It has been argued in the media that “Cable companies have built profitable businesses based on the exploitation of free programming supplied by local broadcasters without giving any of the proceeds back to the stations.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Over-the-air television stations receive advertising revenue and they need cable to get to more eyeballs with better pictures. Cable’s capital investment to provide the bandwidth that carries local stations costs literally billions of dollars and the broadcasters do not pay a cent for the use of this network. In addition, cable gives the broadcasters a low channel position...
