The State of OTA Broadcasting

[Darth_vader]

Pay television is both a scam and a massive ripoff, so everything I currently have access to is over the air and in-the-clear/FA, either terrestrial or DVB-S. There's no cable line at this place (Dad pulled it out almost 20 years ago when he was putting a concrete walkway in on that side of the house) so no in-the-clear QAM stuff like there was at the other house. Despite what's listed below, the only low-power channels I can actually receive here are KEVE, KGWZ (god help me), the KPXG simulcast on 42 and KUNP. The KWVT mux is hit-and-miss most of the time.

Vancouver, WA/Portland, OR area:

02-01 43 KATU     ABC affiliates (720)
02-02             ME-TV

06-01 40 KOIN     CBS affiliates (1080, but the Pansat reports 240I [huh?])

08-01    KGW      NBC affiliates
08-02             Living Well Network
08-03             Estrellas TV

10-01    KOPB     Oregon Public Broadcasting (PBS affiliates/Borg collective)
10-02             "OPB Plus" (and 480 simulcast of 10-01 during pledge time. I
                  know I've ranted on that in another different thread.)
10-03             KMHD/OPB FM simulcasts

17-02 49 KWVT-LD  America One

12-01    KPTV     FOX affiliates

22-01    KPXG     the local ION multiplex (you know the story)
22-02             NBC Qubo Channel
22-03             ION Life
22-04             Shop-TV

24-01 45 KNMT     The local TBN multiplex (you know the story)
24-02             Church Channel
24-03             J.C.T.V.
24-04             TBN Enlace USA
24-05             Smile

27-02 49          Retro

28-01    KOXI-LD  America One

32-01 33 KRCW     C-W affiliates
32-02             Antenna
32-03             THIS-TV

34-01    KKEI-CA  Telemundo

36-01    KEVE-LD  Brokered religious garbage (3ANG)

37-02 49          Azteca

41-01    KORK-LD  Home Shopping Club

44-01    KOXO-LD  Uni Mas

46-01    KGWZ-LD  More brokered religious garbage (Day Star)

47-01    KUNP-LD  Univision (Fisher/KATU)
47-02             Mundo-FOX

49-01 30 KPDX     Semi-independent/Their-Network TV

So that's 34 channels and nothing on (38 if you count the KPXG simulcast on 42.)

[Robnoxious]

Not much of a streaming expert here, but I'm not aware of any live major games available online unless you have a cable subscription which lets you have stuff like WatchESPN.

Oh trust me, live sports streaming is out there with a picture quality that rivals cable.
I haven't had cable going on 20+ years have not missed a thing.

Just remember, for every stranglehold the cable channels have with whatever flavor of professional sports they air in the U.S., those same broadcasts are literally given away in other countries around the globe. The cable tv racket is totally gameable, I'm living proof of it.

[KeithE4]

Not much of a streaming expert here, but I'm not aware of any live major games available online unless you have a cable subscription which lets you have stuff like WatchESPN.

Oh trust me, live sports streaming is out there with a picture quality that rivals cable.
I haven't had cable going on 20+ years have not missed a thing.

Just remember, for every stranglehold the cable channels have with whatever flavor of professional sports they air in the U.S., those same broadcasts are literally given away in other countries around the globe.

Roku makes MLB.TV, NBA League Pass, and NHL Center Ice available - for $120 each, of course (although I think the NHL charges $50 for this short season) - but over the course of a year, it's still cheaper than cable.  And they're available on a PC and smartphone as well.  But local teams are blacked out within about a 300-500 mile radius.

WatchESPN, if available in your area, is still problematic on a slow (DSL) internet connection.  I've tried it, using my login via my mother's Cox account (I pay the bill, so it's legit), and the picture quality reminds me of a 1997 RealPlayer feed.  Much better on my smartphone.

If one wants to watch NFL football other than what's on your local CBS, Fox, and NBC stations, cable/satellite or a sports bar is still required.  This may change in a few years.  DirecTV has said that they are losing money on Sunday Ticket, and may give up its monopoly when the current deal expires.

College sports?  Fugetaboutit for the most part.  ESPN still puts football games on ABC, and the ACC and SEC have their own OTA networks, but unless you have access to WatchESPN, you're still limited to those.  Forget anything on FSN, BTN, Pac-12 Network, and the like.

Men's basketball is still limited to what CBS shows on weekends, but AFAIK, all NCAA Tournament games will be available again this year for $4.  Women's hoops?  None without cable or WatchESPN, AFAIK.

So you can't watch them on TV or online, so you want to listen to an audio stream of your favorite college games?  Fork over the bucks.  CBS has that market almost totally sewn up with ULive, and it costs as much as MLB.TV.  They also don't have a smartphone app except for a few specific schools, and they charge extra for those.  A few schools still stream for free (Northwestern and Michigan State come to mind immediately), but they are few and far between.  The NCAA is ripping us off, and has ever since Yahoo bought Broadcast.com and started charging for it (CBS ULive is the successor to Yahoo Broadcast sports streaming).

[vchimpanzee]

I have no interest in sports. Before February 17, 2009, I didn't have cable and put up with lousy signals from OTA stations, though given the results I got with the DTV antennas, I didn't have to. But rather than spend money on an outdoor antenna which I would have to pay to install, I used the DTV antennas just as backup and for certain channels I couldn't get from the cable company--I'm actually closer to some channels in another market which the cable company doesn't offer. Over the years, that antenna would have been cheaper, but what kind of results would I have gotten? I hate putting up with pixellation, which usually means loss of sound. And some channels I wouldn't get anyway. I was warned one channel I enjoy mainly for movies would no longer be available over the air. Another is VHF with hamster power, though it's PBS.

What clinched the decision for me was the inability to select channels to record. I bought a TiVo which I was told would work with DTV. Actually, it is capable of picking up digital channels from satellite or cable. But I could no longer do without it. So many shows I would have missed without the season pass, and the updated TV listings. I use VHS on the other TV that is hooked up to cable. But VHS with the ability to select channels--that's another big expense. True, over the years I'd spend more on cable. But cable doesn't give me pixellation. Much.

[Gregg]

I know using a VCR is like advocating driving a Model T Ford.  But I still use mine.  I don't want to pay my cable company $15 a month for a DVR.  And since, like Poledo, I have a summer cottage where there is no cable, I like to bring VHS tapes with me there.

If I want some cable shows, I put in the tape.  If I want ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS or Ion, they all come in fairly well at the cottage... and there are two ABC channels.  The NBC station and one ABC station have secondary news channels.  The other ABC station has Me TV, where I can catch a Perry Mason or Twilight Zone.  The PBS station has Create and World, so there are two more choices with no cable.

Vchimpanzee mentioned the expense to have a VCR that can change channels.  But all the cable systems that I know allow you to program channel changes into the cable box, and you simply have to set your VCR to either Channel 3 or Line 1 to record shows on different channels.  It's a two-step process.  If you want to record Conan for instance, you program your VCR for Channel 3 or Line 1 for 11pm.  And you program your cable box to change to TBS at 11pm.   Obviously the VCR has to be hooked up in line between the cable box and the TV.

[vchimpanzee]

Vchimpanzee mentioned the expense to have a VCR that can change channels.  But all the cable systems that I know allow you to program channel changes into the cable box, and you simply have to set your VCR to either Channel 3 or Line 1 to record shows on different channels.  It's a two-step process.  If you want to record Conan for instance, you program your VCR for Channel 3 or Line 1 for 11pm.  And you program your cable box to change to TBS at 11pm.   Obviously the VCR has to be hooked up in line between the cable box and the TV.

I don't have a cable box.

For all my TVs, the VCR and the TV are one unit, so having cable allows me to set my channels.

[Morgan Wick]

Not much of a streaming expert here, but I'm not aware of any live major games available online unless you have a cable subscription which lets you have stuff like WatchESPN.

Oh trust me, live sports streaming is out there with a picture quality that rivals cable.
I haven't had cable going on 20+ years have not missed a thing.

Just remember, for every stranglehold the cable channels have with whatever flavor of professional sports they air in the U.S., those same broadcasts are literally given away in other countries around the globe. The cable tv racket is totally gameable, I'm living proof of it.

What you're doing is illegal, and the cable companies and networks will do whatever they can to put a stop to it, especially if enough people try it.

Vchimpanzee mentioned the expense to have a VCR that can change channels.  But all the cable systems that I know allow you to program channel changes into the cable box, and you simply have to set your VCR to either Channel 3 or Line 1 to record shows on different channels.  It's a two-step process.  If you want to record Conan for instance, you program your VCR for Channel 3 or Line 1 for 11pm.  And you program your cable box to change to TBS at 11pm.   Obviously the VCR has to be hooked up in line between the cable box and the TV.

Comcast in Seattle doesn't that I know of, though it used to, years and several EPG "updates" ago. However, I think it is possible to set up the cable box to recognize our VCR.

[TVCOOL]

What would it take for people to start cord-cutting en masse? Well, what programming is available to them if they do? Here's the channel lineup I put together based on the lineup Trip Ericson was supposed to have during his time in Chattanooga, assuming an antenna capable of picking up any station on the plus side of that big gap from 15 to 4 dB (without directional bias because I don't know any of the technical specifics of that). I'm listing PSIP ID's based on what's listed at Trip's site, with affiliations in parenthesis when it's not clear from the ID's.

3.1 WRCB-DT (NBC)
3.2 WRCB-DT (Antenna TV)
6.1 TNN (WOOT-LP)
6.2 RTV
6.3 PBJ
6.4 TUFF TV
9.1 WTVC (ABC)
9.2 WTVC (This)
12.1 WDEF-DT (CBS)
12.2 Bounce
14.1 ION
14.2 qubo
14.3 IONLife
18.1 WNGH-DT (PBS)
18.2 Kids
18.3 Knowled[ge]
20.1 WBXX (CW)
23.1 WELF TV (TBN)
23.2 WELF-D2 (The Church Channel)
23.3 WELF-D3 (JCTV)
23.4 WELF-D4 (TBN Enlace)
23.5 WELF-D5 (Smile of a Child)
26.1 W18DS-D (3ABN; I'm assuming this is the same as W26BE)
26.2 3ABN-PR(oclaim)
26.3 3ABN-DD (Dare to Dream)
26.4 3ABN-ES (Latino)
26.5 3ABN-RD (Radio)
26.6 3ABN-RL (Radio Latino)
26.7 Radio74
30.1 W21BZ (3ABN)
39.1 WYHB (America One)
43.1 WDGA-CA (TNN)
45.1 WTCI-HD (PBS)
45.2 Create
49.1 WDNN-CA (MyFamilyTV)
53.1 WFLI-HD (CW)
53.2 MeTV
61.1 WDSI-DT (Fox)
61.2 WDSI-MT (MyNet)

On the surface, that's a pretty impressive list - not as many channels as you could get from even the cheapest cable company, but it's a good 39 channels, at least nine of them in HD, way more than the analog era could have provided. But it's very disproportionate compared to what you'd get from a cable company - notice how many religious channels there are on that list, thanks to TBN and 3ABN's aggressive use of subchannels. Then, when you look past the religious channels, you see a ton of classic TV channels. How much difference is there, really, between RTV, This, Antenna TV, and Me-TV? (Yeah, I know This is primarily movies, but then isn't MyFamily TV basically RTV2?)

The lineup smacks of nothing more than pandering to the sorts of people likely to already be cord-cutting - poor people and underrepresented groups (hence, Bounce and all the Spanish channels in other markets) and little old lady retirees who long for the good old days when people respected God and their elders, dammit, and TV wasn't full of all this sex and violence crap that's on now thanks to cable ruining everything and making the whole country go to hell in a handbasket. And thanks in part to Trip's then-employer, this market is actually in better shape than many of its size.

The story isn't all bad - kids' programming is well represented with qubo, PBJ, GPB Kids, and Smile of a Child, and you might actually get more music videos than you would on cable thanks to JCTV and (maybe) TNN (and TheCoolTV is available in another market if you want more mainstream music). More current reruns are likely to be running on the main broadcast stations and Ion, and lifestyle programming is available on Create, ION Life, and in another market, LiveWell Network. BET (or at least TV One) fans have Bounce, CMT (or at least GAC) fans have TNN, Spike fans have TuffTV, and in other markets Weather Channel fans (or at least fans of what used to be the Weather Channel) have too many options to count. And PBS pretty much has the market cornered on documentaries, though good luck finding anything like MythBusters. But I still don't expect most people to see this as a viable alternative to cable. What's missing?

We'll ignore the lack of a replacement for ESPN (sorry, America One) since the skyrocketing costs of sports are a big reason for cord-cutting to begin with, but you still don't have:

Original scripted programming for adults outside the major networks. What is the backbone of the popularity of TBS, TNT, USA, AMC, HBO? It's not sports; it's scripted programming that's been making broadcast envious for over a decade. The real cure for this will be if networks like HBO make their programming more widely available to people willing to pay a fee for just their streaming services, and quite a few cable shows are in fact available online at places like Hulu for free, but outside the major networks broadcast television doesn't really have a "killer app" for people to tune in. How much original programming is there at all outside the major networks? Ion seems to be trying hardest with WWE Main Event, but that's about it. (Worth noting that cable will always have an advantage because of how much the FCC meddles in broadcasters' affairs with limits on profanity, nudity, and other things, and its E/I requirements that also limit the quality of programming on the kids' networks. Incidentally, the fact that Transformers, the most blatant "30-minute toy commercial" of all time, is now a cornerstone of 80s nostalgia, should give those who have long crusaded against the commercialization of kids' television pause - it's not incompatible with entertainment or even quality.)

Twenty-four-hour news networks. Oh, some larger markets may have local news stations giving local news anchors something to do between newscasts, but stations providing national or international news are exceedingly rare - if you're really lucky, you might find a PBS or other station showing BBC World News, RT, Al Jazeera English, or MHz Networks, but they're very highly scattered. And yet one of the hopes for cord-cutting and a la carte is that it'll cripple the Fox-MSNBC hegemony by letting the silent majority vote for real news.

Dumb reality shows, of the sort airing on channels like TLC and MTV. This really falls into the same category as "scripted television" above, but in a more general sense, there's very little outside the major networks appealing to the "sweet spot" of "young" viewer advertisers crave, that might be most willing to cord-cut, and that might be needed for cord-cutting to really take off. Other than Tuff TV (and while I'm at it, Untamed Sports) and maybe TheCoolTV and America One (which I'm not familiar with), the main channels appealing to that group might be JCTV and maybe Dare to Dream. Ouch. Sports are part of the problem here, but what reason would even a non-sports-loving young person have to cord-cut? Again, FCC and parent-group meddling might be part of the problem here, and I'm not saying broadcast has to provide something you can't get on cable, but if the major networks and their affiliates are the only ones trying it just highlights broadcast's weaknesses - and how much of a waste of space the multicast options that are out there now must seem to the average customer.

Limited options for women. Women don't just watch Food Network and HGTV, they also watch Lifetime and Oxygen. But even the classic TV channels offer little in the way of shows appealing to them, and for that matter, while I have (obviously) very limited experience with them, the lifestyle channels seem kinda same-y as well. There are some reality-type shows on the likes of LiveWell and Create, but both seem to be primarily oriented towards actually "educational" programming. Given everything else, it actually surprises me that we have TuffTV (and Untamed Sports) but no obvious female equivalent.

C-SPAN. I don't want to be too nitpicky about this, and many PBS stations have legislative coverage on subchannels (hell, this particular incarnation of Create appears to have Tennessee state legislature coverage), but if this is the market we're going for, why not give the political junkies within that market the channel they tend to stick to now?

I'm sure you're going to say that I'm way off-base on specifics, and I admit I'm enough of a sports junkie that I don't have a good grasp of what the rest of the cable-subscribing landscape is like (and for that matter maybe there aren't that many cord-cutting cheerleaders on this forum), but it really does seem like the programming available OTA outside the major networks is a vast wasteland compared to cable. This might reflect a chicken-and-egg problem, where cord-cutting would need to accelerate for there to be enough programming to reward it, but the fact is that for all the hype, I don't see how the reality of cord-cutting is really that attractive an option right now. The good news is there's quite a bit of redundancy; the bad news is that I don't see what the motivation would be to reduce it, or in the case of religious broadcasters, even how they would do it - though the fact TBN is running something like JCTV instead of a family-friendly network like Ion or MyFamily TV might be telling, even if only of religious broadcasters' attitude towards all of TV beyond their own studios.

I use this same idea look what I can get with 2 antennas (1 or 2 Amplified OTA indoor Antennas) connected to 1 wire (plus a antenna booster)

2-1 WGBH (PBS)*
2-2 WGBH World
4-1 WBZ (CBS)*
5-1 WCVB (ABC)*
5-2 Me-TV Boston
6-1 WLNE (ABC)**
6-2 Live Well
7-1 WHDH (NBC)*
7-2 This TV
10-1 WJAR (NBC)**
10-2 Me-TV New Bedford/Providence
12-1 WPRI (CBS)**
12-2 Cool-TV
25-1 WFXT (Fox)*
27-1 WUNI (Univision)*
27-1 LATV Boston
28-1 WLWC (CW)**
28-2 LATV Providence
36-1 WSBE (PBS)**
36-2 World
36-3 VMe
38-1 WSBK (My Network TV)*
44-1 WGBX*
44-2 World
64-1 WNAC (Fox)**
64-2 MyRITV (My Network TV)
69-1 Ion**
69-2 Qubo
69-3 Ion Life
69-4 Shop TV

*-Boston
**-Providence

So far I cant get 24-1 MundoFox ,50-1 Telemundo and 56-1 WLVI (CW) but with this choices of what to watch 23-30 channels ,Fox 25 comes in HD than if u was watching it on Comcast.

[Casey]

I will never pay for cable/satellite/iptv. I can buy the seasons of the shows I watch on DVD for less money.

Oh trust me, live sports streaming is out there with a picture quality that rivals cable.
I haven't had cable going on 20+ years have not missed a thing.

Just remember, for every stranglehold the cable channels have with whatever flavor of professional sports they air in the U.S., those same broadcasts are literally given away in other countries around the globe. The cable tv racket is totally gameable, I'm living proof of it.

What you're doing is illegal, and the cable companies and networks will do whatever they can to put a stop to it, especially if enough people try it.

It might be illegal. Certainly a gray area. But I am guessing a VPN is most likely in use and therefore there is almost nothing a cable company or network can do about it. A lot of people did this for the Olympics and do it for BBC iPlayer.

[unclehonkey]

Its interesting that so far only 3 people have posted what channels they get and either they live in major markets or have access to a ton of different channels. What about the folks who don't?

My market is pretty simple...Duluth, MN....6 channels 12 stations total
3-1 KDLH CBS
3-2 CW+
6-1 KBJR NBC
6-2 MY9
8-1 WDSE PBS
8-2 PBS 2nd Chance
8-3 Create
8-4 MN Channel
10-1 WDIO ABC
10-2 MeTV
21-1 KQDS FOX
27-1 KCWV Legacy TV (religious station)

So really not much of variety. Hell my buddy gets one station and thats KVRR Fox Fargo.

And yeah I did play with the free to air game but it got to be a pain in the ass if there was a game I really wanted to see because I'd have to search numerous satellites only to find it and it be scrambled or they turned down the power so it was hard to get.

I guess it boils down to this for me. The convenience of Directv and the ability to record 5 things at once makes it well worth it. I even tried the Tivo thing and was OTA only for a couple months and there were days where I had more than 2 things at once and unlike cable which replays stuff all the time OTA usually doesn't. My internet isnt fast enough to be able to sit there and stream stuff all day.

I don't smoke or drink and don't spend foolishly on stupid things. My TV is my "guilty pleasure"