How Locast, a free streaming service for local TV with about 60K users in several major US cities, is hoping to avoid Aereo's legal fate
Want to watch the Super Bowl and other network TV for free? A start-up called Locast will let you, and (so far) the big broadcasters aren't trying to stop it.
Context & Ripple Effects
Locast is the second attempt to retransmit local broadcast signals over the internet without paying retransmission fees, and it is explicitly structured around dodging the first attempt's outcome: Aereo lost to the networks and its assets fetched less than $2M at auction. Locast's workaround is nonprofit status, which carries a copyright exemption, plus AT&T money behind the scenes.
At this writing the strategy is holding — about 60K users in several major cities get network TV free, including the Super Bowl, and broadcasters have not moved against it. That quiet ends within months: the four major networks file suit in August 2019, arguing the nonprofit exemption is a fig leaf for an AT&T-funded retransmission business.
First-order effects
- Locast's roughly 60K users keep getting live network feeds — Super Bowl included — at no cost, while ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC forgo the retransmission fees they collect from cable and satellite distributors on those same viewers.
- AT&T's funding lets Locast operate without charging subscription fees, which is precisely what keeps it inside the nonprofit exemption the broadcasters would otherwise challenge.
Second-order effects
- The networks' patience runs out: their August 2019 lawsuit targets the nonprofit status itself rather than the technology, a sharper legal line than the one that killed Aereo.
- A win for the networks closes the loophole for any future copycat, reinforcing that free internet retransmission of broadcast signals must be licensed — the same economics that pushed pay-TV add-ons like Comcast Stream to pay for broadcast carriage.
Third-order effects
- That is exactly how it resolves: after a judge revokes Locast's nonprofit status, the service halts operations entirely in 2021, confirming that the exemption cannot shield a funded retransmitter and leaving free broadcast access to hardware antennas and emerging standards like ATSC 3.0.
- With unlicensed free TV off the table, demand migrates to licensed substitutes — ad-supported FAST channels like Redbox Free Live TV and premium bundles like DirecTV's $70/month MySports — entrenching the divide between free-but-curated and complete-but-expensive.
The trend: Free internet access to broadcast signals keeps losing to copyright enforcement, pushing 'free TV' into licensed ad-supported channels while live sports pricing pushes viewers back toward antennas.