[opendtv] Will Digital Passthru Effect Digital Tier Subscription?


The NCTA is saying that the only viable option for most cable
operators will be to carry both an analog and the digital broadcast,
effectively tying up nearly 12 MHz of capacity on their systems. The
other option is to carry just the digital signals and let consumers
decide if they want to bother with a STB to watch the broadcast
signals. - Craig

I would like to see broadcast signals bumped to the digital tier and taken
off the analog tier for a selfish reason: our programming (EDU-TV and
UNLV-TV) was already taken off the analog tier on Cox Cable and put to the
digital tier.  While we probably don't have the type of programming that
would convince a large group of subscribers to go to the digital tier to
continue to receive it, perhaps if the major broadcasters were to go to the
digital tier only, they would help pull more people to the digital tier
and, thus, provide more potential customers to our programming.  And
perhaps this is true for other digital tier-only networks.  Of course, it
sounds like people are consuming broadcast programming much less these days
(based on recent discussion), so perhaps not.  So could broadcast channels
being on only the digital tier move everyone from analog to digital?  Will
it effect digital tier subscription to the point that the cable operators
could remove the analog?

Dan Grimes

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