HDTV Almanac - More U.S. Households Rely on TV Broadcasts

[alfredpoor]

In a recent letter to the FCC (as reported by TV Technology), head of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Gordon Smith cited new figures about over-the-air television in the U.S. in support of his statement about the FCC auction … <a href="http://hdtvprofessor.com/HDTVAlmanac/?p=1867">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

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[videograbber]

> According to his statement, the portion of U.S. television households that rely solely on free broadcasts has grown to almost 18%. In a separate blog post, Smith mentions a study by GfK Media, nearly 7 million more viewers dropped their subscription services bringing the total who watch over-the-air exclusively has risen to more than 20 million. <

That's fine, and is a trend I expect to see growing, at least for the next 5 years. But I have to ask, why in the heck is the metric always exclusive use? I.e., if a household isn't totally and completely dependent on that source, then that source is worthless, and has no compelling need to exist? If you're going to use that acid test, then I can think of LOTS of services that should go away... including the ones that they're trying to sell off the public spectrum to make room for.

> Whatever the reason, we cannot ignore the need for broadcast television for a significant portion of the population. Any reform of the free over-the-air system and reassignment of spectrum is going to have to preserve these services for those who cannot afford or choose not to pay for access to the information that these broadcasters provide. <

Broadcast TV is a national resource, that we shouldn't be so willing to discard, just because monied-interests are trying to swing perceptions in that direction, for their own financial benefit. Not only is OTA free to receive, but when you do pay to get it indirectly from a cable or satellite system, the quality is often WORSE than what you could have gotten for free (sometimes MUCH worse). How that makes any sense to anyone is beyond my comprehension. Once we let it go, we'll never get it back again, and that would be a real loss.

- Tim

[Roger Halstead]

Another boost to OTA TV is the charging for streaming video. Many programs are free, but none are the kind I'd watch anyway. OTOH sports events that come with your satellite or cable subscription that might cost a few dollars a month, are $20 to $50 or even more for the single event. Sorry but I'll take the much cheaper version from the so called expensive satellite or cable.

As to your question, "Why is it exclusive?", it's typical of studies. It seems the poles are incapable of people having more than one choice, or they are slanting the pole to prove something that a multiple choice answer would disprove. Giving only one choice to those who use two or more is likely to slant the results to an unknown extent, possibly even a severe slant. We get all 4 although I have found very little worth using computer time to stream. I haven't watched a regular program on the major networks in several years, except for the local news and weather and I find both my wife and I fast forwarding through the news. We used to have the Weather Channel on most of the time until they started feeding "entertainment programs" more than the weather. The mainstream news and networks are so biased I have to watch the BBC to find out what's going on over here and they look at the world quite differently than we do. So where can you get unbiased news that just reports the news and does not omit the happenings that might be contrary to their world view.

One example is the lack of mainstream news coverage of the so called "Fast and Furious" debacle. Basically nothing for over a year until Holder was found in contempt of Congress.

[Rodolfo]

I agree 100% with you Videograbber, and although I understand your point Roger, actually there were some studies that went further than the basic "exclusive antenna" idea.

Centris produced one report that I covered in the following Oct 2008 article when the DTV transition was still in process:

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

Here is a quote within the section "Have You Tried to Receive Over-The-Air DTV?" within my article, which discusses this exact subject:

"For example, in February and April 2008, Centris (http://www.centris.com) released a couple of reports. They found serious gaps in the digital TV signal coverage across the country. Half of the over-the-air viewers, they said, might be in a challenging reception situation and be limited to tune only four or fewer broadcast TV stations with a small/medium omni-directional rooftop antenna or an indoor antenna, and added that in some cases an antenna upgrade might be necessary.

40 million households are currently receiving over-the-air analog signals in the U.S., reflecting a combined total of as many as 117 million sets that are unconnected from cable or satellite video networks", they said.

The 40 million households include their estimate of about 17 million households that are over-the-air-only (as opposed to the 15-million average from other sources mentioned before). Centris calls those primary households.

The remaining 23 million households (to make the 40) are called secondary and, consistent with my independent analysis above, those households that are connected to cable/satellite may still use an over-the-air antenna to watch TV on the additional sets in the home, perhaps to avoid paying for additional STBs for those."

Quite frankly, this also highlights the same tendency of analysts and industry viewers of prematurely kill/create-exclusivity-when-does-not-exist of formats or distribution systems (like Blu-ray vs. streaming), just for the keyboard blood of the day mainly driven by personal prefernce, when actually they are all in a big basket of choices that are not necessarily exclusive and are available to most for a long time, and the reality is that most people are continuously using several choices in parallel from that basket, like disc rental, streaming, cable or satellite, antenna, etc.

Good point Videograbber.

Best Regards,

Rodolfo La Maestra

[eliwhitney]

TO: Rodolfo La Maestra

Sir;

Have there been any other "leaks" or even formal reports coming "out-of-committee" regarding the supposed 'Tug-of-War" concerning the O.T.A. frequencies verses "giving-these-away" for still more Cell Phone convenience, etc.?

Thanks!

eli whitney

[Rodolfo]

Eli,

I am old but not yet a "sir" (the Queen has forgotten about what I did for the HDTV industry), thanks for the respect though.

Since 1998 I am keeping a file of the subject as part of the DTV transition, but from the top of my head: Since the idea of "re"taking some "unused" OTA spectrum to make available for the country's broadband plan there have been several requests from the NAB and Congress for the FCC to be specific regarding where that spectrum is expected to come from, which channels would be affected as moving to other subchannel slots or by receiving others within their 6 MHz allocation, and which audience would be affected if for example a demographic oriented channel is moved to a broadcast area that does not have the community that would benefit from it, but the intended community is then disinfranchised by moving the subchannel out of the area.


The last I heard was that the FCC, although the broadband plan would have difficultity in being implemented within its intended schedule, has not yet discarded the idea, or its main source of bandwidth (from OTA).

Best Regards,

Rodolfo La Maestra

[eliwhitney]

Rodolfo La Maestra

Rodolfo

.. In my world, anyone that has Invested as much of their Adult Lives in Researching, perpetual Studies and active reviewing has Well-earned that "Sir !"

Thanks for the update .... just perhaps, after the November Elections, "cooler" Department Heads will be pending?

eli

[Rodolfo]

Eli,

I have been with HDTV since it was first demo as analog in the 80s, it was easier back then to make progress by the FCC and others, perhaps because there were less powerful industry forces and we had a technology ignorant Congress (not that they are very knowleable now).

For example: Was it difficult to choose a system back then? Yes, but no problem, make an Alliance of companies (and the digital won). Was it difficult to choose which digital format would be ideal? Simple, approve all the 18 DTV formats from 480i to 1080p and let the zoo choose as they go along. Was it difficult to analize the moving mix of cable/satellite/OTA viewers? (and now a growing IPTV) Easy, mandate every TV to have an integrated OTA tuner regardless if the owner needs it (adding $704 average to the cost of a TV in the first year, a TV that maybe used as cable or satellite, over 85%), I guess you know where I am going with this wind.

Now, with so many technologies fighting for a place, so many lobbies and interest groups pushing for their ground, a technology ignorant Congress that is now deadlock on any simple thing just for the color of their shirt, and a president and department heads that are parallized by all those forces, are you surprised we do not have the flexibility of a sandbox above?

Regardless of who is up there the sandbox flexibility is gone, everyone is parallized in failed negotiations or legal battles, and even if we remove all the red and blue shirts of mental doctrine and preconceived ideas, the industry has grown up so much in creating new products and competing standards that the interlocking of what they do and what they offer gives them even less room for manuevering.

Politics may make all that more difficult but even with no politics the harmony of all pieces would be a headache every day with everyone trying to get into eachother's turf to make more money without rules and order.

So for certain things, like a limited resource (bandwidth), there still a need of higher authority order, the plan of using bandwidth that was not used seemed good but in the digital era we are dealing with up to 6 subchannels per station within the allocated 6 MHz and it is not easy to reassign them as single channels without affecting demographic interests and areas of coverage, and I know that many viewers and broadcasters will be affected, but that does not mean that the ball should be dropped.

Hovever, there still the issue of why a cell company feels that is more efficient in distributing content than a single TV transmitting antenna for millions of viewers over at least 50 mile radious, if that is what they want to do when they win their auction.

Best Regards,

Rodolfo La Maestra