Many of them charge cable operators for the right to carry them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retransmission_consent - so having the channel available free online diminishes the value of the retransmission consent.

Also, the copyright licenses the station has for their programming usually specify limits on redistribution - e.g. geographical, types of carriage, amount of customers reached (with a wider distribution costing more, as it provides more value to the licensee and reduces the licensor's ability to sell licenses to other entities).

>Many of them charge cable operators for the right to carry them.

So the opposite of what some ISPs are trying to pull.

The cable operators are the only "broadband" ISP for most people in the US. Cable operators want income as both ISPs and as channel providers. The TV channels want income from cable operators and advertisers. Losing one means fewer avenues of revenue.

The reality is cable operators are no longer need to be anything but a dumb pipe. And TV channels are no longer as valuable as they once were due to multitude of other sources of information.

The rights to distribute a program on different media and in different geographies are sold separately. The broadcaster itself is likely not authorized to distribute the show online, so they can't authorize you to do it either.

Much of the programming of the OTA networks are produced in-house. (Previously, it was 100% in-house.)

The advertisers don’t want their content available everywhere. They often do regional promotions they don’t want the rest of the world to have knowledge of.

> Much of the programming of the OTA networks are produced in-house.

Not really.

> (Previously, it was 100% in-house.)

Nope.

Even in-house programming doesn't mean you're free of underlying copyright issues.

They get paid by the cable companies (or YouTubeTV style equivalents). It’s not too much (~$0.40/subscriber IIRC) but it obviously adds up.

They don’t get that money if you use an antenna, but that’s a small market compared to the internet. Most people who use antennas won’t pay anyway, and broadcasting gives them access to the network.

But opening up streaming will draw a lot of people who would otherwise have a cable subscription. Which will lead to much more cord cutters and cut into the carriage fees from the cable company.

I have heard that small cable companies pay upwards of $11 per month per sub in retran fees. This article from the industry says..."According to Kagan, the average retrans fee charged by a broadcast station will reach $2.93 by 2022, putting it behind only ESPN ($11.08) and cable channel TNT ($3.09)." [1]

This increase by YTTV is driven by the leverage that ViacomCBS has because of the CBS locals then own. They are forcing YTTV to take these network. Until retransmission consent is changed, we are stuck paying the local station holders despite the fact that their content is free OTA.

[1] - https://www.multichannel.com/news/is-the-retrans-cash-cow-ru...

You have the reasoning wrong for why they broadcast over the air via antennas, it was (still is I think?) mandated by the FCC.

One would think that the improved ad performance analytics should make up for the loss of $0.40 to $3.00 a month. But maybe they know ads don't work as well as they say and don't want the proof to get out...

I think that they broadcast over the air for free only because they are required by law. Otherwise they would probably only be available on cable, Netflix, etc...

> I never understood what the business interest of the tv stations was in preventing streaming online. They already give away for free the stream over the air. What gives? Do they make money on the antennas or receivers or something?

Pretty simple. They money using a tried and true model, why would they bother innovating or rocking the boat. It's much easier to collect the check for most of the money on the table than to bother innovating and collecting a slightly higher percentage with signicant potential downsides.