Word: retransmitting
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...experiment was the most radical attempt to change the TV business model, but it wasn't the only one. Fox recently got Time Warner Cable to agree to pay to retransmit Fox's free over-the-air signal, suggesting that broadcasters could someday operate more like cable channels (with cable subscribers paying for it). Reality shows and newsmagazines are, like the Leno show, devices to fill prime time on the cheap - and they'll fill some of the vacuum left by Leno...
...have creative differences with China's television regulators. Consider the fate of Hunan Media Group, once China's funkiest broadcaster. In the 1990s this studio in central Hunan province took advantage of a rule allowing provincial broadcasters to deliver one channel nationally across cable networks. Not content to just retransmit the local crop report, Hunan came up with a slate of all-new programs geared to popular (read: low-brow) tastes. Its leading show, Happy Camper, let celebrities and ordinary folk embarrass themselves by, for instance, dangling from 20-meter cords while tossing basketballs at a hoop. Hunan grew...
...onto the dial, as channels like Fox News and Animal Planet (from the creators of the Discovery Channel) have done by offering money to cable systems in return for carrying them. Yet CBS does have some potential clout to wield. It could hold up permission for cable systems to retransmit local CBS stations unless they agree to pick up Eye on People--a tactic the other broadcast networks have used in order to get wider distribution for their start-up cable ventures...
...refusing to add new basic channels, how did fX and ESPN2 and America's Talking end up getting carried? It has less to do with must-see programming than with deals struck between the cable industry and Fox, ABC and NBC. Traditionally, cable systems have been able to retransmit local broadcast stations for free. The four broadcast networks, which own local stations in big markets, have always been frustrated by this situation, and in 1992 they were allowed to seek retransmission payments from the cable operators. The cable companies refused to pay, however, so a compromise was reached. The networks...
Cable opponents have other beefs as well. Hollywood is unhappy that cable superstations are able to retransmit syndicated shows for a nominal, Government-imposed fee instead of negotiating such fees directly with distributors. Also drawing fire is the industry's growing "vertical integration": cable systems that have a financial interest in program services. The largest owner of cable systems, Tele-Communications, Inc., for example, is a part owner of the Turner Broadcasting System, as well as an investor in Black Entertainment Television, the Discovery Channel and several other cable networks. Time Inc., the parent of the second largest cable operator...