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Why Did the U.S. Government Never Own TV Stations?

Mediafrog+ said:
Channel 1 as a virtual designation should be commonly allowed. No technical reason to restrict it.
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KAXT-CD in San Francisco is virtual channel 1. It was the compromise reached because KRCB, also in the S.F. market, is virtual channel 22. There are areas where both signals overlap and digital tuners got confused.

(Both stations were on analog 22, but KRCB's transmitter back then was farther north, near Santa Rosa, and they did not have overlapping contours back then.)

I also think channel 37 should be allowed for PSIP identification.

History of UHF Television

www.uhfhistory.com www.uhfhistory.com
 
K.M. Richards said:
KAXT-CD in San Francisco is virtual channel 1. It was the compromise reached because KRCB, also in the S.F. market, is virtual channel 22. There are areas where both signals overlap and digital tuners got confused.
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Yes, well aware of KAXT-CD. Was arguing that virtual Channel 1 should be in widespread use.
K.M. Richards said:
I also think channel 37 should be allowed for PSIP identification.
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Fully agree. As long as the actual 608-614 MHz frequency band is kept clear, the radio astronomers won’t care.

Channel 37 virtual TV stations in the United States - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
K.M. Richards said:
I also think channel 37 should be allowed for PSIP identification.
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Sure, but it has no legacy value (to keep a station on the same "channel number" they've always been), nor does it have the cachet of being "channel number one". I highly doubt anyone is going to be clamoring for a virtual channel number of 37.

By all means, allow it. But don't expect anyone to actually use it.
 
kevtronics said:
Sure, but it has no legacy value (to keep a station on the same "channel number" they've always been), nor does it have the cachet of being "channel number one". I highly doubt anyone is going to be clamoring for a virtual channel number of 37.

By all means, allow it. But don't expect anyone to actually use it.
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For a new station or program service “legacy value” is irrelevant. I’d rather have my new programming on 37.1 rather than being lost among subchannels such as “22.8” or “18.14”.
 
Gregg. said:
The United States is the only large country where the national government never put its own TV stations on the air? All the other major countries I can think of have their own television stations, some of them years before they allowed private commercial broadcasting. BBC, CBC, Austalia Broadcasting Corporation, NHK. I believe all of Europe has government-owned television. (I know the Mexican government owns some TV and radio stations too, although I think that was an afterthought. XEW-TV and other commercial stations came first. )

And isn't that the reason we have no Channel 1 on our television sets? Channel 1 was supposed to be for the government, a channel assignment the federal government never claimed?

It's also the reason ABC is on Channel 7 in so many large markets, NYC, LA, Chicago, SF, Detroit. The American Broadcasting Company thought the government would someday claim Channels 2 through 6 and displace all those private broadcasters. Better to be on 7 and not get bumped when the federal and state governments wanted their own TV stations?
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It was not seen by most as a proper role of government. Our founding documents envisaged a sort of minimalist government where most functions were reserved for the private sector. In the debates in Congress about funding for the National Road (now US 40), the first highway built by the Federal government, there was very strong opposition which argued that this was not a proper role of government and that the private sector should handle it. That view nearly prevailed.

It's hard to imagine such a thing taking place in most countries but it is sort of woven into the fabric of our Constitution. Secondarily there were concerns related to the First Amendment that any broadcast station owned and operated by the government would be used to broadcast pure propaganda.

Obviously we do have public broadcasting, which was achieved at the state level and by local community groups like the one that founded WQED here in Pittsburgh. Even so Federal funding for them is an issue which has always been contentious.
 


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