If you’ve ditched your cable company and you live in a city where Locast is available, the free streaming app is a must-get. The reason: Locast lets you stream all the channels that you can pick up with a TV antenna. This is convenient because many streaming services that offer live TV don’t carry all four of the major broadcast networks. With Locast, can you not only fill that gap but also stream all kinds of other over-the-air TV channels.
Even though Locast is not even a year old, it is already changing the way cord-cutters watch TV. It’s reshaping how TV industry deals are made behind the scenes, as well. Read on to find out everything you need to know about Locast, including why the broadcast networks are trying to shut it down, where it’s available, what kind of channels you can stream through it and more.
How Locast is shaking up the TV industry
Locast founder David Goodfriend told The New York Times that he got the idea to start his company while lecturing at Georgetown University. One of the topics that he covered in class was the rise and fall of Aereo– a streaming service that rebroadcast local television stations via the internet.
Aereo served the same primary function as Locast does today: it allowed people to watch their local over-the-air channels through the internet instead of via television antennas.
Goodfriend explained to his students how a piece of legislation passed years ago sewed the seeds of Aereo’s demise. In 1976, Congress passed an Act that gave broadcast networks the right to charge cable companies retransmission fees. As a result, if a cable company were to rebroadcast a channel without having obtained the permission to do so, they’d be in violation of copyright law.
The networks’ lawyers argued that Aereo should be held to the same standard as the cable companies. According to their way of thinking, Aereo was illegal because the company had not purchased the right to rebroadcast the networks’ content. Aereo’s argument was that it merely emulated the operation of a home antenna and DVR.
The Supreme Court sided with the networks. Aereo couldn’t afford to pay the penalties that the Supreme Court handed down and it went bankrupt. By 2014, after only two years of existence, Aereo went dark.
All this seemed unfair to Goodfriend, who reasoned that TV signals that anyone could access for free with a TV antenna should also be accessible online. After examining the laws around the original decision that gave the broadcast networks the right to charge retransmission fees, he found a workaround: the copyright code contains an exemption for non-profits.
Since Locast is set up as a non-profit, it’s not subject to the same rules and regulations as Aereo and other for-profit companies.
The networks strike back
Retransmission fees now make up a significant part of each broadcast network’s revenues. According to a projection from research firm Kagan S&P Global Market Intelligence, the networks will collect over $10 billion in retransmission fees this year.
With that kind of money at stake, it’s not hard to understand why the broadcast networks feel threatened by companies like Aereo and Locast.
Even though Locast isn’t even a year old yet, cable companies are probably already using its existence to haggle for better deals. When CBS and AT&T couldn’t agree on a new licensing contract, CBS decided to remove itself from DirecTV’s channel menu. AT&T retaliated by advising its customers to use Locast as a workaround.
This incident may have been one of the main reasons why ABC, NBC, Fox and CBS recently teamed up to file a lawsuit against Locast. Another factor that may have caused the networks to react is the fact that AT&T gave Locast a $500,000 donation in June.
The strongly-worded lawsuit calls Locast “Aereo 2.0, a business built on illegally using broadcaster content.” It goes on to say that Locast shouldn’t be treated like a non-profit because it’s actively working with AT&T and Dish to “devalue” the networks and “serve its pay-TV patrons.”
Will Locast reverse a landmark legal reversal?
If Congress hadn’t intervened to reverse a Supreme Court decision in 1974, Aereo would probably have never been shut down in 2014.
In the 1968 case Fortnightly Corp. v. United Artists Television, Inc., the Supreme Court ruled that cable TV companies could freely rebroadcast any publicly available broadcast TV channels. In the decision, the court pointed out that the cable companies actually benefit the broadcast networks because they help get them additional viewers. In the court’s view, cable companies were comparable to “amplifying equipment” since they don’t edit or alter the over-the-air broadcasts at all.
The precedent set by Fortnightly Corp. v. United Artists Television, Inc. paved the way for the outcome of another Supreme Court case in 1974: Teleprompter Corp. v. Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. CBS argued that the cable company Teleprompter had violated copyright law when it allowed its subscribers to access its station from hundreds of miles away. The network’s lawyers argued that since amplifying equipment couldn’t carry a TV signal that far, Teleprompter should be required to pay rebroadcasting fees. The court rejected that line of thinking and once again sided with the cable TV companies.
These decisions were reversed when Congress passed the Copyright Act of 1976. It covered a wide variety of topics, ranging from fair use to exclusive rights to copyright transfer agreements and more. The Act also introduced the Transmit Clause, which made it a breach of copyright “to transmit or otherwise communicate a performance or display of the work…to the public, by means of any device or process, whether the members of the public capable of receiving the performance or display receive it in the same place or in separate places and at the same time or at different times.”
An exception within the Transmit Clause might provide a way for services like Locast to operate freely. According to 17 U.S. Code § 111, if “the secondary transmission is not made by a cable system but is made by a governmental body, or other nonprofit organization, without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage,” the Transmit Clause does not apply.
If Locast’s lawyers can prove that the company is aligned with the abovementioned exception, it may be able to win over the courts. Jonathan Schwantes, senior policy counsel at Consumer Reports, called Locast’s strategy a “novel– and untested– approach,” but added that whether or not it will win “remains to be seen.”
Locast solves a key problem for cord-cutters
Back in the 70s, the established broadcast networks felt threatened by the sudden appearance of cable TV technologies. Despite the fact that the Federal Communications Commission had actively tried to stifle cable’s growth and prevent cable companies from competing with the broadcast networks in the 70s, cable thrived. Today, the picture is entirely different.
According to data analytics company Neilsen, nearly 13 million households cut the cord over the past 5 years. It’s not hard to understand why so many former cable subscribers have made the switch. Live TV streaming apps like Philo, fuboTV, Sling TV, Hulu with Live TV, PlayStation Vue are superior to traditional cable TV providers in nearly every way. In addition to lower prices and better features, they often offer channels that most local cable companies don’t carry.
One of the only advantages that traditional cable TV companies still have over the streaming services is the fact that only a handful of the streaming services carry all four of the American broadcast networks.
Budget-friendly streaming service Philo, for example, doesn’t carry any broadcast networks at all. Sports-centric fubo TV has CBS, NBC and Fox but lacks ABC. Streaming pioneer Sling TV only carries Fox and NBC, but it still hasn’t signed deals to broadcast those channels in many rural parts of the country. Hulu with Live TV and PlayStation Vue both have pretty good broadcast network support overall, but even they still have some coverage gaps.
Locast is a game changer because it gives cord-cutters an easy way to tune into local stations without a TV antenna.
What’s so bad about TV antennas?
TV antennas are cheap and easy to use, but they can be a hassle in some ways as well. Poor reception can be an issue, particularly for people that live in rural areas. In addition, many cord-cutters use their computers and mobile devices to watch TV. To pipe over-the-air TV signals into a digital device, you have to buy a Tablo, HDHomeRun or some other type of digital television tuner box.
These devices are great, but they’re not free– and not everyone likes the idea of buying and setting up a new gadget just to watch over-the-air TV channels. Even if you mostly use your TV set to watch TV, having to press the “change input” button on your remote each time you want to watch a broadcast network gets annoying after a while.
Locast: all the basic facts you need to know before you sign up
Availability
Locast is available in the following cities: New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington DC, Baltimore, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Sioux Falls, Denver, Rapid City, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
You can influence the streaming service’s expansion plans via the “Vote for the next Locast market” page of the Locast website. In order to vote, you have to donate money. Available payment options include PayPal and cryptocurrency. The cities with the most votes right now are Seattle, San Diego, Los Angeles, Alexandria and Albany.
Cost
Locast is entirely free– but there is a small catch to consider. You’ll periodically see donation requests pop up when you watch TV through Locast. To make those friendly reminders go away, you have to pay. The minimum amount of money you can donate is $5/month. Locast adds a fifty-cent processing fee on top of whatever recurring donation you choose.
Channels
The channels you can get vary depending on where you’re located. The way that Locast determines where you are is through a geo-location service. If you disable that, you can’t view the streams.
Generally speaking, the bigger city you’re in, the more channels you get. The exception is New York, which only has 19 local channels. Los Angeles and San Francisco residents have the most local channels. Both cities have 46. Smaller cities only have the four major broadcast networks, plus a few extras.
Here’s the complete list of all the channels you can get in all the Locast markets.
New York
WCBS
WNBC
WNYW (Fox)
WABC
WWOR
WPIX
WNET
WNET-2
WLIW
WPXN (Ion Television)
MeTV
LAFF
Grit
Escape
Court
WNJU
WFUT (Univision)
NYLIFE
WXTV
Philadelphia
WDPN (The Washington/Philadelphia affiliate of MeTV)
KYW (CBS)
WPVI (ABC)
WCAU (NBC)
WHYY
WTXF (Fox)
WPSG (CW)
WWSI (Telemundo)
WUPV (Univision)
WPHL
WDPN4 (Heroes and Icons)
WFMZ
WFMZ2 (AccuWeather)
WBPH
Boston
WGBH
WBZ (CBS)
WCBV (ABC)
WHDH (News Boston)
WBTS (NBC)
WFXT
WSBK (My 38)
WLVI (The CW)
WNEU (Telemundo)
Washington DC
WRC (NBC)
WTTG (Fox)
WJLA (ABC)
WUSA (CBS)
WFDC (Univision)
WDCA (Fox)
WETA
WZDC (Telemundo)
WDCW
Baltimore
WMAR (ABC)
WBAL (NBC)
WJZ (CBS)
TBD
WBFF (Fox)
WNUV (The CW)
WMPB (PBS)
MyTV
Chicago
WBBM (CBS)
WMAQ (NBC)
WLS (ABC)
WGN
WTTW
WWME (MeTV)
WCIU (The U)
WFLD (Fox)
WCPX (Ion Television)
WSNS (Telemundo)
WMEU (The U Too)
WPWR (The CW)
Houston
KPRC (NBC)
KUHT (Houston Public Media)
KHOU
KTRK (ABC)
KRIV (Fox)
KIAH (The CW)
KLTJ (Day Star)
KPXB (Ion Television)
KTMD (Telemundo)
KTXH (My 20)
KXLN (Univision)
KYAZ (Azteca Houston)
KUBE
KETH (TBN)
KFTH (UniMas)
Dallas
KDFW (Fox)
KXAS (NBC)
WFAA (ABC)
KTVT (CBS)
KERA
KUVN (Univision)
KDFI (Fox)
KMPX (EstrellaTV)
KPXD (Ion Television)
KDAF (The CW)
KXTX
KSTR (UniMas)
KDTN (DayStar)
Sioux Falls
KTTW (Fox)
This
Cozi
UTV (MyTV)
ION (Ion Television)
Escape
KSFY
CW (The CW)
MeTV
KDLT
Antenna
PBS
World
Create
Kids
Denver
KWGN (The CW)
KCNC (CBS)
KRMA (PBS)
KMGH
KDVR (Fox)
KUSA (NBC)
KBDI (Colorado Public Television)
KTFD (UniMas)
KPXC (Ion Television)
KTVD
KCEC (Univision)
KDEN (Telemundo)
Rapid City
KOTA
KEVN
KCLO (Kelo)
KCLO2 (The CW)
KCLO3 (Ion Television)
KCLO4 (Escape)
KHME (MeTV)
KHME2 (Heroes and Icons)
KNBN (NBC)
KNBN2 (MyTV)
PBS
World
Create
Kids
Los Angeles
CBS
ABC
NBC
FOX
PBS
COZI
CW (The CW)
Antenna
ThisTV
TBD
LivWell (Live Well)
LAFF
NewsNet
TCN (The Country Network)
AMG (Access Media Group)
KCAL
Stadium
MyNetwork (MyTV)
BUZZR
Movies
Heroes (Heroes and Icons)
KCET
KCETLink
NHK World
ION (Ion Television)
Qubo
Univision
UniMas
Bounce
Justice
Almavision
GetTV
Escape
Grit
Quest
Telemundo
TelXtos
MeTV
Decades
KDOC
ESNE
Comet
Charge!
Kids
Create
Estrella (EstrellaTV)
San Francisco
CBS (KPIX)
ABC
NBC
Fox
PBS
Movies
BUZZR
Kron
Sky Link
GetTV
Court
Start
Live Well
Laff
PLUS (PBS)
World
Kids
COZI
Univision
Escape
KOFY
ThisTV
KTSF
KICU
KEMS (KBS World)
CCTV
LIGHT (LightTV)
CW (The CW)
Comet
TDB
Telemundo
TeleXitos
KPJKDT (KPJK South Bay)
France 24
MHZ
NHK World
ION (Ion Television)
Qubo
ION Life
UniMas
Bounce
Grit
Justice
KTLN (H&I Bay Area)
MeTV
KAXT
Alex Munkachy is a freelance writer, game developer and hobby robotics enthusiast. You can find his blog about robotics news and reviews at robotfanatics.com.
Source: https://flixed.io/what-is-locast/
With that kind of money at stake, it’s not hard to understand why the broadcast networks feel threatened by companies like Aereo and Locast.
Even though Locast isn’t even a year old yet, cable companies are probably already using its existence to haggle for better deals. When CBS and AT&T couldn’t agree on a new licensing contract, CBS decided to remove itself from DirecTV’s channel menu. AT&T retaliated by advising its customers to use Locast as a workaround.
This incident may have been one of the main reasons why ABC, NBC, Fox and CBS recently teamed up to file a lawsuit against Locast. Another factor that may have caused the networks to react is the fact that AT&T gave Locast a $500,000 donation in June.
The strongly-worded lawsuit calls Locast “Aereo 2.0, a business built on illegally using broadcaster content.” It goes on to say that Locast shouldn’t be treated like a non-profit because it’s actively working with AT&T and Dish to “devalue” the networks and “serve its pay-TV patrons.”
Will Locast reverse a landmark legal reversal?
If Congress hadn’t intervened to reverse a Supreme Court decision in 1974, Aereo would probably have never been shut down in 2014.
In the 1968 case Fortnightly Corp. v. United Artists Television, Inc., the Supreme Court ruled that cable TV companies could freely rebroadcast any publicly available broadcast TV channels. In the decision, the court pointed out that the cable companies actually benefit the broadcast networks because they help get them additional viewers. In the court’s view, cable companies were comparable to “amplifying equipment” since they don’t edit or alter the over-the-air broadcasts at all.
The precedent set by Fortnightly Corp. v. United Artists Television, Inc. paved the way for the outcome of another Supreme Court case in 1974: Teleprompter Corp. v. Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. CBS argued that the cable company Teleprompter had violated copyright law when it allowed its subscribers to access its station from hundreds of miles away. The network’s lawyers argued that since amplifying equipment couldn’t carry a TV signal that far, Teleprompter should be required to pay rebroadcasting fees. The court rejected that line of thinking and once again sided with the cable TV companies.
These decisions were reversed when Congress passed the Copyright Act of 1976. It covered a wide variety of topics, ranging from fair use to exclusive rights to copyright transfer agreements and more. The Act also introduced the Transmit Clause, which made it a breach of copyright “to transmit or otherwise communicate a performance or display of the work…to the public, by means of any device or process, whether the members of the public capable of receiving the performance or display receive it in the same place or in separate places and at the same time or at different times.”
An exception within the Transmit Clause might provide a way for services like Locast to operate freely. According to 17 U.S. Code § 111, if “the secondary transmission is not made by a cable system but is made by a governmental body, or other nonprofit organization, without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage,” the Transmit Clause does not apply.
If Locast’s lawyers can prove that the company is aligned with the abovementioned exception, it may be able to win over the courts. Jonathan Schwantes, senior policy counsel at Consumer Reports, called Locast’s strategy a “novel– and untested– approach,” but added that whether or not it will win “remains to be seen.”
Locast solves a key problem for cord-cutters
Back in the 70s, the established broadcast networks felt threatened by the sudden appearance of cable TV technologies. Despite the fact that the Federal Communications Commission had actively tried to stifle cable’s growth and prevent cable companies from competing with the broadcast networks in the 70s, cable thrived. Today, the picture is entirely different.
According to data analytics company Neilsen, nearly 13 million households cut the cord over the past 5 years. It’s not hard to understand why so many former cable subscribers have made the switch. Live TV streaming apps like Philo, fuboTV, Sling TV, Hulu with Live TV, PlayStation Vue are superior to traditional cable TV providers in nearly every way. In addition to lower prices and better features, they often offer channels that most local cable companies don’t carry.
One of the only advantages that traditional cable TV companies still have over the streaming services is the fact that only a handful of the streaming services carry all four of the American broadcast networks.
Budget-friendly streaming service Philo, for example, doesn’t carry any broadcast networks at all. Sports-centric fubo TV has CBS, NBC and Fox but lacks ABC. Streaming pioneer Sling TV only carries Fox and NBC, but it still hasn’t signed deals to broadcast those channels in many rural parts of the country. Hulu with Live TV and PlayStation Vue both have pretty good broadcast network support overall, but even they still have some coverage gaps.
Locast is a game changer because it gives cord-cutters an easy way to tune into local stations without a TV antenna.
What’s so bad about TV antennas?
TV antennas are cheap and easy to use, but they can be a hassle in some ways as well. Poor reception can be an issue, particularly for people that live in rural areas. In addition, many cord-cutters use their computers and mobile devices to watch TV. To pipe over-the-air TV signals into a digital device, you have to buy a Tablo, HDHomeRun or some other type of digital television tuner box.
These devices are great, but they’re not free– and not everyone likes the idea of buying and setting up a new gadget just to watch over-the-air TV channels. Even if you mostly use your TV set to watch TV, having to press the “change input” button on your remote each time you want to watch a broadcast network gets annoying after a while.
Locast: all the basic facts you need to know before you sign up
Availability
Locast is available in the following cities: New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington DC, Baltimore, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Sioux Falls, Denver, Rapid City, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
You can influence the streaming service’s expansion plans via the “Vote for the next Locast market” page of the Locast website. In order to vote, you have to donate money. Available payment options include PayPal and cryptocurrency. The cities with the most votes right now are Seattle, San Diego, Los Angeles, Alexandria and Albany.
Cost
Locast is entirely free– but there is a small catch to consider. You’ll periodically see donation requests pop up when you watch TV through Locast. To make those friendly reminders go away, you have to pay. The minimum amount of money you can donate is $5/month. Locast adds a fifty-cent processing fee on top of whatever recurring donation you choose.
Channels
The channels you can get vary depending on where you’re located. The way that Locast determines where you are is through a geo-location service. If you disable that, you can’t view the streams.
Generally speaking, the bigger city you’re in, the more channels you get. The exception is New York, which only has 19 local channels. Los Angeles and San Francisco residents have the most local channels. Both cities have 46. Smaller cities only have the four major broadcast networks, plus a few extras.
Here’s the complete list of all the channels you can get in all the Locast markets.
New York
WCBS
WNBC
WNYW (Fox)
WABC
WWOR
WPIX
WNET
WNET-2
WLIW
WPXN (Ion Television)
MeTV
LAFF
Grit
Escape
Court
WNJU
WFUT (Univision)
NYLIFE
WXTV
Philadelphia
WDPN (The Washington/Philadelphia affiliate of MeTV)
KYW (CBS)
WPVI (ABC)
WCAU (NBC)
WHYY
WTXF (Fox)
WPSG (CW)
WWSI (Telemundo)
WUPV (Univision)
WPHL
WDPN4 (Heroes and Icons)
WFMZ
WFMZ2 (AccuWeather)
WBPH
Boston
WGBH
WBZ (CBS)
WCBV (ABC)
WHDH (News Boston)
WBTS (NBC)
WFXT
WSBK (My 38)
WLVI (The CW)
WNEU (Telemundo)
Washington DC
WRC (NBC)
WTTG (Fox)
WJLA (ABC)
WUSA (CBS)
WFDC (Univision)
WDCA (Fox)
WETA
WZDC (Telemundo)
WDCW
Baltimore
WMAR (ABC)
WBAL (NBC)
WJZ (CBS)
TBD
WBFF (Fox)
WNUV (The CW)
WMPB (PBS)
MyTV
Chicago
WBBM (CBS)
WMAQ (NBC)
WLS (ABC)
WGN
WTTW
WWME (MeTV)
WCIU (The U)
WFLD (Fox)
WCPX (Ion Television)
WSNS (Telemundo)
WMEU (The U Too)
WPWR (The CW)
Houston
KPRC (NBC)
KUHT (Houston Public Media)
KHOU
KTRK (ABC)
KRIV (Fox)
KIAH (The CW)
KLTJ (Day Star)
KPXB (Ion Television)
KTMD (Telemundo)
KTXH (My 20)
KXLN (Univision)
KYAZ (Azteca Houston)
KUBE
KETH (TBN)
KFTH (UniMas)
Dallas
KDFW (Fox)
KXAS (NBC)
WFAA (ABC)
KTVT (CBS)
KERA
KUVN (Univision)
KDFI (Fox)
KMPX (EstrellaTV)
KPXD (Ion Television)
KDAF (The CW)
KXTX
KSTR (UniMas)
KDTN (DayStar)
Sioux Falls
KTTW (Fox)
This
Cozi
UTV (MyTV)
ION (Ion Television)
Escape
KSFY
CW (The CW)
MeTV
KDLT
Antenna
PBS
World
Create
Kids
Denver
KWGN (The CW)
KCNC (CBS)
KRMA (PBS)
KMGH
KDVR (Fox)
KUSA (NBC)
KBDI (Colorado Public Television)
KTFD (UniMas)
KPXC (Ion Television)
KTVD
KCEC (Univision)
KDEN (Telemundo)
Rapid City
KOTA
KEVN
KCLO (Kelo)
KCLO2 (The CW)
KCLO3 (Ion Television)
KCLO4 (Escape)
KHME (MeTV)
KHME2 (Heroes and Icons)
KNBN (NBC)
KNBN2 (MyTV)
PBS
World
Create
Kids
Los Angeles
CBS
ABC
NBC
FOX
PBS
COZI
CW (The CW)
Antenna
ThisTV
TBD
LivWell (Live Well)
LAFF
NewsNet
TCN (The Country Network)
AMG (Access Media Group)
KCAL
Stadium
MyNetwork (MyTV)
BUZZR
Movies
Heroes (Heroes and Icons)
KCET
KCETLink
NHK World
ION (Ion Television)
Qubo
Univision
UniMas
Bounce
Justice
Almavision
GetTV
Escape
Grit
Quest
Telemundo
TelXtos
MeTV
Decades
KDOC
ESNE
Comet
Charge!
Kids
Create
Estrella (EstrellaTV)
San Francisco
CBS (KPIX)
ABC
NBC
Fox
PBS
Movies
BUZZR
Kron
Sky Link
GetTV
Court
Start
Live Well
Laff
PLUS (PBS)
World
Kids
COZI
Univision
Escape
KOFY
ThisTV
KTSF
KICU
KEMS (KBS World)
CCTV
LIGHT (LightTV)
CW (The CW)
Comet
TDB
Telemundo
TeleXitos
KPJKDT (KPJK South Bay)
France 24
MHZ
NHK World
ION (Ion Television)
Qubo
ION Life
UniMas
Bounce
Grit
Justice
KTLN (H&I Bay Area)
MeTV
KAXT
Alex Munkachy is a freelance writer, game developer and hobby robotics enthusiast. You can find his blog about robotics news and reviews at robotfanatics.com.
Source: https://flixed.io/what-is-locast/
