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Comment by lordnacho | Hacker News Reader

Perhaps someone could give us non-Americans some insight into how TV works over there.

Whenever I'm visiting relatives, it's just this huge mess on TV. They have the same shows like Big Bang Theory, but it's not clear to me how it's distributed. Some channels seem to be local, while others seem to be planet-wide like CNN. The amount of advertising is insane, I can't watch it. Also there's these low quality local business ads that you never see in Europe.

What's a network, what's cable, what's a blackout, and what does it matter?

Also, what is the impact of free internet video? I can pretty much watch any soccer match I want by googling it during the match, including some quite obscure ones. Could it be that US sports viewers have discovered this as well? In fact the US sports lend themselves to highlights, because they're so incredibly long and full of ads.

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It's funny, because I never realized TV in Europe had those differences (and I watched some of it)

Cable is basically subscription TV (like Virgin Media in the UK and some countries, Canal+ in France, in Germany they have KabelDeutschland, UPC in the Netherlands, SKY via sattelite, etc)

Network is a channel basically (BBC might also be considered a network since it's a collection of channels with the same owner, but you have France 1/2, etc, ARD, ZDF, ProSieben in Germany, SkyNews in the UK)

The difference in the US/Canada (and other countries in the American continent) is that usually you have some local programming (State/Province/City level). So you usually have a local news program dealing with, for example, State News (this also happens in Brazil and some other LATAM countries). And you bet the local low-quality ads happen everywhere (but not necessarily go to the TV)

Regional content is definitely a thing in the UK - with regional ITV franchises and things like BBC Scotland - they do "local" news items in additional to national news and produce local content.

Germany has state-wide TV as well. You can receive it in the whole country, but it's definitely targeted towards citizens of a specific state.

Ah yes, but BBC Alba (Scotland) is a specific channel, not one program that's replaced depending on where you are

Isn't BBC Alba the Gaelic channel?

I think things are different these days with the multitude of channels available on digital but in the old days you definitely did get different content hence the "Except for viewers in Scotland" notice that you'd often see on interesting programs.

Pretty certain the BBC do regional news after the evening news broadcast.

Ah good, so it's pretty similar

Yes, BBC Alba is in (Scottish) Gaelic

You order a subscription to various channels via cable, satellite, etc.

Shows are run on a schedule, television sets usually include the ability to set recordings for showings. Most people just set it to record the newest episode of every show they want to watch and catch up their shows that way, deleting watched shows as needed. Unless it's a show they are really interested in and obviously you can tune in to the scheduled showing if you remember the time.

The subscriptions you purchase usually include a set amount of local or regional channels (depending on where you live). You can also pick up local channels via an antenna or similar methods.

It's hard to be a sports fan without cable. They have blackouts on games where channels can't display games based on your region.[0] Or not being able to stream certain games online for a multitude of reasons.

[0]https://support.espn.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/What-is-a-Blacko...

Blackouts in Europe don't happen because most right-holders are national.

But basically, a particular sports event shown on one channel will not be broadcasted because another channel holds the rights in that juridiction.

It happens a lot on Sattelite TV in Africa...

TF1, the biggest French Channel is broadcasted on Canal Sat Africa. TF1 shows Formula One events. But they only hold the rights for France.

Since Canal Plus (the channel) or SuperSports (South African Channel) hold the rights for Africa, TF1 is blacked out during Formula One events.

Furthermore, in the US, local channels pay for exclusive rights to broadcast sports events for local teams.

So while your New York-Chicago may be available on MLB or NBA's streaming service, it will be blacked out in Chicago and New York because a TV channel has paid for the exclusive rights.

Actually Black outs happen in Europe.

If I'm not mistaken, all of the Bundesliga games are available for free on Bundesliga's streaming service if watched outside of Germany.

the local channels tend to be affiliates of the biggies like NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox. We tend to refer to that as "Network TV". Bigger cities likely have more variance, but I"m not too familiar.

The local channels sell advertising to local businesses, while also showing ads from the national network.

Blackouts are (i think) specific to sports, and I'm not too familiar with them.

I really don't get why you're downvoted.

It seems like an honest question, which, unfortunately, I can't really answer for you.

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