OT - Stop The TV Tax

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Mon, Oct 05, 2009 at 09:48:05AM -0700, Stephen wrote:
> I am a bit sympathetic for the TV stations.
> 
> Most, if not all, of the cable only stations get paid by the cable companies to carry their signals.
> 
> The broadcast companies need to compete against companies that not onlt get advertising revenue, but also fees from the cable companies.
> 
> And it is very dishonest to call the proposed fees a "tax"

Broadcast stations deliver their signal for free over the air.  They are
funded by advertising or donations (PBS for example), or government
funding to some extent (CBC, TVO, etc).

The cable company provides me with a good quality copy of that signal
saving me the hassle of putting up an antenna at my house, and I pay
them for the convinience.

Specialty stations have a different idea, in that they are subscription
funded (and sometimes advertising as well).  The cable company offers
to provide me with those signals too in exchange for money.

I could get the same service from a satelite provider like expressvue
or shawdirect.

Asking me to pay extra money to the cable company to go to the companies
who broadcast in my area makes no sense.  If everyone stopped using cable
and switched to antennas on their house, the broadcast station would be
back to the same place they were before the new fee, except they would
have lost some customers who were unable to put up an antenna or are
now slightly too far away to get a good signal.  So there is no good
reason for the broadcast stations to get money from the cable companies.

It is only because 90% or something of viewers use cable instead of
antennas these days that they want to do this.  Cable companies make
money so let us take some of that because the advertising doesn't pay
enough to affort the pile of US programs we buy.

If you want money from the cable company, then stop being a broadcast
station, give back your broadcast license and frequency, and become a
cable/satelite only specialty channel and see how many customers will
subscribe to you.  You can't have it both ways.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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