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First...your local cable system can't pull local over-the-air channels...(ABC, Fox, CBS, NBC, PBS) due to "must carry laws". What it sounds like is Sinclair is trying to play hardball with the "cable providers" (Weather Channel, CNN and others). Thanks to De-Reg '96, your cable operator has the right to yank and pull those channels and sell them to the highest bidder.
The nut of this problem is the long running practice of cable providers paying the program providers and how many of these providers think it should be the other way around. Instead of them paying CNN, it should be the other way around. Another battle front is the coming digital shut-off/conversion in 2009. For many, the only way they'll be able to watch TV will be via cable and the operators want to be able to make bucks off of this...charging you for the High Definition picture more than for the standard one.
Sinclair itself is a right wing corporation that was famous for their "News Center" and the infamous Kerry slimeboat smear during the '04 campaign. Times haven't been good for Sinclair since. Their advertising revenues have gone south, expensese and debt have soared and their stock price is hoving around the price of a good penny stock. This is just another shakedown...another attempt for the providers...and then passed onto to you...to pay for their reckless spending.
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