HDTV Almanac - Death Spiral for Broadcast TV?

[alfredpoor]

Did you ever hear the squeal of feedback in a public address system? It occurs because a sound coming from the amplified speakers finds its way into a microphone, where it travels to an amplifier that makes it louder. This louder sound comes out of the speaker and goes back into the microphone louder than [...]

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[videograbber]

"...by the third quarter of 2011, we were down to just 5.8 million U.S. homes that rely solely on free, over-the-air broadcasts for their television content. That’s a decline of more than 7% from the 6.25 million of just one year earlier. Many of these viewers are elderly, poor, living in sparsely-populated rural areas, or some combination of those three factors. And from a marketing perspective, these are not demographics that appeal to major advertisers."

What a pile of horse manure. I'm not buying it.

First of all, one needs to realize that there is a plan in motion here in the US to take away the airwaves, and repurpose them for "more profitable" uses. This will reap big bucks for the wireless companies (who are crying already that they don't have enough bandwidth, when they're not even using what they already have), as well as for the gov't coffers, which will get filled with 20B$ or so of gold dubloons. Whatever has to be said, or spun, to twist things around and get people thinking that free-OTA is of little impact or value, WILL be said. We're being played, and conned.

For one thing, from what I'm seeing, there is a big expansion of people buying antennas. Apparently these must be for decorative purposes, because supposedly they're not watching TV with them. And secondly, the spin above is careful to focus exclusively on "homes that rely solely on" free-OTA. Not homes that incorporate free-OTA as an important (perhaps pivotal) part of their sourcing. Which is good, because otherwise it would be so much harder to marginalize it's value, and justify doing away with it.

Another thing that they manage to cleverly overlook is that while a lot of folks don't get their network programming OTA, but rather via a cable or satellite middleman, what happens when you eliminate the free-OTA broadcasters? Duh! All those channels go dark on cable and satellite too! Oops. Sure, they''ll try and convince folks that there will be some other way to get that content delivered, but that certainly hasn't happened yet. Maybe the networks could just provide their signals direct to the sat/cable companies (via their sat-links) for distribution. That would cover, oh, prime-time and late-night programming. For the rest of the day, I guess we could have one set of east coast and west coast "superstations", to run all the soaps, and talk shows, and retro programming to fill the rest of the day. That would be much more efficient.

Folks, there's a reason for these articles in the media. There are companies with a lot of money, and a lot of power, that would like nothing more than to consolidate that power and expand that revenue. But to accomplish that, they need to get their hands on the extra spectrum they want, by hook or by crook. So I expect to see more and more 'surveys' that show there's really no need for free-OTA at all. Of course, we won't see who's paying for them, or cooking the numbers, or slanting the conclusions. To get the masses to think what they want them to think. Just like the mass-market lies they promulgate in the political arena already, to manipulate public opinion. And most folks won't be sharp enough to read between the lines, and detect the ulterior motives behind it all.

[bkunkle]

I just bought my first 3D TV (a Vizio M3D550SR). But now, it's like it was years ago when I got my first HDTV; I'm looking for content and not finding much. So I feel like, "I'm here; let's get the party started!"

I cut the cable TV cord years ago. I'm looking for 3D content on blu-ray, the internet but especially over-the-air.

I read that the Olympics will be broadcast in 3D but apparently not OTA. What's up with that? And this fall, will I be able to watch NFL games in 3D? And is there an OTA broadcast standard for 3D or not?

So if broadcast TV does not provide content for the emerging 3D market, those people will have to go elsewhere if they want 3D content. I realize most people don't care about 3D--yet. But when you can't buy a 2D set any longer, 3D will probably really catch on.

What do you think?

[JazzGuyy]

Everything I hear and see indicates that interest in 3D is declining, not growing. All 3D sets work fine with 2D and the bulk of people who have bought 3D-capable sets have never used the 3D capability. Right now the only reliable source of 3D is Blu-Ray. There are a couple or cable/satellite 3D channels but zero OTA 3D and broadcasters are showing no interest in providing any.

[Roger Halstead]

To begin I think they are asking the wrong question, and relying on the wrong answer. "Depend only on OTA?" That is sort of meaningless result.
I do not rely only on OTA, but I do have satellite. I do not like the results of web TV where I'm limited by bandwidth even though I have a 60 meg connection. Asking how many regularly watch OTA might give a much more meaningful result and possibly much higher number.

I have OTA, Internet, and Satellite. I primarily watch the local news...locally! Most entertainment I get off satellite, but that means I watch OTA almost daily.

[Rodolfo]

I share the sentiment of Tim, very realistic, not getting fooled by words; you must be of Italian or Argertinian ancestors. In fact I could not remember if I ever disagreed with any of your positions Tim. Roger's comment also shares my feelings of how can one possible use an answer as fact when the question is not right.

But I think is important to look beyond Alfred’s (chosen) excerpt and go to the original article from the Washington Post, where it “is” mentioned that about 10% of households receive OTA while also mentions the smaller number that receives-only-OTA.

I have been following this since 1998 and continue to be a critic of the FCC’s never ending turns, since the mandated DTV tuner integration (ATSC and QAM on-the-clear cable) of 2002, to the Cable-Card flop that cost cable companies (and subscribers) millions and is now discontinued to pursue another brilliant idea, to the plan to reassign part of the OTA bandwidth for other purposes (because, the say, others may make better use of 6MHz sent to a whole city as a one-to-many model, including the mobile TV).

On this article of many years ago:

http://www.hdtvmagazine.com/articles/20 ... d_help.php

Section titled: Over-The-Air Reception - How Large is the Group?

I published the OTA numbers of that time. From the various sources it averaged about 15 million households out of about 112 million (or about 13%) at that time. The article in the Washington Post mentions about 10%, but neither itemize how many receive and use OTA “in addition” to be a cable or satellite subscriber, in my situation of eternal lab testing and my personal life I received all simultaneously most of the time, and OTA quality always won, but I can not stand adverstising, I am a movie person, so I pay.

A main problem is that the articles are not historically consistent in the statistical set before calculating numbers but still “manufacture” the wording to make the pre-conceived point they want even if the numbers would not support it.

However, brace yourselves, the shocker would be that the FCC, once again, is about to approve that basic cable (QAM on-the-clear) that is supposed to carry free OTA broadcast channels, would require encryption and cable box leasing.

In 2002 the FCC mandated ATSC integrated tunes that cost average $704 over the monitor version of the same TV at that time, it forced the industry to also include QAM on-the-clear tuners into the TVs because broadcast channels were on the tier and they are suppose to be free, now they will not be free anymore even if certain OTA stations maybe not impacted by the “voluntary” acceptance of giving up bandwidth, because the cable distributor would charge for the STB. In other words: checkmate.

That was exactly my discussion with an FCC attorney last week at the Digital Patriots Honoring Dinner; he also was from an Italian family like me so we understood well ahead the moves and consequences without even describing them.

So hang in there, you have not seen the end of it yet.

Best Regards,

Rodolfo La Maestra

[Roger Halstead]

Going back to Tim's comment about repurposing frequencies. This holds not only for Low band VHF, but most likely they will go for all but a small portion of the UHF spectrum, if not all of it. Nor will it be an even fight. one only has to go back to LightSquared's approach to implement the "Broadband For Everyone". Based on articles on the Internet and on broadcast, hey could not afford an even confrontation with other 4G systems. IE, they could not afford the expensive spectrum for terrestrial based 4G but they could afford satellite downlink spectrum that had a provision for ground augmentation stations. Their intent was to use over 40,000 high power (45 KW) stations which would be incompatible with any other satellite services. This spectrum was reserved for satellite down links to prevent high powered station interference.

So, what happened, Instead of requiring LightSquared to prove they would not cause interference, the FCC violated their own rules, by fast tracking LightSquared's approval by giving them a "provisional" go ahead. Unfortunately for LightSquared and fortunately for most of the rest of us, tests proved that those high powered stations would cause interference to GPS navigation in aircraft which was widely publicized forcing the FCC to back off and rescind the provisional OK.

This begs the question as the "Why would the FCC violate their own rules to fast track the administration's "Broadband For Everyone" goal. Must be a coincidence. At any rate the demand for use of these frequencies is only going to increase Yet the number of satellites monitoring the earth's surface has dropped dangerously low and within a couple of years the number will likely be in single digits. That will reduce out ability to monitor hurricanes and even weather forecasting due to this administration's policies.

We need to keep an eye out for all users of this spectrum because they are likely to try a divide and conqueror approach. So if we watch each others back we may be able to hold onto them.