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Originally posted by compson
If the government was motivated by a desire to reduce the national debt, it should have sold the space in the digital spectrum--as some advocated at the time--instead of giving it, for free, to the existing broadcasters.
That was the first thought. But when the transition to digital is complete, stations will only have one channel and it was decided that it would be unfair to the public to abruptly stop analog when a station went on with digital so broadcasters are allowed to operate two channels in the interim for "free".
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Some stations went digital early, and major market stations were required to two years ago. Most stations elected to put off the expenditure as long as possible by waiting until the legal deadline. When you made that decision, you must have known that demand would be greatest then and supply would likely be short. You made your choice.
FOX Television Stations, Inc, the station owner division of News Corp (which also owns WGHP) was the ONLY network owner to make the first deadline of November 1999 for their owned and operated stations in the top 30 markets. That was 14 stations if I remember the number correctly. ABC didn't make it, CBS didn't make it, NBC didn't make it.
And FOX also made the latest deadline of May 1st for all owned and operated stations to be transmitting a digital signal, that is 33 stations total and all are operating within the rules. Hearst-Argyle, the owner of channel 12 didn't have all their stations make that date (as a matter of act, they had at least one station's extension denied last week), Gannett, who owns channel 2 didn't have all their stations on air as best I can tell, either. (someone correct me if I am wrong on that one.)
Now the reason FOX network only sends 480P is anyone's guess. It has never been told, to me anyway, other than that was the decision made by corporate in LA. I would think that will change before long (at least I hope so!).
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I'm not surprised that WRAL Digital is not profitable, assuming they amortize the cost of their equipment. I suspect, though, that they made a far larger investment in digital than most stations, including WGHP have, so that may not be a good yardstick. They presumably expect it to pay off eventually.
It is prestige at WRAL. Capital Broadcasting, the owner of WRAL, doesn't own 33 stations either and the station they own in Wilmington is reported to be SD only.
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It's interesting that a broadcaster would bemoan the government's requirement that stations go digital but advocate requiring the set manufacturers to build in tuners. That would help, presumably, but I doubt it would solve the problem, given the statistics you site about people buying digital tuners. Why would only 20% of buyers of digital-capable sets buy high def tuners? Probably because they would have nothing in high def to watch. ...
In the early 50's UHF stations were going on the air in droves because they saw how much money the VHF stations were making. But there were few if any UHF tuners available so a large majority of those stations were gone within 2 to 5 years. Receiver manufacturers were not required to have UHF tuners and most didn't because of the cost to the receivers. Here you have a service that people WANTED, entrepreneurs were spending money to put these stations on the air, only to lose their shirts in markets that had VHF stations. The government had no choice but to step in to save those stations. People were not buying the add on tuners, because they had no reason to spend more money if there were VHF stations on the air. UHF didn't start paying for itself until the 60's and early 70's in markets that had VHF stations and UHF tuners were required in 1955, if I remember my history correctly. (may have been '53, I am not sure) because it took that long to phase out the old 50's TVs. Now to add DTV to analog TVs wouldn't drive up the cost but $25 on most sets (a few new chips at most). It wouldn't be HD, but it would receive the digital channels and that is all the FCC really cares about at this point. I really have no idea why receiver manufactures do not do that. They say there is no programming so why do it. (Chicken and the egg)
Had a comprehensive transitional plan for terrestrial DTV been devised by the FCC when DTV was authorized in 1996, other than to say broadcasters will go digital, we would not be having this conversation now. You are correct, cable has no real impetus to go digital in a true sense, programmers have no real impetus to produce in large scale HD programs, and the networks have no real impetus to force producers to provide HD programs. Had a timetable for all parties involved been drawn up at the beginning, digital would be years further down the road than it is now.
In April, FCC Chairman Powell dropped BIG hints that if the ancillary services to broadcasters, cable, networks, program distributors, and manufacturers didn't get things going by the end of the year, that legislation wouldn't be far behind. We shall see.
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Those of us who watch high def know that many people would spend the money to get it if they knew what they were missing and programming were available. The only way to make that happen is force stations to spend a lot of money to go digital. You say the government doesn't give you a subsidy, but it really does. It gives you space on the airwaves and charges you nothing. If you want the space (and if you don't, others would be happy to take it), you have to follow the rules.
I respectfully disagree with you on this point. Surveys show that as long as the price of HD monitors stay in the thousands, analog TV is just fine to 80% of the people surveyed. When Wal-Mart starts to sell DTV's for hundreds of dollars, then you will see DTV take off and not before.
I say DTV and not HD because HD is a small part of what DTV is all about. You can have analog HD (why would you? but you could, the Japanese did), you can have SD digital (well you knew that one!
) you can have varying formats (18 in all), you can have multiple streams and all at different formats, you can do wireless Internet, you can do stock tickers, you can do wireless cable, you can do pay-per-view, paging, the list goes on. To call it HD is really a disservice to it.
Thanks for the comments. I really appreciate you bringing up the points. Most people don't know the behind the scenes stuff and I think it is important for the full story, good and bad to get out.