St. Louis, MO - HDTV - Page 409

I don't think anyone at the FCC or elsewhere in government is talking about completely shutting down free OTA television.

But OTA is a stagnant industry that is generally shrinking in terms of viewers, of which only about 15% access it via antenna. As a result, there's a strong argument for re-weighting how communications spectrum is allocated. Local TV broadcasting occupies a significant chunk of high-quality, waterfront spectrum, and when less than one in six households is making use of OTA, it's past time to think about how the spectrum used to deliver that service can be put to better, broader use.

So, for now, it's likely that there will be some effort to reduce the slice of spectrum that is available for local television broadcasting. That will primarily be accomplished by reducing the available channel range and putting current channels closer to one another and with few new licenses issued going forward. Currently channels 2-51 are set aside for TV broadcasting, and I would expect that swath is ultimately cut roughly in half. At the same time, there may be some effort to encourage marginal TV stations to exit the market, allowing them to make some money on the way out the door as their spectrum (for which they don't pay) gets sold off.

There may be a conflict of interest there (we are talking about government leeches, after all). But the issue isn't about using the power of office to pick winners and losers. OTA TV is on the decline and digital and mobile services are on the rise -- and nothing anyone has said or will say in government is a determining factor.

Making this about corruption misses the fundamental point of using scarce public resources in the way that provides the most benefit overall.

Also, if you polled HDTV buyers, I doubt that any significant number would cite OTA HDTV broadcasting as a primary reason for their purchase. Even after a digital transition that took more than a decade, most consumers are blissfully unaware of OTA HDTV. Kudos to the broadcasters for that particular success story.

Agree on more cable competition -- that's probably ultimately going to the biggest overall benefit gained from AT&T (Uverse) and Verizon (FioS) entering the pay TV market, as they did quite a lot to bust up the monopoly structure. Now, if AT&T, Verizon and other carriers would figure out that they'd very likely do much better financially by providing the pipes for other Pay TV companies rather than trying to deliver Pay TV services themselves, we might be onto a good thing in the long run. Neither AT&T nor Verizon are racking up big subscriber numbers, so there is hope.

Roughly 60% of households the US government defines as poor have either cable or satellite TV, versus an overall average around 80%. No doubt there are some genuinely poor households that would be inconvenienced if OTA completely withered away, but it's unlikely that's on the horizon for another 20 years or more.

But would that additional 23.5% of households even miss OTA if it completely went away (and again, it's not going away)? I'd be willing to bet you that at least a third of those 23.5% of households are households where the antenna is connected to an analog TV that rarely was switched on and wouldn't receive any signal today if the owner suddenly tried to watch something on it. It's the flip side of not knowing about HDTV OTA.

TV broadcasters had a golden opportunity over the past decade to promote OTA to their customers and very few made even a half effort. So, if they can't be bothered, why should anyone else care? Local broadcasters were clearly more interested in figuring how to get more money out of cable and satellite retransmission. And let's be honest, if those TV companies had to choose between promoting OTA or maximizing retransmission revenues, they did the right thing by their shareholders in focusing on retrans. Maybe they should have done both, but they didn't. Must be a reason.

This was gloriously true before local broadcasters started adding multiple subchannels, which rob bandwidth from the HD stream in order to facilitate the alternative subchannels.

Until Blu-ray came along, OTA HD on stations without subchannels, was the best HD you could view. That's no longer true, and I don't think there's any meaningful difference between most OTA HD and what can be found on cable/satellite systems. I used to advocate to my clients that they have an OTA antenna for watching local stations OTA, even if they were cable/satellite subscribers. I don't do that anymore, because the minimal benefit does not justify the hassles involved.

Because they are providing Internet access, home phone AND trying to pack 50 pounds of HD stations into a sack capable of holding 25.

Saw the item below this morning in going through the latest news on the Debt Ceiling negotiations in Washington.

It looks like Senate Majority Leader has inserted some language into the Senate Democrarts proposal that would allow the FCC to proactively start moving OTA broadcasters off prime spectrum, with some share of sale proceeds to be used to pay the costs of relocating. Hard to say if this bill/proposal is going anywhere (ditto all the other Debt Ceiling proposals), but this one adds a little additional spice (as if that were actually needed).

Via Broadcasting & Cable Online:
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The Democratic debt-reduction bill being shopped by Senate Minority leader Harry Reid Monday allows the FCC to repack TV stations at will. The bill authorizes the FCC to compensate broadcasters for giving up spectrum for wireless broadband, but does not contain language directing the FCC to replicate their coverage areas or interference protections.

That likely wasn't what National Association of Broadcasters President Gordon Smith had in mind when he said he did not oppose making spectrum auctions a part of debt-reduction legislation so long as they got the policy right.

According to a copy of the bill, "if the Commission determines that it is in the public interest to modify the spectrum usage rights of any incumbent licensee in order to facilitate the assignment of such new initial licenses subject to new service rules, or the designation of spectrum for an unlicensed use, the Commission may disburse to such licensee a portion of the auction proceeds for the purpose of relocating to any alternative frequency or location that the Commission may designate."

Broadcasters are looking for compensation, but also for protections for their coverage areas and from the dislocations of massive channel changes.

The bill does cover "reasonable" relocation costs, as well as any costs incurred by cable and other MVPD operators for new equipment or construction related to carriage of relocated broadcast stations.
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Link: http://www.broadcastingcable.com/art..._s_At_Will.php