Spectrum plan could shut down TV stations, says trade group

[w9wi]

OK, I know I've typed this a few dozen times before, so maybe it's more typing practice than a worthwhile post, but here goes...

WNBC was lying during the analog era when they said they were "channel 4", and WNBT was lying back in 1941 when (if) they said they were "channel 1". They were never on channel 4, because **there is no such thing as "channel 4"**. At least not in physical terms.

"Channel 4" is just a label.
- Does it mean TV channel 4?
66-72MHz, assuming you're in the Americas
170-176MHz in Japan
61-68MHz in Western Europe, except;
57-65Mhz in France, except;
174-182MHz in French overseas territories
(hope that makes the point)
- Does it mean CB channel 4? (27.005MHz)
- Does it mean channel 4 in the two-way radio your neighborhood beat cop is carrying?

Your old 1952-vintage analog TV set, when you turn the channel selector knob to 4, it tunes itself to 67.25MHz (video) and 71.75MHz (audio). If you're in Ottawa, Canada where there is still an analog channel 4 station operating, your TV will find the CBC signal on 67.25Mhz and display it on the screen.

Your 1952-vintage TV's tuner contains a lookup table, relating channel numbers (which again, are simply labels) to frequencies. (which are physical concepts.)

Now, let's say you replace that 1952-vintage analog TV with a brand new digital set. You bring it home, plug it in, turn it on, and it takes you through directed setup. When it's done, you punch in "04" on the channel selector. Your TV tunes itself to 536.31MHz. It finds the CBC digital signal on that frequency and displays it on the screen.

Your 2011-vintage TV's tuner contains a lookup table, relating channel numbers (which again, are simply labels) to frequencies. (which are physical concepts.)

The difference is that the lookup table in the 1952 TV was programmed into the set at the factory. It's published as FCC regulation 73.603(a). The lookup table in the 2011 TV was programmed into the set when you did the initial directed setup. The channel number-to-frequency mapping is established in the ATSC standard, which is incorporated by reference in the FCC regulations, which have the force of law. Just as 73.603(a) does. The station assigned to transmit an analog signal on 67.25Mhz is, by definition of 73.603(a), on channel 4; similarly, the station on 536.31Mhz which once had (or still has) an analog signal on 67.25Mhz is, by definition of the ATSC standard, on channel 4. They're not lying when they say it.

So again, "channel 4" is strictly a label. The frequency to which it's applied depends on which government (/business) is doing the labeling.

 

[fybush]

OK, I know I've typed this a few dozen times before, so maybe it's more typing practice than a worthwhile post, but here goes...

Yeah, it's just typing practice at this point...

So again, "channel 4" is strictly a label. The frequency to which it's applied depends on which government (/business) is doing the labeling.

I think the point is even broader than that. In today's TV reality, "channel 4" is a brand, no different in that respect from "WINK" or "Action News Tampa Bay."

In some markets, the combination of a mostly-VHF heritage and a cable/satellite platform that mostly replicates OTA channel numbering has made channel-number branding the primary way viewers identify their local stations. New Yorkers know that Chuck and Sue are on "channel 4" and Ernie is on "channel 5" and Big Bird is on "channel 13," and those brands are of much more value to their stations than "WNYW" or "WNET"...or an underlying RF channel number that's as meaningless to viewers as it would be to refer to this website as "209.251.186.205," especially since the relationship between URL and IP address is about as temporary and subject to change as is the relationship between a modern DTV broadcaster and its underlying RF channel - or channel*s*, if it's using multiple transmitters to serve its market.

In other markets, of course, channel-number branding has been less important. Jeff comes to us from a corner of Florida where the combination of UHF signals and a heavily-cabled environment has long rendered OTA channel numbers almost irrelevant for marketing purposes. If almost nobody sees WWSB as "channel 40," and the bulk of its viewership sees it as "channel 7," it would be silly to brand as "channel 40."

As silly, in fact, as the idea that the same station should have to identify itself as "24" just because one of the many ways that it reaches its viewers happens to be over an OTA transmitter that operates on a UHF frequency band that was identified as "channel 24" in the analog era.

 

[landtuna]

I think the major difference between radio and TV frequency identification and branding is that on radio you must know the frequency to find the station (even if only setting a preset) In TV, it doesn't matter what the frequency is (didn't in analog days either) because no one has ever used it other than engineering. The "channel" has always been a virtual number. The DTV conversion just changed where it pointed.

 

[badjef]

I can see this happen to radio soon.Hello to full time Iboc,DAB or Sirius/XM radio.The way the big corps lobby down in Washington like the corrupted cable co's.radio will be sining a shotty digital tune like crappy dtv is doing now.Yes I'm for progress.but like said before.Dont dictate it to the public like what happen with dtv.Again dtv is not perfected in my book.I cant even tune in to a local station thats only 15 miles from my house.How sad this is.Now the corrupt cable company is going al digital and now have to need a box on ever tv in the house,Corrupted as I see it.they will make more money to lined the fat pocket of our friends down in the big city.Sorry to be blunt about this ,but that how I feel about this whole thing.

So, how do you really feel?...

I think analog FM will still be around for a longer time. TV was easier because of the penetration of cable and DTV, etc. People got to the point there was more "choice" than analog OTA.

Although I like Sirius/XM, I have mixed feelings about that.

I don't know where you are, but I can tell you the decisions are not being made by you and I, they are being made from the "Ascela Corridor" (-orig.). They are clueless in any area that does not have 50 story buildings in it.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!

 

[badjef]

OK, I know I've typed this a few dozen times before, so maybe it's more typing practice
than a worthwhile post, but here goes...

Yeah, it's just typing practice at this point...

So again, "channel 4" is strictly a label. The frequency to which it's applied depends on
which government (/business) is doing the labeling.

I think the point is even broader than that. In today's TV reality, "channel 4" is a
brand, no different in that respect from "WINK" or "Action News Tampa Bay."

In some markets, the combination of a mostly-VHF heritage and a cable/satellite platform
that mostly replicates OTA channel numbering has made channel-number branding the
primary way viewers identify their local stations. New Yorkers know that Chuck and Sue
are on "channel 4" and Ernie is on "channel 5" and Big Bird is on "channel 13," and those
brands are of much more value to their stations than "WNYW" or "WNET"...or an
underlying RF channel number that's as meaningless to viewers as it would be to refer to
this website as "209.251.186.205," especially since the relationship between URL and IP
address is about as temporary and subject to change as is the relationship between a
modern DTV broadcaster and its underlying RF channel - or channel*s*, if it's using
multiple transmitters to serve its market.

In other markets, of course, channel-number branding has been less important. Jeff comes
to us from a corner of Florida where the combination of UHF signals and a
heavily-cabled environment has long rendered OTA channel numbers almost irrelevant
for marketing purposes. If almost nobody sees WWSB as "channel 40," and the bulk of
its viewership sees it as "channel 7," it would be silly to brand as "channel 40."

As silly, in fact, as the idea that the same station should have to identify itself as "24" just
because one of the many ways that it reaches its viewers happens to be over an OTA
transmitter that operates on a UHF frequency band that was identified as "channel 24" in
the analog era.

It is a label as you describe. But as we move away from OTA TV, that label becomes less
relevent to its evolution with technology.
I came from the New York area. The “New York 7” were all most people cared about. If
it was above WNET-13, it was “those other channels”.
Antennas that were sold were primarily for VHF/FM use. The more expensive antennas
had the UHF elements. You still see them (VHF only) on the roofs all aimed at Empire. If
you wanted to know which way was New York, just look on the roof of the building.
Later there were the UHF add-ons. The single channel antenna for WWHT (for Uncle
Floyd & pay TV.) helped people “discover” “those other channels” as a by-product. And
so on.
Interestingly, those antennas became more important to those few OTA viewers left.
It was confusing to people up there because, they didn’t understand why they couldn’t
pick up the channels anymore. I told them it was because the channels were on UHF. It is
why some tried, unsuccessfuly, to return to their analogue numbers. (My favorite was
WPVI’s situation)

Our WWSB/Channel 40, stopped reffering to that channel and identifying as “ABC7”
when the Bradenton cable company moved it from #12 to #7 to align it with Comcast.

The #40 transmitter in Parrish went off the air and nobody noticed. By that time
everybody was watching a direct cable feed. (I don’t know why they waste the money for
that anymore.)

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!

 

[fybush]

It is a label as you describe. But as we move away from OTA TV, that label becomes less
relevent to its evolution with technology.

Only if you insist on equating "channel 7" with "174-180 MHz." 99.999% of WABC-TV's audience never knew that's what "channel 7" once meant, and to the vast, vast majority of those millions of viewers in the NYC market, WABC-TV still is channel 7, regardless of whether that "7" is the OTA signal or wherever "7" maps to on cable or satellite. As you correctly note with regard to the original "New York Seven," the branding that comes from being "channel 2" or "channel 5" or "channel 11" in New York City is of almost incalculable value, in part because it's such a consistent numbering scheme across almost every delivery channel that carries the NYC stations. (How many other stations could get away, as WNET now does, with branding simply as "Thirteen"? And they even got Billy Joel to shill for them in a song. You can't buy branding like that!)

Regardless of the underlying delivery technology, it's likely that the big New York stations will want to continue to appear to their viewers as "channel 2," etc., for as long as there's still local TV in recognizable form there.

But you are quite correct that for some stations in some markets, those labels have become less relevant as technology has changed. The TV side of the public broadcaster where I work dropped all of its "Channel 21" branding in the early 1990s, as it was bumped around on various cable systems that served the market. We brand these days simply as "WXXI," sometimes tagged with a "DTV 21.1/Cable 11 or 1011" when we need to tell people where to find us. Even so, and especially given the age and stability of our core audience, a lot of them still instinctively refer to us as "Channel 21," and sometimes to the radio side where I toil as "Channel 21 Radio"!

I came from the New York area. The “New York 7” were all most people cared about. If
it was above WNET-13, it was “those other channels”.

Exactly so...and exactly why it would have been so very damaging for WPIX, let's say, to have to change its branding from "channel 11" to "channel 33" to "channel 12" and then back to "channel 11" over the course of just a few years...especially as WCBS-TV was bopping around from "channel 2" to "channel 56" to "channel 33."

Interestingly, those antennas became more important to those few OTA viewers left.
It was confusing to people up there because, they didn’t understand why they couldn’t
pick up the channels anymore. I told them it was because the channels were on UHF. It is
why some tried, unsuccessfuly, to return to their analogue numbers. (My favorite was
WPVI’s situation)

But that's a problem with an easier solution than mandating the use of RF-channel branding. Better cooperation and planning between broadcasters and electronics retailers could have created something similar to the system used in the UK. Stations there are grouped into frequency clusters, and the retailers and installers know which groups are used in which areas. You don't have to know that BBC1 is on 23, BBC2 on 27, ITV1 on 30 and C4 on 33 - you just have to know that your area is "Group A" and that you need to buy a "Group A" antenna to get the signals from your local transmitters.

That level of cooperation never existed here, which is how we ended up with the highly unsatisfactory situation of scads of "DTV Ready!" UHF-only amplified antennas flying off the shelves in areas that were going back to VHF.

As for poor WPVI, my understanding is that its concern wasn't so much remaining on "6" for the sake of branding - ABC believed, as did a few other groups, that VHF would offer significant power savings as compared to those higher-powered UHF digital signals. I don't think anyone fully knew just how bad VHF DTV reception would prove to be until they tried it in the real world.

Our WWSB/Channel 40, stopped reffering to that channel and identifying as “ABC7”
when the Bradenton cable company moved it from #12 to #7 to align it with Comcast.

The #40 transmitter in Parrish went off the air and nobody noticed. By that time
everybody was watching a direct cable feed. (I don’t know why they waste the money for
that anymore.)

My point exactly. (Though it is a heck of an impressive tower way out there in the middle of nothing!)

So if almost nobody is watching WWSB over the air to begin with, and if absolutely nobody, even in that small cadre of WWSB OTA viewers, punches up "24" to see the WWSB signal, why in the world should WWSB be compelled to brand itself as "channel 24"?

(I'm actually rather in favor of allowing markets like Sarasota and Fort Myers and Palm Springs to coordinate amongst themselves to choose their own virtual channels; there's no compelling reason why WBBH should continue to appear to OTA viewers as "20.x" when everyone in the market knows it as "NBC 2." There'd have to be some provision for resolving overlaps - it would be troublesome for viewers in, say, Punta Gorda to get both WWSB from Sarasota and WZVN from Fort Myers as "7.x," and I suppose there'd be some danger of viewers around Sebring getting both WBBH and WESH as "2.x," which may be why the FCC hasn't thus far entertained the idea.)

 

[kenglish]

I'm going to go catch a taxi and tell him to take me, not to a specific address, but top a particular Property Tax Identification Number.
He can figure it out...after all, it's technically more accurate. :

 

[badjef]

I'm going to go catch a taxi and tell him to take me, not to a specific address, but top a particular Property Tax Identification Number.
He can figure it out...after all, it's technically more accurate. :

Hey, I drive a taxi!!

If it's in Sa-ra-so-ta!, I will be able to find it. It is another hobby of mine. It's Real Estate of the horizontal kind.

P.S. Scott, you forgot about "channel 2 signing off the air" in "Ariel" by Dean Freidman's one hit from 1977. I would have thought that would, at least, be one of your favorite titles.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!

 

[fybush]

P.S. Scott, you forgot about "channel 2 signing off the air" in "Ariel" by Dean Freidman's one hit from 1977. I would have thought that would, at least, be one of your favorite titles.

It most certainly is!

I met him once, and pointed out that channel 2 had long since stopped signing off (and this was in the late 80s), and he acknowledged that the lyric could use some updating.

Perhaps I'll drop him a line recommending that he change it to "channel 33 signing off the air" in future performances...

 

[kickass367]

As the OP of this post, you've all gone off on a tangent away from the main focal point. Do you truly think VHF will be reutilized again with much much higher power with those original stations returning to their positions or will this ultimately mean the slow death of OTA?

 

[badjef]

As the OP of this post, you've all gone off on a tangent away from the main focal point.
Do you truly think VHF will be reutilize again with much much higher power with those
original stations returning to their positions or will this ultimately mean the slow death of
OTA?

From my corner, OTA TV is, and has been, the definition of a "Dead Man Walking."

Other ways in which to view the information from the studio have become more
preferable to too many viewers. Along with the FCC and their haste to eliminate analogue
from the open air has contributed to the irreversible inevitable.

But remember, we are only talking OTA.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!

 

[rageradio]

@ Laurence Galvin yes those ads are running here in Houston TX as well

 

[badjef]

I want to clarify, OTA does not mean "local broadcaster".

OTA means the local "Over The Air" transmitter.

The replacement means of transmissions from the local broadcaster can go world-wide. If somebody is traveling on business in Paris, they can still watch their "ABC7 Action News" with the same names and faces as though they were home.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!

 

[MarioMania]

So let me get this straight

FCC want to put the Former VHF station that were on Analog on to move back to there VHF Channel for Digital, bacuse they want to take back more Space

on the + Side, it would be good for e-skiping

on the - Side, Alot of Picture Breakup from Noise on the VHF lo Band

Is that right??

 

[badjef]

So let me get this straight

FCC want to put the Former VHF station that were on Analog on to move back to there VHF Channel for Digital, bacuse they want to take back more Space

on the + Side, it would be good for e-skiping

on the - Side, Alot of Picture Breakup from Noise on the VHF lo Band

Is that right??

The way I see it, the FCC wants all of the OTA back. Since internet, cable, dish penetration has become more desirable than putting an antenna on the roof, the trend away from OTA will be irreversable, anyway.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!

 

[Bob1370]

"The way I see it, the FCC wants all of the OTA back."

Trouble is, 25% of the American public gets its TV principally over the air, and that percentage has actually grown a little since 2007 because people who needed to economize in hard times dropped their cable or satellite. So if you scrap OTA you tell about 80 million people they can no longer have television. How long do you think that will last before the politicians come down on the FCC and tell them to cut it out?

I give it about an hour.

The backup plan being discussed in the trades is to use the leeway that digital TV allows you, to squeeze stations onto adacent channels in the same or nearby markets by pushing everyone down into the first 35 or 40 channels on the dial. You start by pushing all the heritage VHFs back to their old 1946-2009 channels (which gives you a head start on the ultimate channel allocation table) and jacking up their power to their old analog visual ERP level to overcome lower VHF band noise. Then you can squeeze everyone else in on neighboring channels where possible, or on remaining UHF channels between 14 and 40. That'll fit just about everyone who's now operating, as long as you maintain 170 to 190 mile spacing between co-channel transmitters. It also frees up a big 200 mHz band in the upper UHF for wi-fi and other broadband data services, in a place in the spectrum best suited for that use.
My guess is, that's what we'll ultimately see.

 

[w9wi]

You start by pushing all the heritage VHFs back to their old 1946-2009 channels (which gives you a head start on the ultimate channel allocation table) and jacking up their power to their old analog visual ERP level to overcome lower VHF band noise.

The FCC already asked about this -- power increases -- and the engineers are telling them it won't make much difference. The noise needs to be cleaned up. The Commission said they have no intention of doing that, it would be too expensive for the consumer-electronics industry.

 

[W2JUV_AL]

Bob 1370.....25% of all TV viewers get their programming OTA? This link, and many others I've seen, tell a different story:

http://www.rbr.com/tv-cable/satellite_penetration_at_all-time_high.html


And return the heritage VHF's to their pre-transition channel assignments? Never gonna happen. As w9wi says "been there, done that". Many knowledgeable TV engineers said before the transition that 8VSB and VHF were not a good fit and that is why so few stations returned to their previous low VHF channels.

 

[KeithE4]

You start by pushing all the heritage VHFs back to their old 1946-2009 channels (which gives you a head start on the ultimate channel allocation table) and jacking up their power to their old analog visual ERP level to overcome lower VHF band noise.

The FCC already asked about this -- power increases -- and the engineers are telling them it won't make much difference. The noise needs to be cleaned up.

Can't do anything about the ionosphere or lightning. Because of those alone, TV should just be using (RF) channels 7-36 - assuming the worst-case situation and 38-51 are eventually reallocated for internet providers and/or cellphones.

That would allow 4 stations max on VHF and 12 more on UHF, assuming every other channel is used - more if adjacent channels are usable (I still can't believe that actually works well). Back in the analog days, the UHF band could only hold a maximum of 10 full-powered stations in one city, spaced 6 channels apart on 14-68 or 15-69. How many stations does one market really need - even the crowded Washington-to-Boston corridor, Chicago, or LA?

The Commission said they have no intention of doing that, it would be too expensive for the consumer-electronics industry.

Nor do they have any jurisdiction over manufacturers based outside the US. Japan- and Korea-based manufacturers might cooperate, but the China-based ones probably wouldn't, even with the threat of import restrictions.

 

[DTV-Chief]

Bob 1370.....25% of all TV viewers get their programming OTA? This link, and many others I've seen, tell a different story:

http://www.rbr.com/tv-cable/satellite_penetration_at_all-time_high.html

I can attest first hand that our TV station loses over 40% of 350,000 households when the transmitter goes off the air. Besides viewers using antennas, Dish Network plus a number of regional and distant cable systems use over the air technology to receive our station for distribution to their subscribers. Usually this fact is conveniently overlooked.