“Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”
This saying was in common use in the 1800s and was believed to have first been published by Benjamin Franklin. Personally, I agree with it. While other folks love to party through the night, I generally work a while, relax a while, and turn in before the party gets started. This is true whether I’m working in our west coast offices, at our home offices in Novi Michigan, or somewhere else.
That’s one reason I’d love to get my Detroit locals when I’m traveling. It would be great to watch a whole evening of prime time and turn in by 8:30. I’d also love to know what’s going on at home and sometimes I plain old don’t care what’s going on in the city I’m visiting.
You can’t get your locals unless…
One of the pillars of the broadcast world in the last 100 years has been the doctrine of “syndicated exclusivity.” This means that only one network affiliate can exist in each market for each network, and out-of-market programming can’t be brought in. For example, if you’re in Dallas, you’re getting Dallas’ CBS station, not the one from Houston. There’s only one Dallas CBS station so if you want CBS you watch that.
The reasoning here was that if you were in a small market like Springfield, Illinois, you would only be able to make money on commercials if bigger stations like those in Chicago weren’t available. Keeping those distant local stations away protected your advertising revenue. Given the choice, people would probably watch a more slickly-produced news show from a big market than a local one on a tighter budget.
That doctrine served broadcasters well for many decades but it’s beginning to make less and less sense as time goes on. It’s possible to stream some local programming from local station web sites, and network programming is available now from apps. Local stations, for their part, are starting to look pretty darn good so the fear of competition from larger stations is less than it was.
What you can do about it today
If you have DIRECTV or DISH, you can record local programming on your DVR. In most cases, you can stream that to your phone whenever you want. However, that’s not a 100% guarantee because the broadcasters themselves put up roadblocks that make it hard to do. Another thing you can do is go to that channel’s own web site and stream from there. There are some streaming apps that offer local news from other places, too. That’s something.
You can get the prime-time programming from the local affiliates with just a TV antenna. This is a simple, low-cost way to get local programming from wherever you are. You pay once — to buy the antenna — and there’s really nothing more to buy. It’s a great option for when you’re traveling in an RV.
Signs of change
Recently we’ve started to see some options for people who want to watch different local channels. DISH has a program called DISH Outdoors which lets you change the local channels you receive in your RV. It won’t let you get channels from home while you’re on the road, but at least you’ll get some local channels from somewhere.
For years, customers whose homes are in the Los Angeles or New York City areas have been able to watch their local channels from anywhere. This is due to a loophole which allows DIRECTV and DISH to make those channels available nationwide for the benefit of people who don’t have local stations at all. Unfortunately, it’s increasingly difficult to try to lie to DIRECTV and DISH to tell them you live somewhere that you don’t.
However, I think we’ll start to see some change in this regard. The very idea of local channels is changing in the face of streaming competition. Hopefully this allows local broadcasters to be stronger and offer better options.
Do you have more questions?
If you want to know the best way to watch TV while you’re away from home, call the experts! Signal Connect has been helping customers with RVs and boats for over 20 years. We’ll explain all the options, and we can help you with DIRECTV, DISH, antennas, cellular products, and even satellite internet like Starlink!
Call us at 888-233-7563 during East Coast business hours. If it’s after hours, just fill out the form below and we’ll get right back to you.
