[opendtv] Re: The "real" problem with OFDM in the U.S.
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "OpenDTV (E-mail)" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 17:09:22 -0500
Kon Wilms wrote:
> European countries are *small* relative to the USA.
> You can be pretty sure that things like weather
> although with slight variances is spot-on or close
> to it. The USA is large - with populations in single
> cities the size of some small european countries.
> This just doesn't make sense.
>
> And we haven't even hit on timezones and other
> issues like making staff redundant yet keeping
> monkeys at the console which can't be relied on in
> real emergencies.
But all of that is easily accommodated by national
networks or even regional networks. The problem Craig
obsesses over, market overlap, is *only* a problem
because most of the valuable content affiliates
transmit is identical to the content in the
neighboring city. And the ABC affiliate in one city
doesn't want the ABC signal from next door to
encroach. So *if* that's enough of a concern that
you're contemplating building monstruous SFNs to
create sharp boundaries, make that problem go away
the easy way instead.
If, for example, ABC owned all the ABC transmitters,
or had business agreements with one or more companies
who actually run the transmission facilities, then it
wouldn't matter if some of the content was different
between certain markets, nor would it matter if
viewers watched the neighboring signal.
Sure, in some locations, the time zone change would
affect how two neighboring ABC transmitters schedule
their programs of non-live shows. So what? Folks
that live in that general area will have a choice.
> The news is at least a half-hour, because it has to
> cover all areas of the country (and poorly at that).
News tends to be national news in Euro networks, but
again, regional news can easily be accommodated. The
only factor we have gotten rid of is this obsession
about avoiding "market overlap."
Besides which, news content is a matter of personal
taste. I *much* prefer the network news shows, or
BBC News, or RAI news, all of which we get OTA over
here, over the local yokel drug busts and gang
shootings of local news crews. And there's nothing
preventing national networks from running regional
news crews, as long as there's interest from the
audience. The network can decide how big a "region"
is.
And there's nothing to keep local 24-hour news
stations from emerging, once NTSC frees up its
spectrum, if it makes business sense. The FCC local
ownership caps are very well written.
Boiling all of this down, I don't think the idea
of creating overly sharp signal boundaries makes
good sense. Again, metro Phila is enough to separate
signals between NYC and Balt VHF co-located stations.
Not at all bad. Since context matters in these
discussions, the proper context to put Craig's idea
into is to say that the alternative to this scheme
makes little sense. Even if this alternative has
some nice attributes.
Bert
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