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 Ozymandias |
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Beam
us up, Dish Network
Local network affiliates flex meager muscle
in fight with Big Satellite
by HANK SIMS
Don Smullin, general manager of the Eureka Television Group, drove Eureka's back streets Monday afternoon with a portable television and two antennas at his side -- one for UHF, on for VHF. He had a small pile of Internet-drawn maps on the dashboard, with directions to the stops he would be making that day.
He pulled over to the curb outside his first stop, a home out behind Harris Street with a Dish Network satellite receiver bolted to the roof. Then he pulled out his TV, plugged in the little wire UHF antenna ("$3 at Radio Shack), held it out his window and started channel surfing.
Channel 29 -- the Fox affiliate, one of his stations -- was playing an episode of "King of the Hill." It came in loud and clear, with almost no visible static. Check. Ditto Univision, channel 31, another of his stations. Ditto ABC affiliate KAEF, channel 23. He switched to VHF. Channels 13, 9, 6 and 3 -- all strong.
Smullin sighed. "Sorry, people," he said.
Paradoxically, clear reception is probably the last thing the TV lovers inside that house wish for, and Smullin and his staff would have to be the ones to bring the bad news. The fact that those Eureka residents can receive all five of Eureka Television's signals just fine makes that piece of hardware attached to their home just a bit less worthwhile an investment.
That's because Smullin -- a painfully polite, genteel man and a second-generation Humboldt County broadcaster -- had it within his power to deny them the right to receive network television through their satellite service, and in their case he was intending to use it. It's the only pressure Smullin can bring to bear on the two big satellite television companies -- Dish Network and DirecTV -- in his effort to get them to carry his stations.
In almost every other market in the country, satellite subscribers receive their network television through their dish. The satellite companies broadcast the local network affiliates to their subscribers. Dish Network customers in Medford, Ore., can get the Medford Fox affiliate -- and with it, "American Idol," "24" and all their other favorite shows. But the satellites have so far declined to put Eureka TV stations up on their system.
In the past, satellite companies had broadcast the signal from other stations into Humboldt County. Local viewers might receive Fox affiliate in Los Angeles, for example. But last year a court ruling out of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals put an end to the practice of broadcasting "distant locals" into another market without the permission of the on-the-ground affiliate. As it stands now, no Humboldt County satellite subscriber receives programming for any of the networks -- ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, PBS, The CW -- without first obtaining a waiver from Smullin and the people at the other stations in town. Dish Network and DirecTV are essentially asking local network affiliates to sign away their business.
And by and large, they've got their customers on their side -- calling in to already understaffed local stations and demanding that they provide a waiver. Smullin said that on Dec. 1, the day that Dish Network suddenly cut off all network programming in response to the court ruling, Eureka Television received 1,500 waiver requests. The number has since tapered off, but he's still receiving about 50 new requests a week.
The waiver process places the onus on the local stations, many of which are understaffed and underfunded to begin with. It's the locals who have to deal with the irate callers, and who have to take responsibility for their decision to approve or deny a waiver request.
"All of a sudden, we've been put between a rock and a hard place," said Bob Browning, general manager of local NBC affiliate KIEM-TV. "It's been a public relations nightmare."
According to the July 2006 Nielsen book, about 70 percent of the households in Humboldt and Del Norte counties -- which together make up the local TV "Designated Market Area" (DMA) -- subscribe to cable television. About 17 percent subscribe to "alternative delivery systems," which essentially means direct satellite broadcasts. With 58,340 television-owning households in the Humboldt/Del Norte DMA -- one of the smallest in the nation -- that adds up to nearly 10,000 local satellite TV subscribers.
Those are relatively small numbers. According to several local broadcasters, the satellite companies have said that such a small customer base makes it unfeasible to pick up local stations and retransmit them through their system. (Neither Dish Network nor DirecTV could be reached for this story.) But some see the problem differently. In the Chico area, the satellite companies do carry the local stations. And in Chico, 44 percent of the TV households subscribe to satellite. They've taken over a big chunk of the cable market.
Andy Chrisler, owner of Eureka's Earth Stations Unlimited, is a true believer in satellite TV. He started installing systems for people 24 years ago, back when "satellite TV" meant a big, ungainly dish that took up half the yard. Nowadays, he installs both Dish Network and DirecTV for Humboldt County subscribers, along with custom digital and analog antennas that can bring in the local stations.
The way Chrisler sees it, satellite has a good chance of eclipsing cable in rural Humboldt and Del Norte counties. It's expensive to build out a cable system, but satellite is already available everywhere. The big thing holding customers back, he thinks, is the fact that satellite customers can't get their local stations.
"We've talked with them a few times over the years, and we always get the same thing -- they say we're one of the small markets," he said. "If and when that occurs, when we can get our local stations on the satellite, it will be a different playing field altogether."
Smullin checked two homes on Monday, the place out by Harris Street and another home in Cutten. Cutten can be a borderline area, he said -- the large stands of redwood trees in the neighborhood can sometimes block broadcast signals, depending on their placement in relation to a home. In that case, though, there was no reception problem. The unlucky residents would also be denied.
When he drove back to the office, Smullin delivered his report to the Eureka Television employee charged with handling waivers. He told her to deny both of the requests. She told him about another case, one out in Fortuna. The resident had called again, she said, and he swore that he could receive none of Eureka TV's signals. It so happened that Smullin was familiar with the neighborhood in question. He knew that a large hill blocked a lot of the broadcast signal. So he told his employee to go ahead and approve the waiver, sight unseen.
"There," he said. "So we get to approve one today, anyway." For the other two: Now they're the ones trapped between the rock and the hard place.
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