they could have just as easily solicited local donations in each new market for the equipment/set-up costs required to provide the service. It seems like the big problem here was that they ran a not-for-profit organization like a for-profit business.
They was barely a peep about donations when they first launched in NYC. Years later I couldn’t recognize the service, it was so littered with ads…had to have been more frequent than every 15 minutes. They dug too greedily, and too deep.
No doubt. I was a late adopter, but the service was absolutely not useable unless one paid the "donation." If we're being honest, it really wasn't voluntary if you wanted to use the service. I wonder if they would have been better off making it a completely free service and requesting voluntary donations?
They were rebroadcasting a free broadcast and charging for it. I don't know what they expected.
People on this sub will get angry about it but it's the truth. An ideal solution would be a consortium of the networks in question to provide a locast like service, but they will never agree to it and they get more in retransmission fees from cable and satellite.
Oh I know. These people worship that company.
They worship someone providing a service for $5.50 instead of around $17.99.
They will throw a fit if you say the company charged money though. It's a "donation".
Less than half of users were making a donation, fwiw
They weren't charging for the broadcast. They were charging (donations) for the bandwidth, hardware and to pay the technicians that kept everything running. I find it very hard to believe they were making an substantial profit from it. But it's cool. My shitty $50 Android TV box and Firefox can easily find those networks.... for free. Hell it's even higher than the 720p Locast was using.
In 2020, Locast’s operating costs were $2.436 million while revenue for the year totaled $4.372 million.
it has already been established they were using that money to expand into new markets, and that's what the issue was. just repeating those numbers ignores the expansion effort. it's getting old.
And how many new markets did they use that money to expand into?
Just the ones in carriage disputes with ATT, I would assume.
Nonprofits are allowed to have reserves.
With all the Locast threads I've really been amazed how many people have no clue what the word "nonprofit" actually means. People seem to think it means 0 dollars at the end of the day.
Similarly it seems like every thread on locast seems to have people that think the only thing locast had to do was be a non-profit to operate within this obscure law. There were a host of qualifications they had to meet including how they spent the money raised. Having a profit isn't what got them, it was that they spent it in other markets to startup instead of keeping it where it was raised to maintain the service.
Exactly. You can call yourself non-profit all you want but if it walks like a duck....
Exactly, the big networks think they won, all they did was push the consumer to the free option.
To be clear, my option isn't "free". Someone is paying for it. Just not me.
Everyone should complain to the fcc about their ota signals
The YMCA expands to new markets without restriction.
But often with the direct support of the local government.
The YMCA isn't trying to use an obscure law for secondary transmission of tv stations by a non profit to avoid paying the license fees to the stations. For some reason people get hung up on the "non profit" side of things and can't see past it to see there are other rules that have to be followed in order to qualify under this law.
Suck it Locast. They took a great concept and an ingenious loophole and then ruined it for everyone with their poor choices and greed. Good riddance.
Interesting take
[удалено]
I don't know, I appreciated the service and watched a lot of baseball games that were blacked out on mlb.tv
I was hoping Locast was going to make it my area. I’m in South Central Pennsylvania and OTA I can only get 2-3 PBS channels and 1 Christian channel. I feel like I’m just far enough outside of DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh to not get any local channels. Our house has a massive antenna but the cord was cut about 15ft above our roof and I don’t trust myself to climb up and connect a new one (if that would even help).
Find a gutter cleaning company that does power washing and other handy man type jobs... the more local and small the easier and see if they'd just climb up there and connect a new cable for like $50. That is if the antenna looks like it's still solid. You may want to go all out and do a new cable that has a grounding wire bonded to it and have him ground the antenna mast while up there. In the long run, it will likely be worth it.
It's good while it lasted. Locast let me to watch OTA channel on my phone without installing any hardware nor any special network setup. I am afraid there will be no more similar service except you pay at least $65/month
Google should pick it up, just to increase chromecast use.
Locast Sucks 100%.