BUMMMER!!!! I just found out PBS You is gone. DirectTV replaced

[54anickel]

it with some Fundie Christian station TCT. Just checked out their ugly, tacky website and at least learned something. I'll need to contact my Congress critter now that I know about the "multicast must-carry" legislation. I missed that one some how. From their site:

Congress is presently considering legislation that could allow TCT and other Christian broadcasters to offer additional streams of free ministry programming to your home and community.

Over the past few years we have shared with you the importance of "multicast must-carry" for the survival of Christian television following the digital television transition. We are now at a critical cross-road in our struggle to secure multicast must-carry because Congress is currently considering digital television legislation that will address whether small, independent and religious stations, such as ours, will receive the same benefits that large major network broadcasters and national cable channels and systems will have during and after the digital television transition.

We ask now that you contact Members of Congress immediately to share with them your desire that "multicast must-carry for broadcasters" be included in their 2005 "DTV Transition" bill.



Anyway, back to my original whine, PBS You is gone!!! I loved that station and tried to give whenever I could. Went to tune into The Router Workshop...gone, replaced by some guy going on about the Rapture! So, I check out the website:

To our PBS You Viewers...

Thank you for visiting the PBS YOU website. Due to financial challenges, PBS YOU is ending service on DirecTV January 30th and DISH Network January 25th. In keeping with our commitment to always-available public television, your local PBS station will continue to offer a variety of quality educational programming....

:cry: :cry: :cry:

[dolo amber]

1. Why is there a need to guarantee the "survival of Christian broadcasting"?

Get off your lazy asses and go to church, morans.

[ChoralScholar]

5. If people are watching it and supporting it, there's no need

for govt. to protect it. Am I right? Discovery, SciFi, Comedy Central, etc. don't need govt. protection... people watch it... companies advertise on it. What does that tell you about this station?

[GOPisEvil]

2. Must-carry for Christian broadcasting?

Uhhhhh...doesn't that sound like government sponsorship of religion?

[dolo amber]

3. Lil' bit, huh?

[GOPisEvil]

4. No way that survives a Supreme Court test...oh wait...

Never mind...

x(

[Oeditpus Rex]

6. Fear not — PBS You will be replaced by

Faux Gawd.

[54anickel]

8. SNARF! ROFLMAO - that's a good one! I found one article that seems

to do a fair job of explaining the issue. I'm with the cable companies (and Powell when he thought he laid this to rest last year) on this one. They were willing to continue to do one channel as they do now - I think that's fair enough. I can still get my hokie local gov't channel. Guess the concern is hooking and reeling in channel surfers for the "fishers of men".


http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=RELIGIOUSTV-01-30-06&cat=AN

snip>

At issue in this controversy is a rule made during an earlier revolution in TV, when the emerging cable industry was ordered in 1992 to carry essentially all local broadcast signals in a market. The Supreme Court upheld that "must-carry" law, which Congress said was intended to promote a diversity of voices in television.

Now, as the digital revolution unfolds, it is the fate of the "must-carry" concept that is being so hotly debated as the analog system is phased out. Local networks now mostly use analog broadcasts. Once they switch to digital, they will "own" a 6 MHz chunk of the spectrum from which they will have the capacity to air up to six channels of programming.

Religious broadcasters want cable companies to "multicast" all such channels. The cable industry essentially says it will air only one for each. Without a government mandate that they carry all six, broadcasters say they will shrink to a tiny, even easier-to-overlook presence on cable systems that offer as many as 1,000 channels to customers.

"It's a question of disappearing into the background," Wright said. "We would suffer the loss of dilution," along with the inability to grow as viewership increases.

[Initech]

7. So... public broadcasting bad, Christian broadcasting... good?

Even my CHRISTIAN friends dont watch that crap! :puke:

[54anickel]

9. Public broadcasting broke, Christian broadcasting RICH!!!

[Initech]

11. Hallelujah, praise the dollar!!!

[CatholicEdHead]

10. Look at their website

:puke:

http://www.tct.tv/

:wtf:

[54anickel]

12. Yep, did you check out the rollovers over the pictures? Heh-heh,

roll over 'em and back...tellin' ya I felt like a cat battin' a mouse back and forth. Drove me batty!
But it did have me cryin "Jeee-sus Christ" in no time at all. ;-)

[Dinger]

13. Dish Network Cut PBS Too

Fuckin' sucks

[54anickel]

14. What did Dish put in it's place? n/t

[justabob]

15. We lost our channel 2 PBS to the christians too

a while back. We still have Channel 13 KERA, but KDTN is gone... which is the one that had all the educational stuff (I mean lectures and stuff for tele-students at community college) I think channel 2 just didn't have the money to carry on (rather than the legisalation you are talking about) but I might be wrong. I don't know how the Christian broadcasters can complain... at least 10-12 stations on the 50 channel 'A' side of cable are christian programming. :eyeroll:

[54anickel]

16. Ya, it was a money thing for PBS You, the legislation thing was a

side note. Stumbled across it while checking out the fundie channel that took the "PBS You" spot on DirectTV (377)
Sorry for any confusion.