I heard about a company in Texas that purchased channels from OTA network stations. For example, if a network owned 60, 60-1, 60-2, 60-3, but the network only used 60 and 60-1, company B would purchase 60-2 and 60-3. Company B would then put ESPN on 60-2 and Fox News on 60-3.

Why doesn't this happen nation wide? There are many stations that don't use the digital bandwith. There are tons of spanish analog stations that don't broadcast anything on their digital OTA.

The downside is the above company only broadcast these stations in 480p OTA, but this is better than 480i. Maybe a better deal could be reached to broadcast these shows in 720p OTA?

How many people would cancel cable if the 10 most popular cable channels were OTA? People complain that Dish downgrades the signal or resolution or bitrate or whatever it is that Dish does bad. OTA would not be compressed, would it? Would OTA offer the best picture?

The company that provided that service closed. Here is a copy of what their channel line-up looked like. All OTA-

(using the internet archive since they no longer exist)http://web.archive.org/web/20060703181320/http://www.usdtv.com/programming/dallas.html

A little more from their website-

About USDTV


USDTV is the first low cost alternative to expensive cable and satellite television packages. The company was launched in 2005 as the first “over-the-air” terrestrial digital subscription TV service in the United States.

The service is broadcast “over-the-air” to customers through the digital signals of local broadcast station partners for $19.95 a month.

USDTV customers enjoy all of their local and national broadcast programming from networks like ABC, CBS, FOX & NBC, along with many leading cable networks such as, Fox News Channel, ESPN, ESPN2, Discovery, TLC, The Disney Channel, Toon Disney, Lifetime, Lifetime Movie Network, HGTV, The Food Channel and Starz.

The USDTV service averages 30 all-digital channels per market and enables viewers to receive high-definition pictures and surround sound, when available from their local broadcast stations.

I heard about a company in Texas that purchased channels from OTA network stations. For example, if a network owned 60, 60-1, 60-2, 60-3, but the network only used 60 and 60-1, company B would purchase 60-2 and 60-3. Company B would then put ESPN on 60-2 and Fox News on 60-3.

Why doesn't this happen nation wide? There are many stations that don't use the digital bandwith. There are tons of spanish analog stations that don't broadcast anything on their digital OTA.

The downside is the above company only broadcast these stations in 480p OTA, but this is better than 480i. Maybe a better deal could be reached to broadcast these shows in 720p OTA?

How many people would cancel cable if the 10 most popular cable channels were OTA? People complain that Dish downgrades the signal or resolution or bitrate or whatever it is that Dish does bad. OTA would not be compressed, would it? Would OTA offer the best picture?
Wow, what a revolutionary idea! Except:

1) It failed miserably. The company went out of business.

2) It used bandwidth that could have been used for better quality HD broadcasts.

3) It had the potential to create a market for additional multicasting efforts - which is bad for HD.

4) As far as stations "not using their digital channels", once analog is shut off, that's all they'll have.

The death of USDTV was one of the best things that could have happened for HDTV.

Really old news. Please search for the old topics, if you want more details.