Locast TV Service
 

For all the Locast users, bad news.

Locast Nation

As a non-profit, Locast was designed from the very beginning to operate in accordance with the strict letter of the law, but in response to the court’s recent rulings, with which we respectfully disagree, we are hereby suspending operations, effective immediately.


Thank you.

I personally am glad , if everyone gets tv for free , who pays for programs and from all the talk on here you got what you paid for which seemed to be a lot of aggravation , call me stupid but at this age and having a few bucks to spend I just want to turn on my tv and watch it without banging a lot of buttons or buying things from flea markets that get closed down by police

Locast called themselves a "non-profit" but what did they do with the "donations" that you had to pay to avoid the very annoying commercial interruptions to their programs?

What are y'all talkin' about?

What is/was Locast TV?

Was it local?

Who, what, why, when, how?

I found this. Apparently started in New York. Was it here?
Locast
Locast
Locast was an American non-profit streaming television service that allowed users to view live streams of over-the-air television stations. These signals are sourced from antennas in each market it served. Founded by attorney David Goodfriend under the banner of the Sports Fans Coalition, Locast first launched in New York City in January 2018.

Apparently, they transferred free over-the-air television channels, and put them on the internet. You could access it for free, but every 15 seconds or so they bugged you to "donate" about 5 dollars per month to stop the requests for money. So, while they claimed the service was free, it really wasn't. Not a good service, and not really a non-profit. My opinion.

Did locast provide any channels that are not normally free? I thought their purpose was to provide over the internet what should already be available over the air.

Some people are not able to receive channels over the air that were available to them before the digital broadcast update a few years ago. Others are in valleys or other obstructions that prevent them from receiving the channels in their area. Locast provided a way for these people to receive the channels from their market without having to pay exorbitant prices for cable PLUS any local channel access fee. Essentially, they replaced your antenna with the internet to provide you with the free channels in your local area.

If they provided pay channels for free then I can see the problem. I have no sympathy at all for the local broadcasters if they are complaining because households in their area are receiving Locast for free rather than paying for they channels through local channel access fees to the cable company.

I don't know if they provided any pay channels, but the problem I have is that they were charging people for the free channels. They claimed to be a non-profit, but then they extorted money from people by making it almost impossible to watch the free stuff without making bogus donations. Sounds like a scam to me.

Well, I guess we're back to going without local news and weather. It was nice as long as it lasted.

Like most non-profits, I'm sure they needed to purchase equipment, pay utilities, have insurance, and hire employees. The $5 donation allows them to pay these normal operating expenses. Whether the donations were sufficient to generate a surplus, or if there was a deficit, we don't know.

Even a non-profit organization needs operating cash.

I agree, but it appears that the only reason for becoming a non-profit was because it would be illegal to charge people to watch free over-the-air channels. They could be sued by the free networks. Many people who set up and operate non-profit companies pay almost all of the extra income to themselves as a salary. Also, there are many streaming services that provide pay channels for about the same cost as the donations that Locast asked for.

They only put up Local stations that you could get with an antenna and around here a booster. All the channels were free. The small $5.50 a month was well worth it. I have a small (non business) web site. The site and with the cost of the domain name, costs me more than $60 a year. Not sure how much a large, web presence and staff to run it would cost, but I don't think they made a lot of profit.

I don't know how much profit they made. But, as a example, you can get more than 20 channels, including Hallmark, The Weather Channel, and other pay channels from "frndly" for $5.99 per month. But, the point is that they were skirting the law by charging people for free content, pretending to be a non-profit company, and avoiding taxes. I think it was appropriate to shut them down.

Could you list a couple of streaming services that provide live local tv for a price similar to Locast? Hulu and YouTube each charge about ten times what Locast was requesting. (I believe Roku is in the same range but I can't confirm that)

I don't think there are any. The best source to compare streaming services and match up the channels you want is a website called "suppose.tv". Using that site, and listing the 4 local channels, the lowest price is Xfinity for $43.15 per month.

If any of you look at your cable bill for tv the local broadcaster charge you $15 This is not dictated by the cable company but by the local broadcaster for the right of cable companies to broadcast their stations , guess I'll have to invest in a antenna