Locast, Nocast
September 4, 2021 7:35 AM Subscribe
Locast, frequently recommended on Metafilter, has suspended operations, following a U.S. Federal Court's ruling. Locast provided free access to local TV stations in 35 U.S. markets at the time of the ruling.
In a summary judgment, U.S. District Court Judge Louis Stanton sided with ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC, claiming that Locast's use of donations to expand into new markets disqualified them from being a nonprofit. The judge noted that In 2020, Locast “made far more money from user charges than was necessary to defray its costs of maintaining and operating its service.”
Locast sent email notifications to its over 3 million subscribers, cancelled their payments and closed their accounts.
In a summary judgment, U.S. District Court Judge Louis Stanton sided with ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC, claiming that Locast's use of donations to expand into new markets disqualified them from being a nonprofit. The judge noted that In 2020, Locast “made far more money from user charges than was necessary to defray its costs of maintaining and operating its service.”
Locast sent email notifications to its over 3 million subscribers, cancelled their payments and closed their accounts.
This whole thing where broadcast networks keep impinging on the ability of cord cutters to watch their live tv... it's going to take care of itself... and the networks may not like how it ends.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:54 AM on September 4, 2021 [24 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:54 AM on September 4, 2021 [24 favorites]
Locast's use of donations to expand into new markets disqualified them from being a nonprofit.
I was going to say "do universities next," but sadly this seems to be limited to the copyright context (17 USC 111(a)(5)).
posted by Not A Thing at 8:04 AM on September 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
I was going to say "do universities next," but sadly this seems to be limited to the copyright context (17 USC 111(a)(5)).
posted by Not A Thing at 8:04 AM on September 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
It makes sense that the court didn't buy their nonprofit defense. The please donate $5/month to stop this ad from interrupting your stream messages every 15 minutes doesn't feel much different from the tactics of pay pirate TV sites. It's in fact a worse tactic and deal than a lot of pirate sites have, but they got customers who liked the "nonprofit" and "legal" labels.
Did anyone actually consistently use Locast without paying the $5/month fee to remove the ads? I'd imagine the majority of users paid because you'd have to be hard up for entertainment if you're willing to miss a chunk of whatever you're watching 4 times an hour. Makes sense they raked in far more than operating costs.
posted by RotJ at 8:08 AM on September 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
Did anyone actually consistently use Locast without paying the $5/month fee to remove the ads? I'd imagine the majority of users paid because you'd have to be hard up for entertainment if you're willing to miss a chunk of whatever you're watching 4 times an hour. Makes sense they raked in far more than operating costs.
posted by RotJ at 8:08 AM on September 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
I do hope they figure out the right way to do this. I live in a basement garden apartment that gets no broadcast signal; and it's a PITA to set up an antenna. Locast was a lifesaver that way. I do get the local NBC and FOX through SlingTV; and PBS because I make a donation to the local affiliate. But Locast was good one stop shop for all local broadcast channels.
posted by indianbadger1 at 8:19 AM on September 4, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by indianbadger1 at 8:19 AM on September 4, 2021 [7 favorites]
I'm a little confused why the broadcasters didn't like Locast. Doesn't it just expand their market? Locast is still showing the normal TV ads that are in the local TV feed, right? Were they providing viewer numbers back to the broadcasters?
I guess the dis-location creates a problem for their business model. The broadcasters love the feeling they control their local market and Locast confused that. Of course as a consumer I don't give a damn what they want, particularly when it comes to +10dB ads for local car dealers.
YouTube TV has very generous terms for local channels right now. You have to prove you are in the region you say you are. But the nice thing is they only ask you prove that once every three months. You're welcome to watch your account from anywhere in the world and move around as much as you want as long as you log in from home every once in awhile. I suspect the local TV stations are not thrilled with that. It's great for normal people who travel though. (Also avoids the hilarious problem Hulu has with dynamic IP addresses; if your IP address changes more than 4 times in a year Hulu cuts you off. So dumb.)
posted by Nelson at 8:27 AM on September 4, 2021 [8 favorites]
I guess the dis-location creates a problem for their business model. The broadcasters love the feeling they control their local market and Locast confused that. Of course as a consumer I don't give a damn what they want, particularly when it comes to +10dB ads for local car dealers.
YouTube TV has very generous terms for local channels right now. You have to prove you are in the region you say you are. But the nice thing is they only ask you prove that once every three months. You're welcome to watch your account from anywhere in the world and move around as much as you want as long as you log in from home every once in awhile. I suspect the local TV stations are not thrilled with that. It's great for normal people who travel though. (Also avoids the hilarious problem Hulu has with dynamic IP addresses; if your IP address changes more than 4 times in a year Hulu cuts you off. So dumb.)
posted by Nelson at 8:27 AM on September 4, 2021 [8 favorites]
the networks may not like how it ends
The networks seem to like the Balkanization of streaming just fine. The people who aren't going to like how the story ends are all the end users who thought by cutting the cord they'd be able to save money as compared to what they'd been spending on internet access and cable TV. The paradox of cable unbundling is that if you want to pay for only the content you watch (and not all those other channels) you'll probably end up spending more than if you'd just taken the bundle. In our glorious new unbundled future, we now have a choice: pay more for a la carte access to literally everything you want while losing the convenience of one-stop shopping ("wait, wasn't that movie on this service yesterday?"), or pick and choose which things to pay for any given month and remember to cancel the services you're not using.
The truth of cable bundling is that while everybody loved to complain about all the channels they didn't watch, the subsidy mostly worked in the opposite direction from how people like to think it did. It's not that the movie buffs paid for the top tier plan to get TCM and Sundance and BBC America and subsidized the sports networks in the process; there just aren't that many of them. The economy of scale for sports networks (and their massive subscriber bases) meant that content owners could toss a little bit of profit towards the little arty movie channels, and the literal pennies on all those dollars paid for a lot of Robert Osborne introductions and subtitles. Unbundled, those services will necessarily come in at a higher price point if they're available at all, and the economics may not work out.
(Yes, I miss TCM, and no, I don't miss it enough to pay for cable, or Sling, or whatever).
posted by fedward at 8:51 AM on September 4, 2021 [10 favorites]
The networks seem to like the Balkanization of streaming just fine. The people who aren't going to like how the story ends are all the end users who thought by cutting the cord they'd be able to save money as compared to what they'd been spending on internet access and cable TV. The paradox of cable unbundling is that if you want to pay for only the content you watch (and not all those other channels) you'll probably end up spending more than if you'd just taken the bundle. In our glorious new unbundled future, we now have a choice: pay more for a la carte access to literally everything you want while losing the convenience of one-stop shopping ("wait, wasn't that movie on this service yesterday?"), or pick and choose which things to pay for any given month and remember to cancel the services you're not using.
The truth of cable bundling is that while everybody loved to complain about all the channels they didn't watch, the subsidy mostly worked in the opposite direction from how people like to think it did. It's not that the movie buffs paid for the top tier plan to get TCM and Sundance and BBC America and subsidized the sports networks in the process; there just aren't that many of them. The economy of scale for sports networks (and their massive subscriber bases) meant that content owners could toss a little bit of profit towards the little arty movie channels, and the literal pennies on all those dollars paid for a lot of Robert Osborne introductions and subtitles. Unbundled, those services will necessarily come in at a higher price point if they're available at all, and the economics may not work out.
(Yes, I miss TCM, and no, I don't miss it enough to pay for cable, or Sling, or whatever).
posted by fedward at 8:51 AM on September 4, 2021 [10 favorites]
I'm waiting for the streaming platform followup to 57 Channels (And Nothin' On).
posted by fedward at 8:56 AM on September 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by fedward at 8:56 AM on September 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
I'm a little confused why the broadcasters didn't like Locast.
People could use Locast to "get around" blackouts.
posted by BungaDunga at 9:03 AM on September 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
People could use Locast to "get around" blackouts.
posted by BungaDunga at 9:03 AM on September 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
fedward, I hear what you're saying. But I think where the networks are going to get stung is in (further) devaluing the live aspect of their programming, by keeping it overly tethered to older technologies people don't want anymore (antennas, cable, satellite dishes). They are barreling towards becoming lower/middlebrow content generators who are at a disadvantage over simple studios and streaming carriers because those outlets do not have to worry about the economics of broadcast and content restrictions from the FCC.
Then again, maybe when the shit hits the fan, they will just sell their spectrum to wireless carriers and become studios.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:04 AM on September 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
Then again, maybe when the shit hits the fan, they will just sell their spectrum to wireless carriers and become studios.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:04 AM on September 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
That is, CBS wants AT&T to pay them more money to carry it on cable. AT&T backs Locast, which gives users another way to watch CBS and gives AT&T another weapon to negotiate with.
Exactly how useful this was, I don't know, but it seems to be part of it.
posted by BungaDunga at 9:05 AM on September 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
Exactly how useful this was, I don't know, but it seems to be part of it.
posted by BungaDunga at 9:05 AM on September 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
There's a parallel here to Netflix's war on VPN users so they can maintain bizarre geographical restrictions on subtitles. The owners of copyright are apparently more interested in keeping control than getting paid (or in the Locast case, getting additional viewers for their ads).
posted by Not A Thing at 9:09 AM on September 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Not A Thing at 9:09 AM on September 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
People could use Locast to "get around" blackouts.
I read the article and still don't get the logic. I can also get around blackouts by simply pulling the digital signal in from the airwaves, for free. (In fact that's basically what Locast is doing.) Maybe the real problem is that while AT&T has to pay CBS to distribute local CBS over their networks, Locast wasn't paying CBS anything presumably.
posted by Nelson at 9:10 AM on September 4, 2021
I read the article and still don't get the logic. I can also get around blackouts by simply pulling the digital signal in from the airwaves, for free. (In fact that's basically what Locast is doing.) Maybe the real problem is that while AT&T has to pay CBS to distribute local CBS over their networks, Locast wasn't paying CBS anything presumably.
posted by Nelson at 9:10 AM on September 4, 2021
These changes come slowly.
Disney is now arguably King of streaming, yet if you cycle back to 2009...
A lot of it is just inability or unwillingness to change with the times, being certain you can continue driving this business into the ground and people will eventually come around. This kind of blatant stupidity is everywhere in corporations. The amount of money major multinational corporations piss away on being unwilling to change with the times is astronomical. Most companies would rather use lobbyists to legislate their business model and make other business models illegal, as we saw when online streaming originally came to fruition. This is just an extension of that, old out-of-date businesses trying to legislate their business models so new business models that actually provide value to the consumer cannot be created. Because they're too selfish and stupid to want to actually try to provide consumers with value, they'd rather bully consumers into being forced to play the game their way.
posted by deadaluspark at 9:14 AM on September 4, 2021 [6 favorites]
Disney is now arguably King of streaming, yet if you cycle back to 2009...
When you’re the head of one of the biggest broadcast networks in the world, the last thing you want to hear from your teenage daughter is that they don’t want a TV in their home.Keep in mind, Anne Sweeney was responsible for first getting Disney content onto iTunes, yet as of 2009, she was threatening to nail a TV to the wall of her daughters bedroom. It's really hard to get these old farts to change their tunes about anything because "This has been making us money nonstop for decades, and you're telling me it won't anymore now??" is how these people think. It's my constant reminder that rich people aren't any smarter than the average joe, just luckier, otherwise they wouldn't fight tooth and nail to keep fucking losing with way dead technologies.
“That wasn’t gonna fly. Not for one minute,” says Anne Sweeney, co-chair of Disney Media Networks and president of the Disney/ABC Television Group, after her daughter moved to college and snubbed the idea of taking the ubiquitous tube.
“I said to her: ‘Rosemary, television has been very very good to you. You will have a television if I have to nail it to your wall.’
“And it was one of those ‘Mom, you don’t understand. I watch everything online now.’”
A lot of it is just inability or unwillingness to change with the times, being certain you can continue driving this business into the ground and people will eventually come around. This kind of blatant stupidity is everywhere in corporations. The amount of money major multinational corporations piss away on being unwilling to change with the times is astronomical. Most companies would rather use lobbyists to legislate their business model and make other business models illegal, as we saw when online streaming originally came to fruition. This is just an extension of that, old out-of-date businesses trying to legislate their business models so new business models that actually provide value to the consumer cannot be created. Because they're too selfish and stupid to want to actually try to provide consumers with value, they'd rather bully consumers into being forced to play the game their way.
posted by deadaluspark at 9:14 AM on September 4, 2021 [6 favorites]
Netflix's war on VPN users so they can maintain bizarre geographical restrictions on subtitles
That one is weird. Because if Netflix just unleashed the full breadth and power of their (already existing) subtitled/dubbed content, they'd have nothing to lose and tons to gain by becoming the favored streaming option of so many underserved groups in the US.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:28 AM on September 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
That one is weird. Because if Netflix just unleashed the full breadth and power of their (already existing) subtitled/dubbed content, they'd have nothing to lose and tons to gain by becoming the favored streaming option of so many underserved groups in the US.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:28 AM on September 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
The people who aren't going to like how the story ends are all the end users who thought by cutting the cord they'd be able to save money as compared to what they'd been spending on internet access and cable TV. The paradox of cable unbundling is that if you want to pay for only the content you watch (and not all those other channels) you'll probably end up spending more than if you'd just taken the bundle. In our glorious new unbundled future, we now have a choice: pay more for a la carte access to literally everything you want while losing the convenience of one-stop shopping.
There is a third way. If you can't afford it, pirate it. Lord knows these services and the production companies behind them cut every corner they can to hang onto a dollar.
posted by dazed_one at 9:28 AM on September 4, 2021 [13 favorites]
There is a third way. If you can't afford it, pirate it. Lord knows these services and the production companies behind them cut every corner they can to hang onto a dollar.
posted by dazed_one at 9:28 AM on September 4, 2021 [13 favorites]
Then again, maybe when the shit hits the fan, they will just sell their spectrum to wireless carriers and become studios.
That process started five years ago in the US. Some channel owners decided just to go off the air entirely, and others made agreements for carriage as subchannels on broadcast frequencies assigned to other networks.
The TV networks aren't necessarily airing exclusive content created in-house anyway. Some content is aired by the same network that developed it (or by the production company that shares ownership with the network) but a lot of it is licensed to begin with. ABC aired "Modern Family," but Fox made it. "Friends" was aired by NBC and distributed by Warner Bros. Television. "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" is from Universal Television (owned by NBC's parent company) but was originally picked up by Fox, only moving to NBC after Fox chose not to renew it. And so on.
posted by fedward at 9:39 AM on September 4, 2021
That process started five years ago in the US. Some channel owners decided just to go off the air entirely, and others made agreements for carriage as subchannels on broadcast frequencies assigned to other networks.
The TV networks aren't necessarily airing exclusive content created in-house anyway. Some content is aired by the same network that developed it (or by the production company that shares ownership with the network) but a lot of it is licensed to begin with. ABC aired "Modern Family," but Fox made it. "Friends" was aired by NBC and distributed by Warner Bros. Television. "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" is from Universal Television (owned by NBC's parent company) but was originally picked up by Fox, only moving to NBC after Fox chose not to renew it. And so on.
posted by fedward at 9:39 AM on September 4, 2021
They're getting away from that, more and more, though. What Universal wants is for NBC to make/buy and promote things that will also make money for Peacock. CBS wants to feed content to Paramount Plus. And on and on.
This is kind of the crux of my point: if/when the means by which networks broadcast their content becomes irrelevant, they are only content houses and their previous income model based on advertising becomes incidental. (They know this is going to happen and are already increasingly narrowing their focus to content they make/own). If they embrace alternate routes for distribution of their livestreams, they probably won't stop that transformation, but they can buy more time to figure out what's next.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:54 AM on September 4, 2021
This is kind of the crux of my point: if/when the means by which networks broadcast their content becomes irrelevant, they are only content houses and their previous income model based on advertising becomes incidental. (They know this is going to happen and are already increasingly narrowing their focus to content they make/own). If they embrace alternate routes for distribution of their livestreams, they probably won't stop that transformation, but they can buy more time to figure out what's next.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:54 AM on September 4, 2021
The people who aren't going to like how the story ends are all the end users who thought by cutting the cord they'd be able to save money as compared to what they'd been spending on internet access and cable TV.
Except torrent sites still exist in abundance and a VPN costs less than a streaming service.
Piracy is driven by access. If they try to balkanize and limit access to live streaming of what is ostensibly advertising driven media, well, there's competition from free that doesn't have ads.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 10:42 AM on September 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
Except torrent sites still exist in abundance and a VPN costs less than a streaming service.
Piracy is driven by access. If they try to balkanize and limit access to live streaming of what is ostensibly advertising driven media, well, there's competition from free that doesn't have ads.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 10:42 AM on September 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
Piracy is driven by access. If they try to balkanize and limit access to live streaming of what is ostensibly advertising driven media, well, there's competition from free that doesn't have ads.
I think about this every time I pirate an episode of Wellington Paranormal, which isn't available in my country yet. When I'm denied access because of bullshit restrictions, you bet your ass I'm gonna pirate.
posted by deadaluspark at 10:44 AM on September 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
I've never heard of this service. Coming into it fresh and having no skin in this game, to me that Engadget article seems pretty slanted against Locast.
posted by glonous keming at 11:33 AM on September 4, 2021
posted by glonous keming at 11:33 AM on September 4, 2021
Yet another poorly decided case regarding OTA TV. Locast didn't allow you to get locals from other markets, and regardless of whether they overestimated what they needed to set the subscription cost at, they were organized as a nonprofit.
The idea that using accumulated reserves to expand service somehow contravenes a law intended to allow community antenna systems is just stupid. By that logic, a CATV system can't serve a new house built in their community. The law was written explicitly to allow community antenna systems, for fuck's sake. Whether you do it by stringing wires and amplifiers or use IP-based delivery makes no difference. The law doesn't require any particular means of distribution.
It's worse than the Aereo decision. At least that one arguably got the right outcome even if the logic was complete trash. "You can only do this if you're a cable company. You can't do that because you're a cable company. But no, really, you aren't allowed to be a cable company for..reasons." Funny that there are a bunch of companies operating as cable companies over the Internet now despite no change in law.
posted by wierdo at 11:40 AM on September 4, 2021 [6 favorites]
The idea that using accumulated reserves to expand service somehow contravenes a law intended to allow community antenna systems is just stupid. By that logic, a CATV system can't serve a new house built in their community. The law was written explicitly to allow community antenna systems, for fuck's sake. Whether you do it by stringing wires and amplifiers or use IP-based delivery makes no difference. The law doesn't require any particular means of distribution.
It's worse than the Aereo decision. At least that one arguably got the right outcome even if the logic was complete trash. "You can only do this if you're a cable company. You can't do that because you're a cable company. But no, really, you aren't allowed to be a cable company for..reasons." Funny that there are a bunch of companies operating as cable companies over the Internet now despite no change in law.
posted by wierdo at 11:40 AM on September 4, 2021 [6 favorites]
Except torrent sites still exist in abundance and a VPN costs less than a streaming service.
I'd like to point out that media acquisition in 2021 has basically been entirely automated, and the distribution channel of choice is actually Usenet. I believe I pay $5/mo for unlimited Usenet bandwidth and then ~$20/year for two different Usenet indexer services that allow software like Sonarr, Radarr, Headphones, etc. to automatically and privately download pretty much anything. And it feeds all those media files to my Plex server of course.
Even my elderly parents love their Plex apps and have no trouble entering their own automated requests for content to get things onto the server they want to watch.
This requires some infrastructure and technical know-how so it's not for everyone, but the great thing about Plex is you only need one nerd in your circle of friends to set this up and share it with you, and I bet anyone who reads MeFi knows one of those people or can Google what I just said above to cut their cord completely.
This sucks about Locast, but only because I sold my TV tuner and antenna when I switched to it. So now I will have to hook that back up to get (ad-removed, time-shifted) local broadcast back into Plex.
posted by bradbane at 12:33 PM on September 4, 2021 [19 favorites]
I'd like to point out that media acquisition in 2021 has basically been entirely automated, and the distribution channel of choice is actually Usenet. I believe I pay $5/mo for unlimited Usenet bandwidth and then ~$20/year for two different Usenet indexer services that allow software like Sonarr, Radarr, Headphones, etc. to automatically and privately download pretty much anything. And it feeds all those media files to my Plex server of course.
Even my elderly parents love their Plex apps and have no trouble entering their own automated requests for content to get things onto the server they want to watch.
This requires some infrastructure and technical know-how so it's not for everyone, but the great thing about Plex is you only need one nerd in your circle of friends to set this up and share it with you, and I bet anyone who reads MeFi knows one of those people or can Google what I just said above to cut their cord completely.
This sucks about Locast, but only because I sold my TV tuner and antenna when I switched to it. So now I will have to hook that back up to get (ad-removed, time-shifted) local broadcast back into Plex.
posted by bradbane at 12:33 PM on September 4, 2021 [19 favorites]
That one is weird. Because if Netflix just unleashed the full breadth and power of their (already existing) subtitled/dubbed content, they'd have nothing to lose and tons to gain by becoming the favored streaming option of so many underserved groups in the US.
Netflix outsources all their translations/localization efforts. That itself isn't abnormal. I have a feeling that subtitles are probably also outsourced. It is difficult to maintain high quality translations in local areas as that inevitably means hiring and managing staff in local areas. They probably have restrictions on the translations being used in the areas that created them or at least with enough larger translation services they make it a blanket policy.
posted by geoff. at 12:41 PM on September 4, 2021
Netflix outsources all their translations/localization efforts. That itself isn't abnormal. I have a feeling that subtitles are probably also outsourced. It is difficult to maintain high quality translations in local areas as that inevitably means hiring and managing staff in local areas. They probably have restrictions on the translations being used in the areas that created them or at least with enough larger translation services they make it a blanket policy.
posted by geoff. at 12:41 PM on September 4, 2021
The people who aren't going to like how the story ends are all the end users who thought by cutting the cord they'd be able to save money as compared to what they'd been spending on internet access and cable TV.
I think this can vary a lot depending on how rapacious the cable company is where you are. We had a Comcast cable TV + internet package that was hideously expensive, and it was pretty much a take-it-or-leave-it kind of deal with them. Streaming quality was awful (video freezing every 10 minutes or so) and Comcast's customer service was beyond useless.
We now pay less for fiber internet and four different streaming services than we did for the Comcast cable internet + TV package. We could probably add a fifth and still come out ahead financially. We didn't cut the cord to save money (I would have happily paid extra to never have to deal with Comcast again) but it ended up working out that way.
posted by creepygirl at 12:44 PM on September 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
I think this can vary a lot depending on how rapacious the cable company is where you are. We had a Comcast cable TV + internet package that was hideously expensive, and it was pretty much a take-it-or-leave-it kind of deal with them. Streaming quality was awful (video freezing every 10 minutes or so) and Comcast's customer service was beyond useless.
We now pay less for fiber internet and four different streaming services than we did for the Comcast cable internet + TV package. We could probably add a fifth and still come out ahead financially. We didn't cut the cord to save money (I would have happily paid extra to never have to deal with Comcast again) but it ended up working out that way.
posted by creepygirl at 12:44 PM on September 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
I hate this so much. Locast was just a local antenna that streamed local signals to you. I used it to watch one local station for live news. I'm in a spotty location for my own antenna and I don't want 35 channels of sports from YouTubeTV, which makes it cost $65/mo or whatever it currently is, same with cable.
I am now casting that one station's app feed to my TV, but it's not what I would get from the broadcast. I also don't get the broadcast ads, so I don't see how this is a win for broadcasters. I would be happy to pay Peacock for a live feed from their affiliate, but I don't see a way to do that either.
posted by sageleaf at 1:06 PM on September 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
I am now casting that one station's app feed to my TV, but it's not what I would get from the broadcast. I also don't get the broadcast ads, so I don't see how this is a win for broadcasters. I would be happy to pay Peacock for a live feed from their affiliate, but I don't see a way to do that either.
posted by sageleaf at 1:06 PM on September 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
You see, Liz, it's what's called vertical integration.
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 3:14 PM on September 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 3:14 PM on September 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
I gave Peacock a go because I wanted to watch cycling races. During the Olympics I heard that a tremendous upset had happened in the women's road race, but I didn't know what. So I fired up the app to see what people were talking about... and nothing. I had missed the live feed, and the replay was at like 6am a few days from then.
This was almost an hour after the race, so I looked and... yep, found a torrent of the Eurosport coverage. During the download I had just enough time to cancel Peacock.
posted by tigrrrlily at 3:56 PM on September 4, 2021 [4 favorites]
This was almost an hour after the race, so I looked and... yep, found a torrent of the Eurosport coverage. During the download I had just enough time to cancel Peacock.
posted by tigrrrlily at 3:56 PM on September 4, 2021 [4 favorites]
I'm a little confused why the broadcasters didn't like Locast
Because the broadcasters are used to getting paid by the cable companies, for every user who has access to their channels.
Since 1992, the broadcasters are allowed to require cable/satellite/OTT companies to pay what's called a "Retransmission Fee" per customer to be able to carry the broadcaster's signal.
This is usually passed directly through to the consumer (it's on a separate line of my Xfinity bill, for example).
posted by toxic at 5:32 PM on September 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
Because the broadcasters are used to getting paid by the cable companies, for every user who has access to their channels.
Since 1992, the broadcasters are allowed to require cable/satellite/OTT companies to pay what's called a "Retransmission Fee" per customer to be able to carry the broadcaster's signal.
This is usually passed directly through to the consumer (it's on a separate line of my Xfinity bill, for example).
posted by toxic at 5:32 PM on September 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
It feels a bit weird because this means such a service needs a separate pool of money for expansion. So if Anytown, USA, wanted to operate this on a municipal basis, which the law seems to envision, and the town grew, I guess it would need to use its general budget to wire in the new houses and then could use user fees to keep it going?
posted by smelendez at 6:28 PM on September 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by smelendez at 6:28 PM on September 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
Loved me my locast. I first tried it shortly after it started. It is unwatchable when you don't pay and get the constant nag. I paid the 5 beans. I used it in two primary ways. One, to watch football in other markets. On my android phone, I used a GPS spoofing app and could watch in any market that locast was in. Two, for time shifting. Cannot record on locast so if I missed a show in NY, I would GPS spoof into central, mountain or pacific time and watch it. Even the small independent stations like MeTV run the same schedule.
Also, I previously lived in Chicago and Virginia and would sometimes watch the local news to catch up and keep up with happenings.
As I understand it, it is simply a case about carriage fees. I cut the cord about 4 years ago and went back to fios a few months ago. It now makes financial sense to have cable depending on all the services you pay for a la carte. I started with YouTube TV when it was $35 mo. It is now $65 and they dropped the YES network bc of carriage rates. Add in the $5 for locast, the $15 for Netflix, the $10 here and there and suddenly the TV part of the cable bill is darn close. Fios dropped the bs two year contract and gave me a deal for free DVR and no charge for the boxes and suddenly I have easy TV instead of having to cast and go through STEPS to watch.
The one service that I kept was locast bc I was willing to donate the $5 to the righteousness of the cause. Gosh, I already miss watching the farm reports from the Black Hills. Locast with GPS spoofing gave me a sense of Americana at its best and worst.
.
posted by AugustWest at 6:52 PM on September 4, 2021 [4 favorites]
Also, I previously lived in Chicago and Virginia and would sometimes watch the local news to catch up and keep up with happenings.
As I understand it, it is simply a case about carriage fees. I cut the cord about 4 years ago and went back to fios a few months ago. It now makes financial sense to have cable depending on all the services you pay for a la carte. I started with YouTube TV when it was $35 mo. It is now $65 and they dropped the YES network bc of carriage rates. Add in the $5 for locast, the $15 for Netflix, the $10 here and there and suddenly the TV part of the cable bill is darn close. Fios dropped the bs two year contract and gave me a deal for free DVR and no charge for the boxes and suddenly I have easy TV instead of having to cast and go through STEPS to watch.
The one service that I kept was locast bc I was willing to donate the $5 to the righteousness of the cause. Gosh, I already miss watching the farm reports from the Black Hills. Locast with GPS spoofing gave me a sense of Americana at its best and worst.
.
posted by AugustWest at 6:52 PM on September 4, 2021 [4 favorites]
Comcast's occasional deals would be far more attractive to me if they didn't include $20+ worth of fees on top of the advertised price and the price didn't go up to the ridiculous rack rate after a year (or two, in some cases).
I thought pretty hard about getting the $10 a month streaming add-on since I've got a Flex box anyway that I had to take to get Peacock, but again, fees out the wazoo make the real price more than I pay for Philo.
TBH, Locast even with the interruptions was no worse than watching with an antenna. It's already infested with incredibly obnoxious ads.
posted by wierdo at 2:31 AM on September 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
I thought pretty hard about getting the $10 a month streaming add-on since I've got a Flex box anyway that I had to take to get Peacock, but again, fees out the wazoo make the real price more than I pay for Philo.
TBH, Locast even with the interruptions was no worse than watching with an antenna. It's already infested with incredibly obnoxious ads.
posted by wierdo at 2:31 AM on September 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
This is now a useless tip and I apologize, but I didn't realize everybody didn't know the only thing you had to do to watch Locast without ads, even if you didn't pay the $5 monthly, was to load it as a source into the Stremium app and watch those channels there.
While I was perfectly willing to send them $5 a month--and signed up to do so--due to some glitch they could not fix (and weroe frankly kind of shitty about) the money left my account every month but the ads never did. I canceled the donation and then later learned the Stremium hack.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:14 AM on September 5, 2021 [3 favorites]
While I was perfectly willing to send them $5 a month--and signed up to do so--due to some glitch they could not fix (and weroe frankly kind of shitty about) the money left my account every month but the ads never did. I canceled the donation and then later learned the Stremium hack.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:14 AM on September 5, 2021 [3 favorites]
“And it was one of those ‘Mom, you don’t understand. I watch everything online now.’”
So do I...but I still have a 55 inch TV to do it on.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 7:42 PM on September 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
So do I...but I still have a 55 inch TV to do it on.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 7:42 PM on September 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
In 2009 it was a lot harder to connect a computer to a TV, just saying.
posted by deadaluspark at 8:26 AM on September 8, 2021
posted by deadaluspark at 8:26 AM on September 8, 2021
Huh? In 2009 almost any newly sold TV had an HDMI, DVI, and/or VGA port Less in the way of easily available all you can eat streaming video content, though. At least legally.
posted by wierdo at 7:22 AM on September 9, 2021
posted by wierdo at 7:22 AM on September 9, 2021
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