A CAPITOL IDEA FOR PUTTING STATIONS ON THE WEB

Capitol Broadcasting owner Jim Goodmon is a true HDTV pioneer. His WRAL Raleigh, N.C., began experimenting with HD in 1996 and it aired its first local HD newscast seven years ago—long before many other stations had begun HD broadcasts of any kind.

Now that the rest of the industry is finally catching up with him on local HD, he is on to his next cutting-edge project—making sure that his TV stations (he also owns four others in North Carolina) and every other TV station is streamed in its entirety on the Internet.

To avoid the various regulatory and copyright obstacles, Goodmon believes the way to do it is to operate the stations' Web sites like a cable system. He envisions Web sites where subscribers can go to watch every station within their market just as they do on cable.

The trick is to limit reception of the Web-delivered broadcast signals to their over-the-air market, he says.

In this interview with TVNewsCheck Editor Harry A. Jessell, Goodmon explains the concept and tries to impart some of the urgency he feels for getting TV station signals on the Web.

An edited transcript follows:

Why is it so important for TV stations to be streamed on the Web?

There are young people out there who never watch broadcasts, who never watch local news, who only watch stuff on the Internet. I want to introduce broadcasting to them. It's essential to the future of the industry. We've got to be on this stream.

I'm a big [Tampa Bay] Devil Rays fan and I subscribe to MLB baseball. I watch the Devil Rays game every night on my computer. It's an important platform, a real important platform. [Goodmon is an owner of the Durham Bulls, the Triple-A affiliate of the Devil Rays.]

And you think the way to do it is by operating a Web site as a cable system.

A lot of people think of the Internet as being all over the world when actually it is one computer connecting to another computer. If we know that the [receiving] computer is in the market—is in the DMA—then I'm saying that it's just another cable system.

You're saying it, but what does the law say?

The law doesn't address the Internet. I'm saying that as long as the receiver is in the DMA and we fulfill all the rules for cable then it's just another cable system.  

This would apply to any cable system anywhere, and the new [cable] franchise laws in North Carolina make it a little easier to become a cable system.

Time Warner Cable could do it or Jim Goodmon's cable company could do it or Harry Jessell's cable company could do it. You just have to be a legitimate cable system.

You would have to have a franchise. You have to follow all the rules—must carry and retrans and syndicated exclusivity. I mean, it would just be the same rules.

I'm sure you've run this theory past the lawyers. What are they telling you?

That it is reasonable. They're not going to say anything's a hundred percent.

And defining the Web service as a cable system is the way you get over all the copyright hurdles because a cable system can retransmit a TV signal in its entirety—the network programming, the syndicated programming, everything the station doesn't create for itself.

Everybody says to me, well, the programming people won't like this, they'll all oppose you. And I say, hold it a second. This is the programming when it's on our station in our market. We're not going outside of the market, it's not delayed, it's at the same time it's on the station. The syndicators and the networks should really like this. We're just trying to get more viewers for what we're already doing in our market.

So it's exactly parallel to cable. You're going to retransmit this signal over the Internet within your market just like a conventional cable system.

To me, this is just the next platform that we should be on. We're not trying to extend our market, we're not trying to get something for nothing, we're not stealing anything. This is just about as damn straightforward as I can make it.

Do you see this as a pay service like cable?

Quit saying "like cable." It is cable. I think there should be an extra fee because of the cost of streaming. This is pretty expensive now. This is not easy.

There's no exclusivity, right? More than one entity could do this is a market.

That's fine. Anybody that wants to go through franchising can do it. You've got a franchise fee, you've got to carry all the local stations, you've got to do all that stuff.

I want existing cable companies to do this. I'm not announcing that Jim Goodmon's going to start a cable system.