# How would a person start a cable channel(like History Channel)? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 21, 2009, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-person-start-a-cable-channel-like-history-channel/493896 "2009-04-21T21:05:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Quintas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/48db29/32.png) [@Quintas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quintas)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-person-start-a-cable-channel-like-history-channel/493896/1 "2009-04-21T21:05:02Z")
A few questions. Does a channel have to pay for stock footage? And if so, how is it priced? Does one just buy the rights outright? Example: There are warehouses of WW2 film. Yet, for the most part, if you watch,say a ‘documentary’ on the Battle of Britain, you’ll see the picture of St Pauls through the smoke and some RAF guys running towards their spitfires. Same images you’ve seen for 30 years. If you have something about Nazis, you see a clip of Hitler from 'Triumph of the Will". Anything about the 1960’s will show that same clip of some kids in a park in San Francisco on 1 day in 1967. Christ, I could get some stock footage and write some dialogue for a voice actor to read and it’d be as good as some of the stuff on TV. I know they occasionally do something new and I realise that costs money to make. But it seems a person could make some money showing stock footage and have a deep voiced actor read from a high school textbook. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Quintas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/48db29/32.png) [@Quintas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quintas)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-person-start-a-cable-channel-like-history-channel/493896/2 "2009-04-21T21:12:25Z")
Actually, I think this thread was titled wrong. I realise i’m really just questioning why the history channel is generally so crappy. But I am curious as to the costs in getting the rights to show actual good documentaries. Ken Burns ‘The Civil War’ is great. The BBC did a wonderful World War 2 series in the late 60’s. Why are these type things not broadcast? ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-person-start-a-cable-channel-like-history-channel/493896/3 "2009-04-21T21:20:47Z")
> [@Quintas](#): > > A few questions. Does a channel have to pay for stock footage? Yes. Unless you negotiate otherwise with the stock footage house. > [@](#): > > And if so, how is it priced? What the market will bear generally, anywhere from free to the sky is the limit. > [@](#): > > Does one just buy the rights outright? That would cost a lot more (assuming the stock footage hose even has the right to do that, they may not be the owner), as it precludes all future revenue to get an exclusive. > [@](#): > > Christ, I could get some stock footage and write some dialogue for a voice actor to read and it’d be as good as some of the stuff on TV. Maybe. But your might not be able to license it for such purposes. > [@](#): > > I know they occasionally do something new and I realise that costs money to make. But it seems a person could make some money showing stock footage and have a deep voiced actor read from a high school textbook. 🙂 Just the sort of crap I find in video bins at the 99 cent store, or sometimes at Walmart for similar prices. Remember, you not only have to make it, you have to distribute it and allow the distribution channel to earn a profit too, and you have to convince people to watch it or at least buy it. If you want top dollar, you will basically be getting last dollar in the revenue stream, however you distribute it. ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-person-start-a-cable-channel-like-history-channel/493896/4 "2009-04-21T21:25:47Z")
> [@Quintas](#): > > Actually, I think this thread was titled wrong. I realise i’m really just questioning why the history channel is generally so crappy. But I am curious as to the costs in getting the rights to show actual good documentaries. > > Ken Burns ‘The Civil War’ is great. The BBC did a wonderful World War 2 series in the late 60’s. Why are these type things not broadcast? Because they are not willing to pay what the producers demand for the rights to broadcast. Each group has their own financial projections and requirements and alternative options. So it is a negotiation on price. If the producers expect more then the channel is willing to pay, and the channel makes that decision based on projected revenue (ads, subscribers, etc.) then there will be no deal. The deal might hang up on ancillary issues - marketing dollars, how many times and when the doc can be show, exclusivity, etc., but in the end it is just an arms length negotiation by parties with other options. ---
**Author:** ![Quintas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/48db29/32.png) [@Quintas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quintas)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-person-start-a-cable-channel-like-history-channel/493896/5 "2009-04-21T21:32:46Z")
How is footage housed in the national archives(or wherever) priced? There’s tons of stuff housed there. Some of which hasn’t even been seen since the camera-man filmed it. If I were doing research there and found some footage that was interesting, who would I have to pay in order to have the right to legally broadcast it? For example, there is known to be color video footage of the landings at Omaha Beach. Sitting somewhere among the piles of WW2 reels. If I happened to be the person to finally find it, what would I have to do to show it on TV? ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-person-start-a-cable-channel-like-history-channel/493896/6 "2009-04-21T21:34:22Z")
Some of the stock footage used in these war documentaries may be public domain because it’s produced by the US government. ---
**Author:** ![Quintas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/48db29/32.png) [@Quintas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quintas)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2009, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-person-start-a-cable-channel-like-history-channel/493896/7 "2009-04-21T21:38:15Z")
Someone will probably ask for a cite in regards to my Omaha beach comment: taken from Wikipedia: > [@](#): > > Ford was present on Omaha Beach on D-Day. As head of the photographic unit for the Office of Strategic Services, he crossed the English Channel on the USS Plunkett (DD-431), anchored off Omaha Beach at 0600. He observed the first wave land on the beach from the ship, landing on the beach himself later with a team of US Coast Guard cameramen who filmed the battle from behind the beach obstacles, with Ford directing operations. The film was edited in London, but very little was released to the public. Ford explained in a 1964 interview that the US Government was “afraid to show so many American casualties on the screen,” adding that all of the D-Day film “still exists in color in storage in Anacostia near Washington, D.C. Thirty years later, historian Stephen E. Ambrose reported that the Eisenhower Center had been unable to find the film.”