[opendtv] Re: Commentary: Be Wary Of FCC's Cash-For-Spectrum Plan

At 7:30 PM -0600 11/3/09, Manfredi, Albert E wrote:

Tom Barry wrote:


 Much of the justification for the entire transition was the
 possibility of OTA HDTV.  Yet I would wager that in any
 given entire month period now far less than 1 in 10
 households actually use an antenna to watch any OTA HDTV
 program on an HDTV display.
The DBS systems already provide local signals to more than 90% of the homes in the U.S. But the fact that they charge for these signals does cause some people to use an antenna, even though they can get the same content from the DBS system. And some markets only receive SD signals, although this is changing as new satellites come on line. At the end of 2008 DirecTV claimed to offer local signals to 94% of U.S. homes with 88% in HD for the four major networks.
I'd love to know the real numbers on this. Don't forget that as long as DBS makes local into local only as an extra premium service, and only in some markets, there are potentially quite a few households that use OTA as an adjunct to DBS, for local stations. Would you be so quick to dimsiss if, say, OTA TV is used in 25 percent of households overall? Or, what number makes sense?
Let's just say the the media conglomerates are not likely to keep propping up the local stations when they can go direct and keep all of the subscriber fees and local ad avails. 

Regards
Craig
P.S. I agree with Tom that the best continuing use of spectrum for TV broadcasting would be to target mobile devices (which means that a lifeline service would still exist for fixed receivers.) 


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