Why No Sinclair Lawsuit?

[rswank]

Sorry if this has already been discussed.
Why hasn't there been a lawsuit filed forcing Sinclair to allow TW et al with FOX / ABC HD signals?
I thought that FCC regs required offering of local stations by cable providers.
Are they claiming this was for SD only?
We own the HD airwaves as well so how does this not apply?

[rswank]

Just came across this...
Will it help? Prob not, who knows... sign it.
http://www.petitiononline.com/ColSinc1/petition.html

[Timcredible]

cable companies are only required to carry local stations that have been designated as 'must-carry'. and the station itself makes that determination, and stinkclair has chosen to make their local digital stations as 'not-must-carry'. that's the only way they can charge for the stations.

[bullwinkle]

I think TW does this just to keep their lawyers busy. About 6 yrs. ago TW and the Dispatch got into a pissing contest about TW carrying ONN. TW offered to carry ONN on their digital tier but the Dispatch wanted it carried as analog and threatened to deny retransmission rights of WBNS. This spat almost ended up in court but in the end the Dispatch folded and ONN is carried on TW's digital tier.

I don't see Sinclair folding their tent. They worked out agreements with WOW and Insight that didn't involve money and I think the same will eventually happen with TW. Time(Warner) will tell.

[bigtiger]

Now we are in mid 2006, in about 3 years this should resolve itself automatically when the analog goes away, doesn't it? At that time, the only thing left will be digital. Or will they chose the multicast with SD and HD, and designate SD as "must-carry"?!

[bullwinkle]

Now we are in mid 2006, in about 3 years this should resolve itself automatically when the analog goes away, doesn't it? At that time, the only thing left will be digital. Or will they chose the multicast with SD and HD, and designate SD as "must-carry"?!

My crystal ball is offline so I don't know what is going to happen on February 17, 2009. I know that analog will disappear from the broadcast dial but what about analog cable? Will the broadcasters allow the cablecos to convert their signal to analog or will analog cable disapear and users with analog TV's will be forced to rent a STB? And what about the unfortunate that don't have cable or a digital TV? What do they do?

[bullwinkle]

Mediacom tries the courts -- and loses.

BALTIMORE, Oct. 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa yesterday denied the motion of Mediacom Communications Corp. seeking a preliminary injunction to allow Mediacom to continue to carry television stations owned and/or programmed by Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: SBGI - News) after Mediacom's contractual right to do so terminates. As a result of the Court's decision, the retransmission consent agreement pursuant to which over eight hundred thousand subscribers of Mediacom's cable service receive twenty-two (22) television stations owned and/or programmed by Sinclair remains scheduled to terminate on November 30, 2006.

more... (http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/061025/phw028.html?.v=72)

[Timcredible]

nothing wrong with that - at some point sinclair will go out of business for lack of customers. it'll require neilsens to monitor and report on hd channels, but at that point, sinclair will start losing advertising dollars because it doesn't reach many customers, and so on until they go out of business.

[festivus]

We, as consumers, need to do our part to prod Sinclair. Refuse to watch ch's 6 and 28 whenever possible. Personally, I stopped watching ch6 news years ago because of this and I spread the word to everyone that I know about this conflict.

TWC is at fault as well. If their HD receivers allowed an OTA input it would solve the problem for those of us within antenna range. I use a small Terk HDTVi set top antenna. I think that I'm 16 miles from the Sinclair tower. I have no issues receiving the signal.

As more and more consumers get HD sets the marketplace will force this issue to get resolved. Otherwise Sinclair and TWC will suffer.

[Ronald Long]

Sorry if this has already been discussed.
Why hasn't there been a lawsuit filed forcing Sinclair to allow TW et al with FOX / ABC HD signals?
I thought that FCC regs required offering of local stations by cable providers.
Are they claiming this was for SD only?
We own the HD airwaves as well so how does this not apply?
I don't see a future in a lawsuit. How about this approach? Local communities grant a franchise to TW and of course they are happy to collect the fees. I don't know what the language is in a typical franchise agreement but if it says something about the level of service that might provide a method of applying some pressure. Contact your city councilman.

[TvPat]

I agree with festivus. If cable boxes and cable DVR's were set up to receive over the air channels, just like DirecTV does with their HD equipment, there is not a thing Sinclair could do about it.

[mace]

It's easier to just switch to a provider that has what you want.. I stopped pissing and moaning about this when I switched to sattelite

[Robbiee19]

I agree with mace. With D* I get Local HD from them or I just use the OTA, which I use most of the time.