If the broadcasters were to win on their claims, they'd outlaw the DVR.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
If we were to reengineer the DVR, we would cut America's energy bill by 5%.
Isn't it only appropriate that, in return for the free use of the public spectrum, broadcasters provide something substantial, something that wouldn't otherwise be provided by marketplace competition?
For years, broadcasters didn't get a nickel out of retransmission consent. But broadcast content is what the cable industry was selling to customers.
When television came out, there was concern it would kill radio.
Television contracts the imagination and radio expands it.
If the television market collapses - and it will collapse - then, it seems, there is too much regulation, and that's not a good thing.
For those broadcasters who are less than responsible, the FCC needs to have sharper teeth to enforce the law.
With the DVR, I was mostly writing about it as a good thing in giving us the choice of when and how to watch things. But there's what we lose in the bargain, which is the collective spectacle. 'Did you see Jay Leno last night?'
If policymakers are serious about avoiding a society of TV 'haves and have-nots,' they should refrain from policies that favor pay-TV operators over the providers of our nation's only free and local communications system: over-the-air broadcasting.
Cable would not translate into the public radio universe.