Craig Birkmaier wrote: >> The overarching reason USDTV filed for bankruptcy is that >> the industry did not support the initiative, Lindsley said. >> I would say the industry is paralyzed by fear of stepping >> out and competing with cable. I don't think the industry >> right now is prepared to do it. > Who can blame broadcasters for taking advantage of the > infrastructure that cable brings to the table. > Why should broadcasters compete when they can get cable and > DBS to do what they cannot? The point is, IMO, USDTV is the one trying to compete against cable here, not the broadcasters. USDTV, to an OTA broadcaster, is not a whole lot different from a cable system. USDTV does rent a piece of the broadcasters' transmission infractructure, unlike cable and DBS, but USDTV installs their own reception systems at customer premises, just like cable. And USDTV acquires broadcaster content, just like cable. My take on this is that broadcasters aren't the ones killing USDTV, in spite of the CEO's assertion. My take on this is that USDTV is no different from Quiero or from ONdigital/ITV. People who want to subscribe to any sort of TV service prefer to go straight to cable or DBS, where they can begin with something cheap, maybe, but have lots of growing power. No amount of AVC/H.264 migration hype was capable of changing that picture for USDTV, even though when constrained for spectrum, of course, you look for any help you can get. And broadcasters do compete, for OTA audience. As evidenced by the very interesting new lineup Fox seems to be concocting for next season, just as a "for example." If Fox thought they didn't need to compete for the OTA audience, why don't they go back to EDTV and reduce power of their transmitters? (You know, behave more like UPN, still impossible for me to receive in OTA digital.) Bert ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways: - Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org - By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line.