Parade over; Streaming Service out of business

The Facebook page “WPXI Holiday Parade” has announced within the last couple of hours that Channel 11 cannot continue to produce and broadcast the downtown parade which was once sponsored by Kaufmann’s Department store, later Macy’s.

“We know it is a popular part of the holiday tradition for Pittsburghers and leave the door open for future broadcast opportunities if production partners arise.”

WPXI has produced the parade for roughly 30 years. The pandemic brought it to a halt in 2020 due to social distancing measures and for a few years prior it operated without a major sponsor such as Macy’s.

A few weeks ago, PBRTV told you about Locast which had just entered the Pittsburgh and a few other markets including neighboring Columbus, Ohio. It was a nonprofit, free, digital translator streaming service to bring the local channels and their subchannels to your home via the Internet without the extra expense of cable fees or the uncertainty of over-the-air signals.

David Goodfriend, a lawyer and consumer advocate in Washington, D.C. was its founder and operated it “under the Copyright Act of 1976 allowing a nonprofit translator to retransmit local channels without copyright license from the original broadcaster.”

But the courts have ruled in the favor of the broadcasters* leaving Locast to abruptly suspend operations in late August. At locast.org it says, “As a non-profit, Locast was designed from the very beginning to operate in accordance with the strict letter of the law, but in response to the court’s recent rulings, with which we respectfully disagree, we are hereby suspending operations, effective immediately.”

*Information from The Verge