gregg75 said:
The major WRENCH in the system seems to be cable and satellite. It looks like many locals are not going to do anything because subs are hardly ever carried on the those systems......I am not your usual subscriber, but I have no problem in switching off the cable/satellite and going local subs. The picture is crystal clear on most.
Your thoughts are dead-on target. Since 90-98% of the viewers are watching via cable/satellite systems, the subchannels are being treated as an afterthought. Most viewers cannot even comprehend channel "3.2" or "18.3". Until the subchannels get cable carriage, they are likely to remain mostly unused. And even with cable carriage, they will remain unwatched unless and until the channels are placed near their primary channels. Otherwise, they get lost in the mix with all those other rarely watched channels.
I am about 70 miles from Sacramento and receive most stations regularly (Chico stations are just 30 miles away, so I use them for primary viewing). The NBC affiliate in Sacramento KCRA recently ditched their WeatherPlus on 3.2 and launched MoreTV! KCRA repurposes several of the shows it carries on KCRA and KCQA, including the 11PM news. They also feature commercials throughout the day on KCRA, promoting 3.2 with its Cosby reruns, etc. Watching the commercial, you see a big part of the problem. Yes, they can tell folks to watch 3.1 and 3.2. Then they throw up a slide of the half-dozen cable companies in the region and blurt out "On blah-blah cable, watch MoreTV on Channel XYZ. On this-that cable, tune in on Channel PGR. For viewers in Wherever cable, watch channel 3.2 on channel JKL." Huh? It's confusing and forces too much pain on the viewer to actually find the subchannel.
As for satellite, I cannot imagine that either Dish or DTV would ever carry any subchannels. They don't have the bandwidth. The only hope is that some of the re-transmission agreements reached with broadcast networks would include demands to carry their subchannels. Even then, that would only cover the O+O's and not every rinky dink affiliate in 200+ markets.
Awareness and carriage are two mega-factors. Third, let's not forget that we are still mostly languishing in a virtually-dead economy, with affiliates doing everything under the sun to cut costs and avoid any expenditure of any type. When the money is rolling in for your main business ventures, you can focus your efforts on smaller niche revenue opportunities. But when your salesmen cannot even sell out time on the local news........
