We're actually all 'suckers'. The broadcast networks earn $billions from their use of the public airwaves and pay us nothing in return.
"We don't give away trees to newspaper publishers. Why should we give away more airwaves to broadcasters? The airwaves are a natural resource. They do not belong to the broadcasters, phone companies or any other industry. They belong to the American people."
Since that article was published significant amounts of spectrum were taken back from the TV industry and auctioned off to the highest bidder (cell phone companies, mostly): that's why everyone needed to switch from analog rabbit ears to digital TV reception.
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We're actually all 'suckers'. The broadcast networks earn $billions from their use of the public airwaves and pay us nothing in return.
"We don't give away trees to newspaper publishers. Why should we give away more airwaves to broadcasters? The airwaves are a natural resource. They do not belong to the broadcasters, phone companies or any other industry. They belong to the American people."
from http://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/27/opinion/giving-away-the-ai...
Phone companies paid a hell of a lot of money for spectrum. Verizon alone paid $17bn.
Anyway, television broadcasters are becoming irrelevant.
Since that article was published significant amounts of spectrum were taken back from the TV industry and auctioned off to the highest bidder (cell phone companies, mostly): that's why everyone needed to switch from analog rabbit ears to digital TV reception.
Yes, and the broadcast companies don't pay a cent of rent. Why are the public airwaves given free to private corporations?
Why shouldn't, for example, CBS be charged a modest $1,000,000,000/year for their use of the public airwaves?