With the exception of PBS, local TV stations are free to the consumer and paid for by the advertising. The consumer is not paying an hourly fee to watch the local news, or other programming. If they are, then you might have a point.

All the cable company does is rebroadcast the signal over their cable lines. They do not charge extra for this, it is part of their basic package. Or at least most cable companies are like that. Sometimes they replace the commercials from the local station with their own commercials. Like that Dog Food commercial gets replaced with the cable comapny's "Pay per view" movie ad.

I am glad that you got something for your troubles. Someone sending you email could have had it bounce, maybe at 2am in the morning, and maybe that person sending it was SPAMMING you, but still even if you didn't know about it, you could have had a loss in service. It was proven in court that a loss of service did happen, somehow your name got on their list as someone effected by it. Even if you got 35 cents, that is something for your time.