Voluntary Incentive Auctions--Say Goodbye to FOTA TV

[Carmine5]

OTA television is dead to me. Unless you live in a metropolitan area there is no over the air television without a hefty outdoor antenna. Even then, the best I would be able to do is three or four Nashville broadcasters and their subs. Not really worth my investing in an outdoor antenna set and accoutrements for what, ten channels max? Without an outdoor antenna... Zippo. I'm only 60 miles from the nearest metro in any direction.

It may be dead to you but not to 54 million Americans who rely on FOTA TV and, as I stated, that number is growing. What is dead are the high priced packages cable offers along with their unwillingness to unbundle cable channels, forcing millions to pay for channels they don't watch. Many have cut the cord out of sheer disgust (frankly, I have never watched an episode of "Jon & Kate Plus 8" or "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" and have never felt deprived because of it). Plus, many OTA stations are multicasting so even if there are only 10 stations in the market you might get 20, 30 or more channels. And if you're watching HD by cable you are a seeing HD at its over-compressed worst. The best way to experience HD is over the air. It can look magnificent!

There were renewed calls (in a letter dated 12/11 to Genachowski) by California Congressmen to protect OTA television. At today's spectrum hearing, Commissioner McDowell postulated that he doubts the FCC will get even 65 MHz of UHF spectrum from the auction. Preston Padden, executive director of the Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasters Coalition, confirmed that there are now more than 25 stations "in major markets" interested in making some spectrum available for auction. So if that means 5 in 5 major markets or 2-3 in a dozen or so or one in 25 major markets, it looks like the FCC won't be getting much spectrum after all. The only station in a major market I know that will probably participate is KSCI in Los Angeles. It went into bankruptcy early this year and was sold to NRJ TV. Bert Ellis who is one of the principals of NRJ (and owns KDOC) has made no secret of his desire to take KSCI to the FCC's auction block.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/ar...5_Plus_Major_Market_Stations_In_Coalition.php

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/ar..._Congress_Members_to_FCC_Preserve_Free_TV.php

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/490835-FCC_Gets_Earful_From_House_on_Spectrum_of_Issues.php

http://filipinoamericanmedia.wordpr...for-ksci-as-nrj-acquires-station-debt-assets/

 

[Duncan Park]

It may be dead to you but not to 54 million Americans who rely on FOTA TV and, as I stated, that number is growing.  What is dead are the high priced packages cable offers along with their unwillingness to unbundle cable channels, forcing millions to pay for channels they don't watch.  Many have cut the cord out of sheer disgust (frankly, I have never watched an episode of "Jon & Kate Plus 8" or "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" and have never felt deprived because of it).  Plus, many OTA stations are multicasting so even if there are only 10 stations in the market you might get 20, 30 or more channels.  And if you're watching HD by cable you are a seeing HD at its over-compressed worst.  The best way to experience HD is over the air.  It can look magnificent!

I'm not disagreeing with you, I would love to be able to enjoy FOTA TV. I cut the cable months ago for some of the very reasons you state. My point was meant to be: Since the digital transition, the OTA signals are now far too weak in rural areas (And by rural, my two county area has a population of 300,000) to be useful without a major investment in a tower (well over 30 feet - probably closer to 60) and antenna system + amplifier. I have given serious thought to just such a system, but can't justify it economically right now.  I'm not alone in this boat. There are large areas all over the country that are out of range of "Free" OTA television.  OTA is dead to me simply because it's not economical to try to haul in signals from 50 + miles away.

 

[kenglish]

If there are 300,000 potential viewers in your area, it's hard to believe that the stations haven't looked at installing translators (or, the County government, at least).
Trouble is, the FCC isn't accepting applications for translators any more.
20/20 hindsight :

 

[kinphoenix2]

URGHGHg this chaps my hide.

http://www.nab.org/documents/resources/broadcastFAQ.asp

"According to a study by Knowledge Networks, 46 million people or 15 percent of all U.S. households with TVs rely solely on over-the-air signals to watch their television programming. " Arbitron/Neilsen got different numbers.

About the link in previous comment by Carmine5: http://www.broadcastingcable.com/ar..._Congress_Members_to_FCC_Preserve_Free_TV.php one thing that wasn't mentioned was the over 400k settlement by Arbitron for being sleazy about how they collect (or fail to) ratings in California and God knows where else. Whenever I hear the word "Arbitron" my hackles raise up. They should change their name to "Arbitration"! Google for "Arbitron settles suit" and you'll get pages full of many articles. So, don't rely on Arbitron for their "ratings" as to me, they are completely meaningless. Their last sleaze move was trying to say that OTA viewership was shrinking. I don't think so, and some people have come up with higher numbers than them:
http://broadcastengineering.com/transmitters/over-air-tv-market-continues-shrink (disclaimer I brought this up in another board "National TV" I don't have a beef with Arbitron personally other than I can't stand liars that can affect something as important as OTA. Over the air can't be shrinking when everyone's lost their job and can't afford cable. This is all about the big bucks and greasing FCC's palms, and we citizens losing out. All the anti-OTA (oh it's' such an obsolete medium![ naysayers will not be so eager to disclaim OTA when it's gone, and all they've got is paid cable, paid streaming, or web smart TVs where everything is sanitized and the same in each market, like ClearChannel.

 

[MRFLASHPORT]

I knew OTA TV was on it's death bed when the DTSC standard was ratified. What a buggy, outmoded POS method of transmission. By today's standard, it's as ancient as NTSC. Expensive to roll out...and no one is watching, because they can't get the signal.

How good this must be for the telecom cartels like Verizon and Comcast who get to charge even more captive customers for their overpriced craptacular service. Even better news for the wireless cartels, who have been pining for this spectrum, after all, what's better than metered mobile broadband + walled gardens + value added content?

Oh, no more EAS requirements too. Didn't pay for the Smartphone and severe weather alert app? No tornado warnings for you! Oh, our cell sites went down, well didn't you read our terms of service? We guarantee NOTHING, you pay us EVERYTHING! or we string you up by the balls. You can't sue us remember, you agreed to our binding arbitration clause, so go ahead, plead your case to our bought and paid for buddies and let us know how well that works out for ya.

Yep, a corporatocracy works out real well doesn't it? Anyone think living in China is great? We're starting to get more and more like Shenzhen everyday.

 

[kenglish]

The only thing outmoded about ATSC is, they didn't REQUIRE the converter boxes and TV sets to be upgradeable. We'd all be watching multiple MPEG-4 channels on each station by now. And, EAS could have been brought in to the digital age, at the receiving end, not just at the stations.

Sure would be nice if broadcasters had some sort of control over their own (technical) destiny, like all our competitors do. I can't build DirecTV receivers in my garage and sell them, unless D* approves and licenses my design. Why should everybody with an assembly line be able to produce a TV that meets "some" of the ATSC standard, but not all of it?
The ATSC really blew it when they disbanded the ATSC Test Lab. It should have been expanded (not ended), and tasked with testing and evaluating every product used for Digital TV....everything from TV sets, to antennas, to amplifiers, to cables and connectors, should have to be certified and given a rating, too.
Some training would have been nice, as well. (We got lots of good comments on the "Nightlight" programming, where they talked about reception issues and equipment.)

 

[Darth_vader]

Re: Voluntary incentive auctions--say goodbye to terrestrial ATSC

ATSC is a conglomeration of proprietary (closed) and largely non-interoperable systems brought together for the purpose of marketing, profiteering and lining the pockets of ¢orporate $uit$. DVB is a system built on reliability, openness and interoperability.

Why else do you think the U.$. Federal Government ¢o. Inc. insisted on using it instead of DVB-T? I mean, apart from their stubborn lack of willingless to follow worldwide standards in general?

[green]$$$MONEY$$$[/green].

 

[kenglish]

Because the DVB-T standard was better suited for European-style broadcasting, with smaller (translator-like) coverage areas, lower power, and an 8 MHZ vs. 6-MHz channel. With only 6 MHz to work with, U.S. broadcasters would have been hard-pressed to offer HDTV or multiple channels, until late in the game (after several generations of codec improvements).
That's the information I got from people who were involved in developing both systems .

Also, the problem with developing a new system is, it costs a fortune to do the work. That's why there will always be license fees...to compensate the companies that made the initial development.
Otherwise, most companies would just sit back and wait for somebody else to pay for R&D, and nothing would get invented.

 

[Carmine5]

Because the DVB-T standard was better suited for European-style broadcasting, with smaller (translator-like) coverage areas, lower power, and an 8 MHZ vs. 6-MHz channel. With only 6 MHz to work with, U.S. broadcasters would have been hard-pressed to offer HDTV or multiple channels, until late in the game (after several generations of codec improvements).
That's the information I got from people who were involved in developing both systems .

Also, the problem with developing a new system is, it costs a fortune to do the work. That's why there will always be license fees...to compensate the companies that made the initial development.
Otherwise, most companies would just sit back and wait for somebody else to pay for R&D, and nothing would get invented.

Now that the FCC is allowing WNUV-TV in Baltimore to experiment with OFDM over night, maybe we will eventually migrate to a new transmission standard. Since the planned ATSC 3.0 is not backward compatible with current HDTVs and there is talk of adopting HEVC as a coding standard (again non-compatible) it actually makes sense to look seriously at another transmission standard.

For broadcast television it will be a clean sheet of paper.


http://www.tvtechnology.com/distrib...nuvs-experimental-license-to-test-ofdm/217889

 

[landtuna]

Given the pain and cost of the last OTA digital conversion I'm going to opine that the next must deliver gigantic benefits in video and audio AND content or the broadcast industry might as well attach itself to a piece of coax and "broadcast" over the Internet.

Right now, half of what my family watches is downloaded, not streamed and not watched realtime. It could easily be 100%. I personally will not transition again. I will keep my current sets for DVD and download use and forgo OTA all together. I imagine those people who are cable or sat-connected will remain with those services and depend upon them for any required digital translation.

 

[Carmine5]

Given the pain and cost of the last OTA digital conversion I'm going to opine that the next must deliver gigantic benefits in video and audio AND content or the broadcast industry might as well attach itself to a piece of coax and "broadcast" over the Internet.

Right now, half of what my family watches is downloaded, not streamed and not watched realtime. It could easily be 100%. I personally will not transition again. I will keep my current sets for DVD and download use and forgo OTA all together. I imagine those people who are cable or sat-connected will remain with those services and depend upon them for any required digital translation.

4K resolution is one goal along with "TV everywhere". OFDM also works better on VHF. No doubt a converter box will be available for older sets.

 

[Carmine5]

A few posts back, I mentioned that a few stations were interested in participating in the incentive auction. Trip Ericson at RabbitEars has compiled a list of the stations that would either definitely or most likely participate. So far there are 39 stations. But along with his list it was reported by the organization representing station owners who will be participating in the auction that a number of noncom stations would be involved as well.

You can read the list here:

http://www.rabbitears.info/blog/index.php?post/2013/01/26/Speculation-About-Spectrum-Speculation

 

[KTN Corp]

Because the DVB-T standard was better suited for European-style broadcasting, with smaller (translator-like) coverage areas, lower power, and an 8 MHZ vs. 6-MHz channel. With only 6 MHz to work with, U.S. broadcasters would have been hard-pressed to offer HDTV or multiple channels, until late in the game (after several generations of codec improvements).
That's the information I got from people who were involved in developing both systems .

Also, the problem with developing a new system is, it costs a fortune to do the work. That's why there will always be license fees...to compensate the companies that made the initial development.
Otherwise, most companies would just sit back and wait for somebody else to pay for R&D, and nothing would get invented.

Now that the FCC is allowing WNUV-TV in Baltimore to experiment with OFDM over night, maybe we will eventually migrate to a new transmission standard. Since the planned ATSC 3.0 is not backward compatible with current HDTVs and there is talk of adopting HEVC as a coding standard (again non-compatible) it actually makes sense to look seriously at another transmission standard.

For broadcast television it will be a clean sheet of paper.


http://www.tvtechnology.com/distrib...nuvs-experimental-license-to-test-ofdm/217889

Might as well adopt ISDB-T. This won me over: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISDB-T_International#Alert_broadcast It seems from the picture that the alert appears without having to windowbox the program in progress--looks like the digital subtitle display that replaced closed captioning. It might replace the annoying tone since it turns on the TV automatically and is definitely more reliable and manageable than the ad hoc EMS system. It even can broadcast those alerts in different languages according to the Earthquake Early Warning Wikipedia article.

 

[landtuna]

4K resolution is one goal along with "TV everywhere". OFDM also works better on VHF. No doubt a converter box will be available for older sets.

4K means nothing to me - I've never even upgraded to Blu-ray yet (and really doubt re-buying my video library is worth it). And I don't watch mobile TV so no benefit there either. The one thing that would be nice would be better digital reception on VHF but there isn't enough OTA content worth it to me to invest in another round of questionable technology.

 

[Carmine5]

Well, that's you. And how many millions of people are living in the US?

BTW, even though the deadline has passed, the FCC is still accepting comments on Docket #12-268. If you want to save broadcast television file comments today. At the very least, the FCC needs to delay the auction until ATSC 3.0 is deployed. The Commission has set a deadline that is arbitrary, capricious and rushed.

http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/upload/display?z=prvvl

 

[landtuna]

Well, that's you. And how many millions of people are living in the US?

I submit that somewhere between 15-20% of TV viewers are OTA and a substantial number of them are like me - limited or no direct benefit from another round of incompletely tested digital transmission.

Plus, every day that passes, more and more viewers are going to online service providers and those offered by the broadcasters themselves for their content. Cable and Sat customers are not going to care (other than the few looking for mobile) so that leaves a substantial minority of total viewers willing to spend their bucks on yet another fiasco.

 

[Carmine5]

One correction, the comments deadline has been extended to March 12. So, if you want to save free over-the-air TV, let the FCC know. Repacking the TV band which will cause unimaginable interference and pushing stations to go VHF will seriously cripple reception of broadcast television and force many stations off the air.

 

[Darth_vader]

Re: Voluntary incentive auctions--say goodbye to terrestrial ATSC

It's called "ATSC broadcasting". "Free over the air TV" is just a dumbed-down synonym the NAB gave it during the Killoff, in the slight chance that some of the less-evolved humans of the world *might* understand the alternate term (obviously the same type that can't seem to find the "any" key on their keyboards when prompted to press it.)

We're not down at that level here, are we? Of course not. It's "ATSC broadcasting".

"4K means nothing to me - I've not even gone to Blue Ray yet (and really doubt re-buying my video library is worth it.) And I don't watch mobile TV, so no benefit there either. The one thing that would be nice would be better data reception on VHF but there isn't enough ATSC content worth it to invest in another round of questionable technology."

+1.

If I recall correctly, KATU (the local Disney affiliate) is currently the only ATSC-H broadcaster in this market--I rarely, if ever, watch Disney/KATU, so definitely no incentive there, either.