Broadcasters' woes could spell trouble for free TV

[HarvestMoon]

Quote:[SIZE="5"]Broadcasters' woes could spell trouble for free TV[/SIZE]
[SIZE="1"]By Andrew Vanacore, Ap Business Writer[/SIZE]

NEW YORK – For more than 60 years, TV stations have broadcast news, sports and entertainment for free and made their money by showing commercials. That might not work much longer.

The business model is unraveling at ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox and the local stations that carry the networks' programming. Cable TV and the Web have fractured the audience for free TV and siphoned its ad dollars. The recession has squeezed advertising further, forcing broadcasters to accelerate their push for new revenue to pay for programming.

That will play out in living rooms across the country. The changes could mean higher cable or satellite TV bills, as the networks and local stations squeeze more fees from pay-TV providers such as Comcast and DirecTV for the right to show broadcast TV channels in their lineups. The networks might even ditch free broadcast signals in the next few years. Instead, they could operate as cable channels — a move that could spell the end of free TV as Americans have known it since the 1940s.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091229/ap_o...s_in_peril

I don't know about ya'll, but Time Warner took over five weeks to restore cable service after Hurricane Rita and over the air broadcast was Godsend.

[dkmac]

OTA TV and DVD/VHS movies were our salvation after Katrina. Charter cable didn't get back into operation in my neighborhood until the middle of October - over 6 weeks. POTS and DSL (both AT&T) were back online 4 days after Katrina hit.

[jess]

The big boys are having more problems than anyone else. They don't have much to offer, they've shown they're in the bag for the current administration, and most of their audience wouldn't know their *** if someone stapled it to their forhead. So, locals can become more self-determined and can sell, or buy any program they can through the larger media outlets. Things change, and broadcast television isn't immune. The big three have outlived their usefullness, and have abused their power.