http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20100308/439b77b2-c25f-4373-821a-30f9a6fbd43b
as CATV companies start dropping over-the-air TV stations.

And the long slide of network TV continues.

After my parents finally got cable the other year, the amount of time spent on the Big Four networks dropped like a rock. I suspect others are the same way....

Time-Warner Cable here in northeastern Ohio isn't planning to drop any OTA channels any time soon. Not that it would bother me if they did--I don't watch much OTA TV anymore since expanded basic cable went up to $55.67 a few years ago, and the quality of OTA network programming started to go downhill. I had my service downgraded to basic (OTA only) and watch mostly VHS and DVD these days. There's nothing much that interests me on the major networks anyway except the news and the occasional movie when the local CW and MyTV affiliates are airing local programming; even then, I can usually get better movies on DVD. Also, the local stations and even cable do not carry my favorite old '70s TV series such as Quincy, Kojak, Cannon, et al. any longer, so having these on DVD (I have at least one season of each series) gives me that much more to watch when things are slow on the networks which, IMO, is most of the time.

The loss of local network affiliates on cable systems will have its greatest effect, IMO, on viewers who depend on cable to get any kind of TV programming. These are viewers in areas in which even large deep-fringe TV antennas do such a poor job of bringing in decent reception they often aren't worth the trouble to erect; this is often the case in mountainous states such as West Virginia. I used to know people in that state who could only get, at best, two stations with rabbit ears; with a standard rooftop antenna on a rotor, they could get Pittsburgh stations on a good day.

Bear in mind that the foregoing deals with reception problems attendant to fringe-area analog TV signals. These problems are much worse today with DTV, given its all-or-nothing nature. The problems with getting decent digital reception with antennas, even in what were formerly good to excellent reception areas for analog, are causing more and more people to get cable or satellite. Take away any of the important network affiliates on either of these services and the cable/satellite operators will not hear the end of it from viewers. Take the recent situation in New York, in which the local cable operator threatened to drop that city's ABC affiliate due to a dispute over retransmission fees. That decision was reversed just in time to avoid a major outcry from viewers who would otherwise have been denied access to the Academy Awards telecast last night.

There may be, and likely are, other cities in which the same thing is happening or will happen in the future. The problem is that cable and satellite operators are more concerned nowadays with their bottom line than with the quality of service to their subscribers. The spats over retransmission fees and other costs associated with cable and satellite television service may get headlines in newspapers and put cable/satellite TV systems in impossible binds, but they are just causing problems no end for viewers who do not know or care beans about the behind-the-scenes workings of these systems; all they care about is that they are not getting all the channels they are paying for. If they don't get them, they drop the service. Too many lost subscribers, of course, can and will put any cable or satellite service, especially small-town companies that operate on shoestrings, in the red or outright out of business forever. Even large companies like Comcast, Time Warner, Cablevision, et al. cannot afford to take that risk, as they have far too many subscribers nationwide. Cablevision serves the New York City area, which is the #1 media market in this country--no wonder there was such a to-do about it when the news broke that this cable operator was threatening to drop WABC-TV, which is the flagship station of the ABC television network. If this is how New York City reacted to such a threat, imagine how viewers in other smaller markets would sound off if the same thing happened in their cities.

How are the cable companys getting around the "must carry" laws imposed by congress and the FCC? Just curious. It seems that dropping programing would be in violation of those laws.

How are the cable companys getting around the "must carry" laws imposed by congress and the FCC? Just curious. It seems that dropping programing would be in violation of those laws.

By demanding that the cable or satellite provider negotiate with them for retransmission, they are waiving their must-carry status.