) writes:

Again, what we value as a small group just doesn't matter to the
masses. I am disappointed that DISH NETWORK and DIRECT TV are not
allowed, by law, to sell me a package with out-of-town stations
without my local stations agreeing, which they won't. I can spend
$1,000 for a large tv antenna installation and pick up many out-of-
town stations, but I can't subscribe to get those SAME stations on
satellite. The reason -- the industry does NOT want me (or anyone
else) watching out-of-town stations because that means I am not
watching the local stations with local commercials. I tried getting
waivers from the local stations and every one of them refused.

YOu see that all the time with AM broadcast radio. When the local
station dropped Art Bell some years back, moving to an all-news
format, one local columnist lamented that it was the end of Art
Bell.

But one station in Vermont carried it. And it's really easy to receive
that New York station at 770KHz that carried the show, along with all
kind of other stations up and down the dial.

Yet people never tuned up and down that dial, assuming that they'd not
be able to receive anything. And yes, that's what the local stations
want, because they want the listenership to their ads.

Oddly, a station like WBZ out of Boston even makes an issue of this.
I don't know about them lately, their reception here has been curtailed
by a more local station on an adjacent frequency, but at one point
they acknowledged that most overnight radio was syndicated, and basically
the same syndicated show, but they were live, and they covered a really
big area. The overnight announcers, maybe even the bumpers, made a point
of mention that there were listeners in faraway places.

And I treated it like a local talk show. There were some obvious differences
in what was discussed, but it came booming in here and except for the
fading, was strong enough to be local. I initially started listening
to WBZ overnight when there wasn't something of interest on the local
stations at that time (too much syndicated talk shows, and at one
point one station was airing repeats of programming from the daytime),
but for a number of years I was pretty much listening to WBZ overnight.

Michael