Rupert Murdoch's Newscorp threatens to pull Fox of the air in Aereo dispute and backs down.

News Corp.’s flagship Fox network might cease broadcasting over the U.S. public airwaves if the company’s dispute with upstart challenger Aereo isn’t resolved, a senior company official warned Monday. News Corp. COO Chase Carey said Fox — home of “The Simpsons,” “Glee” and “American Idol” — might simply move to pay-for-TV cable as a result of its legal dispute with Aereo, a New York-based startup backed by billionaire media mogul Barry Diller. Read more: business.time.com...

I'm not a television watcher. Haven't been for a long, long time but something about this still just makes me giggle. Some of you older ATS should remember that, once upon a time, television was...well...free and if people wanted more access to various channels, they would set up one of those monster satellite dishes like this one. But that is a bygone era, especially after the government mandated that all television was going to be broadcast digitally: www.dtv.gov...

I was just thinking about this whole transition to digital thing and thought if there was a conspiracy anywhere, it was there. But, hey, receiving those transmissions through an antenna is still supposed to be able to work, right? According to the dtv.gov site, yes. So, still free tv and yet, Newscorp is freaking out and threatening to turn Fox into a subscription service because a company is leasing out antennas capable of capturing their airwaves. I find that fascinating but then again, I'm sick so am probably as clear as mud due to cold medicine. Yet, I really, really hope that some of you put it all together and share the giggle with me. Imagine if Fox no longer broadcast freely...and Murdoch thinks that's a threat?

P.S. Yes, article is old but I missed this one entirely.

Update apparently 2 hours ago (darn you Google News for showing the first one first and not this!): www.forbes.com...

Apparently the COO is changing his tune. Pity.

“You’re getting further down the road than I get,” he replied. “The point we’re making is the broadcast business, to be a healthy business and one that’s able to deliver the quality of entertainment and events it does, needs to be a dual-revenue business. If it became an advertising-only business it wouldn’t be able to compete effectively.”

Once upon a time, advertising only was precisely how broadcast stations worked, Carey...

Just reminiscing here...

Remembering when HBO first came out it had no commercials either. Just had those shorts to fill the time between movies.

Now they advertise tv shows in a movie theater...

I still hate adverts...

But I cant see how this would improve FOX money stream. Their advertising still reaches a lot of people even if over the air.

I still have my 12' satellite dish. I kept it just in case it could be useful but so far the only uses I have found for it is a roof for a circular gazebo or wrapping it in tin foil and cooking hotdogs on a sunny day.

"FOX" is not the same as,
"The Fox News channel.

So what exactly is there to giggle about?

reply to post by Terminal1


Get into the Free to air stuff. Theres alot of free channels up there and also news and sport feeds available.

I wish i had a 12 foot dish. Dont have the room for it but the stuff i could watch if i had one.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


Bwahahahahahahaaaaaaa...I still have one of those giant flying saucer sat dishes in my front field...I bolted the tiny Dish Network...about the size of a flat basketball one, to the top of the old huge one. Gets me better signal from over the mountain top......

Also had a Captain Crunch Black Box with a toggle switch, way back then, to get free long distance phone calls. Do you remember those?

Des

reply to post by Terminal1


Oh I know...avoiding adverts is one of the primary reasons why we don't do tv here and it's pretty funny to watch my youngest's response to ads because of the lack of exposure. She finds most of them to be absolutely weird and baffling. Asks what the point of that was.

I find it interesting that they are crying about requiring a dual revenue stream when tv functioned for decades quite well on advertising only revenue. Well, I guess, years ago, you didn't have tv shows that were being produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and so on. Made for tv movies weren't that bad in the 80's and 90's but now, every episode of regular tv shows is made to movie quality expectations at probably bigger price tags. So really, they've built in that expectation from viewers of a higher level of broadcast entertainment and expenditure. Maybe once upon a time they decided that it was necessary in order to compete with cable channels or maybe it was just a ding to their pride. Either way, they made their own bed and I'm glad to see that companies like Aereo are making them sleep in it because it's kind of mind boggling to imagine that something that was once free for 50ish years now suddenly requires money to see. Have you ever seen the per episode prices on Amazon or Youtube? It's usually around $1.99 per episode for something that once was free.

Originally posted by bjax9er
"FOX" is not the same as,
"The Fox News channel.

So what exactly is there to giggle about?

Oh I know but it's just seeing Newscorp getting all upset because an antenna can catch their broadcast that, as per the dtv.gov site, was supposed to be able to be done post 2009 transition. And they still have the news on the regular Fox channel anyways. It's kind of a standard feature of a broadcast station unless I'm mistaken.

reply to post by dreamfox1


Isnt the stuff encrypted anymore? Seems that was the way it was going when I took it offline. I dont even think my reciever works anymore nevermind the actuator motor on the dish itself.

Been thinking of salvaging the copper from the wire. Only have about 200' of it and its 3 or 4 strands of some pretty heavy stuff.

Apologies for going OT. I will hush now

reply to post by Destinyone


Oh yea... I remember the togglenswitch. Bent an actuator arm once because I had no way in the dark to tell the position of the dish. Bent it by running the dish into the ground since my polenwasnt high.

Never heard of getting free long distance though. Always a day late and dollar short...

reply to post by WhiteAlice


Yea. On my kindle fire (non HD) and i don't rent any shows because if I opened thag door, would end up owing another small fortune outside of internet and satellite.