Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Wednesday, September 1st, 2021

How to stream your local TV station for free...

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Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Wednesday, September 1st, 2021. I'm writing this from the Twin Cities suburbs, where AllYourScreens HQ is powered by a Philly Steak sandwich and coffee.

THE CASE FOR LOCAST
I will say right up front that I am not going to weigh in on the complicated legalities of this story, or the impact it might have on retransmission fees or any other industry-related question. I just want to talk about customer satisfaction.

Despite a lot of innovation and increased competition over the past decade, the television industry is primarily still built on this complex, interconnected set of businesses that might not be able to exist if they stood on their own. And because of that and helped by a lot of media consolidation, it's incredibly difficult to build new products that threaten the current television financial ecosystem.

Locast is a non-profit company that provides a very simple service. They allow you to stream all of the local television stations that you can in theory receive with an over-the-air antenna. And it's all wrapped inside an easy-to-navigate menu system that makes watching local television a delight.

The service is useful for a couple of reasons, and that is due in part to the current broken options available to consumers. For example, I have three televisions in my home, two of them with OTA antennas. And among the many other streaming services, I pay for a subscription to Hulu Live TV. In theory, watching local television should be a seamless experience. In theory.

While Hulu Live does include many of the local TV stations, it doesn't carry The CW live, nor does it have include most of the digital subnetworks. And like every virtual live television service than YouTube TV, it doesn't offer the local PBS stations, either.

Watching the local TV stations via an antenna isn't any more satisfying. As anyone who has ever attempted to watch over-the-air HD TV stations in a metro area can tell, the experience is randomly frustrating and annoying. Some stations are only available in optimal weather conditions, and other major network affiliates are surprisingly difficult to capture with an antenna. In my case, the antenna for the local NBC affiliate is located in a direction that leaves me constantly tweaking my antenna as it randomly disappears when I least expect it. Some of the smaller TV signals are also impossible to grab, which means that I lose out on stations such as GetTV and CoziTV.

It's not any easier to watch these local stations through my local broadband provider (in my case, Comcast). Even though I get my internet via Comcast, the best deal the company can offer me for local TV stations is to provide three small digital boxes and charge me a "special affiliate fee" along with other charges. All of which adds up to about $25 a month.

All of that frustration disappears when I use Locast. It's available on a Roku app (as well as on just about every other platform). I can easily watch all of my local TV stations, including their diginets. PBS is there (although weirdly, only some of their diginets), as well as smaller stations that are impossible to get with an antenna. 

Locast had been offering their service for free, but the signal was interrupted every 15 minutes unless you paid a $5.50 a month "donation."

As you might suspect, the companies that own the broadcast networks didn't like this idea and are attempting to shut down Locast. Other similar services had been shut down in recent years, but Locast had figured out a way to navigate the copyright concerns by organizing as a non-profit and only asking for small donations. But yesterday, the company suffered a setback when a judge rendered Locast ineligible to use the copyright exemption for non-profits, which allows them to stream local channels without paying broadcasters. The problem is that while Locast wasn't using the donations to make a profit, it was using some of the money to expand into other markets, which the judge said wasn't allowed under the current law.

In response, Locast announced today that it is dropping the donation and is providing the service for free.

The legal battle against the networks continues, although lawyers for the broadcast networks have asked the court to delay further legal actions until next year. And to be honest, the best thing the networks could do would be to figure out a way to come to terms with Locast. Yes, there are a lot of ramifications to offering the service, and maybe that involves charging a fee. But given that Locast has more than 2 million people using the service in 36 markets, this is an idea that customers want.

A NICE HEADLINE IF YOU CAN GET IT
If you want to see why trade publications cozy up to studios, all you have to do is look at the headline from this Deadline "exclusive," entitled 'Vacation Friends Moving Forward With Sequel Following Strong Hulu Movie Lands Biggest 3-Day Weekend Opening For An Original In Streamer’s History." Here is the opening paragraph, which includes the only snippet of news in the entire post:

Following its premiere on Hulu this past weekend, 20th Century’s Vacation Friends has become the most watched original film in its opening weekend on the streamer to date. Deadline has also exclusively learned that writer-director Clay Tarver will return to write and direct Honeymoon Friends, a sequel that will reunite the main cast and producer Todd Garner.

Now I could point out that the 21-word headline is attached to a 250-word news story. But what really matters is the two-sentence paragraph above, which might be short. But it gets across the two pieces of information that matter to Hulu and Deadline. Deadline gets first crack at the news that there is going to be a sequel to Vacation Friends. And in return, Hulu gets a headline in one of the Hollywood trades touting the big "ratings" for one of its original movies.

One problem with this trade-off is that the "ratings" headline is so lightweight that it could drift away in a warm summer breeze. "the most-watched original film in its opening weekend?" There are no numbers attached to the claim, and given the low number of original films Hulu has released, we are working with a pretty small universe of competing films. This is the streaming world's equivalent to me claiming I "consumed more Kale in a three-day last weekend than any other weekend so far." While not giving the context that high point only happened because Panera accidentally added Kale to my salad when they made it on Saturday.

CHART OF THE DAY

ODDS AND SODS
* The HBO Max app launches on VIZIO SmartCast platform TVs today.  To promote the addition, HBO and VIZIO are offering a rotating selection of up to 13 titles through a unique custom carousel on the SmartCast home screen from the HBO Max epic library of titles, including  shows like Game of Thrones, Titans, Doom Patrol, Euphoria, Love Life, Raised By Wolves, The Flight Attendant, Lovecraft Country, Perry Mason and more.

* The game show diginet Buzzer TV is airing its annual "Lost & Found" programming block on Saturday, September 25th, from 4:00-8:00 p.m. ET. The "found" shows include It Had To Be You, Take Your Choice, Make The Connection, Mindreaders, Showoffs and Whew!

* Netflix has announced that the entire run of Seinfeld will be coming to the streaming service globally on October 1st.

* Turner Classic Movies unveils brand refresh, new tagline to reframe its focus on film.

SEE YOU THURSDAY
If you have any feedback, send it along to Rick@AllYourScreens.com and follow me on Twitter @aysrick.