It’s so annoying really, DirecTV has honestly done a good job to try and keep all these conflicts away from their customers. Linear is dying, they are trying to keep it functional while they can.
All these channels (broadcast especially) try to ask for a bigger cut, which leads to customer bill increases. Broadcast shouldn’t even be allowed to, because they get access to public-owned radio spectrum to provide a public service and make some money when that public service isn’t needed.
DirecTV retransmitting those channels specifically does nothing but help the broadcast station reach an audience that otherwise wouldn’t. (Especially in locations like the Intermountain West.) They should be thankful for it, not charge for it, nor be allowed to. The retransmit literally costs them nothing and reaps them free ad dollars.
Linear will likely be replaced with the clusterfuck that streaming TV now is, DirecTV will eventually have to pivot or die.
Not trying to sound like an apologist nor a fanboi, but as far as companies go, DTV has been more flexible than most streamers (their stream arm anyway.) However, they’re just going to continue to have these battles until companies like Disney can pull their channels and get people to pay for all their silly apps directly.
It is a bummer on some level, the end of Linear is kinda nice. Unlimited cloud DVR, fast forward through commercials, all your content in one place.
Can’t wait to see the “underground” Android VM with all the TV apps baked in to present a unified UI like Linear, hah. Like Pidgin for TV.