Public-access television is traditionally a form of non-commercial mass media where the general public can create content television programming which is narrowcast through cable television specialty channels. Public-access television was created in the United States between 1969 and 1971 by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), under Chairman Dean Burch, based on pioneering work and advocacy of George Stoney, Red Burns, and Sidney Dean.
In cable television, governments apply a must-carry regulation stating that locally licensed television stations must be carried on a cable provider's system.
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.
Sky Angel was a U.S. operator of Christian television networks; it operated three channels, Angel One, Angel Two, and KTV, all of which were exclusive to Dish Network. The company's corporate headquarters were located in Naples, Florida. The company also operated a Chattanooga, Tennessee location where programming, engineering and network operations resided.
Mediacom Communications Corporation is the United States' fifth largest cable television provider based on the number of video subscribers, and among the leading cable operators focused on serving smaller cities and towns. The company has a significant concentration of customers in the Midwest and Southeast, and is the largest broadband provider in Iowa. Founded in 1995 by Rocco B. Commisso, the current owner of the New York Cosmos and ACF Fiorentina. Mediacom is headquartered in New York and incorporated in Delaware, United States. Formerly a publicly traded firm, it went private in a $600 million transaction in March 2011 and is owned solely by Commisso as of 2011.
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.
Retransmission consent is a provision of the 1992 United States Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act that requires cable operators and other multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) to obtain permission from commercial broadcasters before carrying their programming.
The Educational Broadband Service (EBS) was formerly known as the Instructional Television Fixed Service (ITFS). ITFS was a band of twenty (20) microwave TV channels available to be licensed by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to local credit granting educational institutions. It was designed to serve as a means for educational institutions to deliver live or pre-recorded Instructional television to multiple sites within school districts and to higher education branch campuses. In recognition of the variety and quantity of video materials required to support instruction at numerous grade levels and in a range of subjects, licensees were typically granted a group of four channels. Its low capital and operating costs as compared to broadcast television, technical quality that compared favorably with broadcast television, and its multi-channel per licensees feature made ITFS an extremely cost effective vehicle for the delivery of Educational television materials.
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."
MGM+, formerly known as Epix, is an American premium cable and satellite television network owned by the MGMPlus Entertainment subsidiary of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), which is itself a subsidiary of Amazon MGM Studios. The channel's programming consists of recent and older theatrically released motion pictures, original television series, documentaries, and music and comedy specials.
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.
Significantly viewed signals permitted to be carried 47 U.S.C. § 340 or the Significantly Viewed list (SV) is a federal law which allows television stations as determined by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to be carried by cable and other multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) providers outside their assigned Nielsen designated market area (DMA). This legislation was passed to protect viewers living near market boundaries from losing local television stations with significant viewership outside their market. It also allows for the carriage of local foreign stations in markets along international borders.
TV Everywhere refers to a type of American subscription business model wherein access to streaming video content from a television channel requires users to "authenticate" themselves as current subscribers to the channel, via an account provided by their participating pay television provider, in order to access the content.
Selectable Output Control (SOC) is a content protection Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology that is incorporated into approved devices that enables a Multichannel Video Programming Distributor (MVPD) to disable non-secure audio-video output by encoding the video with a specific signal. SOC aims to limit the output of high definition video over non-secure analog outputs such as component video connections. When enabled, SOC will only output high definition content over a High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) to devices that are High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) approved. When SOC is enabled for a program, televisions that do not have an HDMI port or are not HDCP compliant will not be able to view content. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) until recently has had a ban on the use of SOC.
Over-the-top (OTT) media service is a media service offered directly to viewers via the Internet. OTT bypasses cable, broadcast, and satellite television platforms—the media through which companies have traditionally acted as controllers or distributors of such content. The term is most synonymous with subscription-based video on demand (SVoD) services that offer access to film and television content. Such content may include shows and movies for which the OTT acquired rights from the content owner. Programming may also include original content produced specifically for the service.
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.
On December 3, 2009, telecommunications company Comcast announced its intent to acquire mass media company NBC Universal from General Electric (GE). The acquisition was subject to scrutiny from activists and government officials; their concerns primarily surrounded the potential effects of the vertical integration that the acquisition could create, as Comcast is also heavily involved in cable television and internet services in many media markets. The deal went through on January 28, 2011, resulting in Comcast owning 51% of the company until March 19, 2013, when GE divested its stake to give Comcast sole ownership. Through this acquisition, Comcast gained ownership of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), the film studio Universal Pictures, cable channels such as Syfy, CNBC and MSNBC, and Universal Parks & Resorts, among other assets owned by NBC Universal. It has also integrated its own cable channels – including E! and Golf Channel – into NBC Universal. As a result of the acquisition, NBC Universal slightly changed its name to "NBCUniversal", rendered in camel case, to indicate the integration between NBC and Universal Studios.
A multichannel television service, also known as simply a television provider, is a type of service provider who distributes television programming to its customers for a subscription fee. Subscription television providers distribute television channels that offer different types of programming, typically including local television stations within their market, specialty channels that are distributed solely through multichannel television providers, and pay television services that offer premium content such as feature films and other original programming.
A Media Aggregation Platform or Media Aggregation Portal (MAP) is an over the top service for distributing web-based streaming media content from multiple sources to a large audience. MAPs consist of networks of sources who host their own content which viewers can choose and access directly from a larger variety of content to choose from than a single source can offer. The service is used by content providers, looking to extend the reach of their content.
Local Now is an American over-the-top internet television service owned by The Weather Group, LLC, a subsidiary of Entertainment Studios. A spinoff of The Weather Channel, Local Now primarily provides a cyclic playlist of weather, news, sports, entertainment and lifestyle segments, incorporating localized content through feeds geared to a user-specified area.
