Hawaiian Tel contract to expire for Khon-tv

[macuu222]

I keep seeing this flashing on my TV screen. Not sure what it means. Says it will expire june 30th and they say that you'll need to sign up with a pay-tv provider to continue to see channel 11. I assume that means that everyone with OTA TV will lose channel 11 come July 1? Anyone know if this is indeed what will happen?

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

It looks like it's just Hawaiian Telcom Network subscribers, not OTA:

http://khon2.com/attention-hawaiian-telcom-subscribers/

She had never been to Puna before. "Are there lots of people like you?" she asked, with a hopeful expression. (Paraphrased & plagiarized from Elif Batuman)

[kalakoa]

Probably referring to Telcom's TV product, which I don't believe is available outside of Honolulu; as far as I know, the KHON interisland feed is carried on Spectrum fiber.

[TomK]

I think it only refers to people who get cable service via Hawaiian Tel, so don't think it affects OTA broadcasting.

http://khon2.com/attention-hawaiian-telcom-subscribers/

[H22]

As the resident radio/tv geek, I can confirm that it won't affect OTA. :-) The negotiation FAQ also states, "In addition, KHON2’s signal is available on a free, over-the-air basis".

For carriage on a cable/telco system, certain broadcasters can elect "Must-Carry status" or "retransmission consent". Must-Carry means the station can request carriage on a system, and the system must carry it. The station can waive Must-Carry, and require the cable/telco operator to pay for the privilege of carrying the station. The later tactic can be used for high demand stations, such as the ones that carry NBC, CBS, ABC or FOX.

About 2 years back, I was chatting with one of the owners of one of the independent stations that qualifies for Must-Carry status to see if they were interested in some extra channel capacity on a hilo-side low power TV transmitter, and they told me that they are unable to collect re-transmission fees. So it wasn't clear they'd see a ROI in delivering a signal to Hilo for rebroadcast, since cable TV would not be required to compensate them for carriage. (They would, however, qualify for must-carry on the hilo-side)