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Currently, there are two primary satellite television providers of subscription based service available to United States consumers: DirecTV and Dish Network, which have 21 and 10 million subscribers respectively. [1] [2]
In December 1975, RCA created Satcom 1, the first satellite built especially for use by the then three national television networks (CBS, NBC, and ABC). Later that same year, HBO leased a transponder on Satcom 1 and began transmission of television programs via satellite to cable systems. Owners of cable systems paid $10,000 to install 3-meter dishes to receive TV signals in C band. In 1976 Taylor Howard built an amateur system, which consisted of a converted military surplus radar dish and a satellite receiver designed and built by Howard, for home satellite reception. Taylor's system could be used for receiving TV programs both from American and Soviet communication satellites. In 1977 Pat Robertson launched the first satellite-delivered basic cable service called the CBN Cable Network. In 1979, the Satellite Home Viewers Act allowed homeowners in the United States to both own and operate their own home satellite system, consisting of C-band equipment from a multitude of manufacturers who were making parts for systems such as Taylor Howard's, and began a large controversy of which channels could be received by whom.
USSB was a direct-to-home service founded in 1981. In the early 1990s, they partnered with Hughes and continued operation until purchased in 1998 by DirecTV.
In November 1990, Primestar launched as the first North American direct-broadcast satellite service. Hughes's DirecTV, the first national high-powered upper Ku-band satellite TV system, went online in 1994. The DirecTV system became the new delivery vehicle for USSB. In 1996, EchoStar's Dish Network went online in the United States and has gone on to similar success as DirecTV's primary competitor. The AlphaStar service launched in 1996 and went into bankruptcy in 1997. Primestar sold its assets to Hughes in 1999. Dominion Video Satellite Inc's Sky Angel also went online in the United States in 1996 with its satellite TV service geared towards "faith and family" until they sold the license to EchoStar Communications Corporation in 2008 and switched to an IPTV platform.
In 2004, Cablevision's Voom service went online, specifically catering to the emerging market of HDTV owners and aficionados, but folded in April 2005. The service's "exclusive" high-definition channels were migrated to the Dish Network system. Commercial satellite TV services are the primary competition to cable television service, although the two types of service have significantly different regulatory requirements (for example, cable television has public access requirements, and the two types of distribution have different regulations regarding carriage of local stations).
The majority of ethnic-language broadcasts in North America are carried on Ku band free-to-air. The largest concentration of free-to-air programming is on Galaxy 19 at 97° W. Pittsburgh International Telecommunications and GlobeCast World TV offers a mix of free and pay-TV ethnic channels in the internationally standard DVB-S and S2 formats, as do others. Home2US Communications Inc. also offers several ethnic channels on SES 1 at 101° W, as well as other free and pay-TV channels. Many religious broadcasters reach the DTH and distribution markets with unencrypted DVB-S television and radio channels on Galaxy 19. These channels are available as part of the Glorystar Satellite Service. Several U.S.-English language network affiliates (representing CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, FOX, the CW (formerly the WB and UPN), ION Network and MyNetworkTV) are available as free-to-air broadcasts, as are the three U.S.-Spanish language networks (Univisión, Unimás and Telemundo). The number of free-to-air specialty channels is otherwise rather limited. Specific FTA offerings tend to appear and disappear rather often and typically with little or no notice, although sites such as LyngSat do track the changing availability of both free and pay channels worldwide. [3]
On October 7, 2009, NAB TV Board chair Paul Karpowicz planned to testify before the Senate Communications Subcommittee that broadcasters would be willing to allow subscribers of distant signals to continue to do so even if the digital transition resulted in those subscribers receiving stations that they could not before. The NAB did oppose offering new distant signals if a digital signal was available. The Satellite TV Modernization Act had to be passed by the end of 2009. The House bill also allowed Dish Network to offer distant signals. [4] On November 5, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy said he hoped for a "short-time agreement" on the bill passed out of committee September 24. If the Senate approves, the House will have to approve the bill, and if the two versions cannot be reconciled, the license to import signals that expires at the end of the year could be extended. [5] The House version included an agreement with Echostar that, where possible, all 210 markets could receive signals, and Echostar could once again deliver distant signals.
On November 19, 2009, the Senate Commerce Committee approved a version of the bill, without an amendment requiring local signals in all markets in three years, though a study would be conducted on why 30 markets still had a problem. Before Senate approval, the two versions of the bill would have to be reconciled; the Judiciary Committee had a short market fix, while the Commerce committee bill required PBS in HD sooner. [6]
On December 3, 2009, the House approved the Satellite Home Viewer Reauthorization Act. It included both the House Commerce Committee and House Judiciary Committee versions and renewed the ability to use distant signals for five years, allowed Dish Network to offer distant signals again, and required 28 markets to receive signals not available locally. The bill also dealt with some copyright issues and required Dish Network to offer HD non-commercial signals by 2011 instead of 2013. [7]
One potential problem:[ clarify ] determining who cannot receive a signal is still based on analog rather than digital TV. [8]
On February 11, 2010, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the satellite reauthorization was part of a jobs bill[ clarification needed ]. Rick Boucher, House chairman for communications and the Internet, believed the bill would pass. The deadline is March, since it has been extended 60 days. [9] Sen. Jim Bunning blocked the legislation in the Senate on Feb. 25, even though it passed the House. [10] On March 1, 2010, The Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act of 2010, scheduled to expire in 2014, became part of a jobs bill with help from Sen. Patrick Leahy. [11]
Television receive-only (TVRO) is a term used chiefly in North America, South America to refer to the reception of satellite television from FSS-type satellites, generally on C-band analog; free-to-air and unconnected to a commercial DBS provider. TVRO was the main means of consumer satellite reception in the United States and Canada until the mid-1990s with the arrival of direct-broadcast satellite television services such as PrimeStar, USSB, Bell Satellite TV, DirecTV, Dish Network, Sky TV that transmit Ku signals. While these services are at least theoretically based on open standards, the majority of services are encrypted and require proprietary decoder hardware. TVRO systems relied on feeds being transmitted unencrypted and using open standards, which heavily contrasts to DBS systems in the region.
PrimeStar was an American direct broadcast satellite broadcasting company formed in November 1990 by seven cable television companies including Comcast Corp. and TCI Communications Corp. PrimeStar was the first medium-powered DBS system in the United States but slowly declined in popularity with the arrival of DirecTV in 1994 and Dish Network in 1996.
KLTV is a television station licensed to Tyler, Texas, United States, serving East Texas as an affiliate of ABC and Telemundo. Owned by Gray Television, the station maintains studios on West Ferguson Street in downtown Tyler, and its transmitter is located in rural northern Smith County.
In cable television, governments apply a must-carry regulation stating that locally licensed television stations must be carried on a cable provider's system.
Pirate decryption is the decryption, or decoding, of pay TV or pay radio signals without permission from the original broadcaster. The term "pirate" is used in the sense of copyright infringement. The MPAA and other groups which lobby in favour of intellectual property regulations have labelled such decryption as "signal theft" even though there is no direct tangible loss on the part of the original broadcaster, arguing that losing out on a potential chance to profit from a consumer's subscription fees counts as a loss of actual profit.
Superstation is a term in North American broadcasting that has several meanings. Commonly, a "superstation" is a form of distant signal, a broadcast television signal—usually a commercially licensed station—that is retransmitted via communications satellite or microwave relay to multichannel television providers over a broad area beyond its primary terrestrial signal range.
Television encryption, often referred to as scrambling, is encryption used to control access to pay television services, usually cable, satellite, or Internet Protocol television (IPTV) services.
WKMJ-TV is a PBS member television station in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. It is the flagship station for KET2, the second television service of Kentucky Educational Television (KET), which is owned by the Kentucky Authority for Educational Television.
Cable television first became available in the United States in 1948. By 1989, 53 million U.S. households received cable television subscriptions, with 60 percent of all U.S. households doing so in 1992. Most cable viewers in the U.S. reside in the suburbs and tend to be middle class; cable television is less common in low income, urban, and rural areas.
Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna commonly referred to as a satellite dish and a low-noise block downconverter.
MLB Extra Innings is an out-of-market sports package distributed in North America by satellite provider DirecTV since 1996 and by most cable providers since 2001. The package allowed its subscribers to see up to 80 out-of-market Major League Baseball games a week using local over the air stations and regional sports networks.
DirecTV is an American multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital satellite service serving the United States. It also provides traditional linear television service delivered by IP through its U-verse TV brand and a Virtual MVPD service through its DirecTV Stream brand. Its primary competitors are Dish Network, traditional cable television providers, IP-based television services, and other over-the-top video services.
NBC Sports Philadelphia is an American regional sports network owned by the NBC Sports Group unit of NBCUniversal, which in turn is owned by locally based cable television provider Comcast, and the Philadelphia Phillies. It is the flagship owned-and-operated outlet of NBC Sports Regional Networks. The channel broadcasts regional coverage of professional sports teams in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, as well as college sports events and original sports-related news, discussion and entertainment programming.
Multichannel television in the United States has been available since at least 1948. The United States is served by multichannel television through cable television systems, direct-broadcast satellite providers, and various other wireline video providers; among the largest television providers in the U.S. are YouTube TV, DirecTV, Altice USA, Charter Communications, Comcast, Dish Network, Verizon Communications, and Cox Communications. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 defines a multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) as "a person such as, but not limited to, a cable operator, a multichannel multipoint distribution service, a direct broadcast satellite service, or a television receive-only satellite program distributor, who makes available for purchase, by subscribers or customers, multiple channels of video programming", where a channel is defined as a "signaling path provided by a cable television system."
The digital transition in the United States was the switchover from analog to exclusively digital broadcasting of terrestrial television programming. According to David Rehr, then president and CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters, this transition represented "the most significant advancement of television technology since color TV was introduced." For full-power TV stations, the transition went into effect on June 12, 2009, with stations ending regular programming on their analog signals no later than 11:59 p.m. local time that day.
The Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992 is a United States federal law which required cable television systems to carry most local broadcast television channels and prohibited cable operators from charging local broadcasters to carry their signal.
Satellite television varies in the different regions around the world.
Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association v. FCC, 275 F.3d 337 was a case decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Congress required satellite television carriers to carry all requesting local broadcast stations in the market where the carrier voluntarily decides to carry one local station in order to, in part, preserve a multiplicity of local broadcast outlets for over-the-air-viewers who do not subscribe either to satellite or cable service.
A carriage dispute is a disagreement over the right to "carry", that is, retransmit, a broadcaster's signal. Carriage disputes first occurred between broadcasters and cable companies and now include direct broadcast satellite and other multichannel video programming distributors.
The STELA Reauthorization Act of 2014 is a bill related to the regulation of satellite broadcasting in the United States.
