[opendtv] Re: Food for thought
- From: ALAN ROBERTS <roberts.mugswell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 13:57:21 +0000 (GMT)
Sky TV's recent announcement that it is going to
replace it's current Freeview transmissions with MPEG4
transmissions firmly places it's putative audience for
those channels at 0.0%. But then, Sky has always
traded on the principle of making the current
technology redundant by transmitting on new stuff, in
order to get the punters to pay up yet again.
Alan
--- Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> At 11:41 AM -0500 2/16/07, John Shutt wrote:
> >Craig,
> >
> >However, when it comes to "captive" (again for lack
> of a better
> >term, I'm no wordsmith) content such as broadcast
> network
> >television, you are dealing equally with a universe
> populated with
> >brand new equipment and equipment that is 10 years
> old. Any change
> >to your broadcast signal that is not supported by
> four nines
> >(99.99%) of your audience is a non-starter.
>
> John
>
> I think the "attitude" expressed here is one of the
> biggest problems
> that broadcasters face if they are to have a future.
> Broadcasters
> need to adapt to a competitive marketplace or be
> content to be just
> another channel on the distribution platforms of
> competitors.
> Unfortunately, with the ability (at least for
> commercial
> broadcasters) to receive compensation for their
> signals from
> competitors, there appears to be little incentive
> for broadcasters to
> field a competitive service in the spectrum.
>
> There is nothing "captive" about the broadcast
> television audience.
> If that were true, then 85% of U.S. homes might not
> have moved on to
> subscription services.
>
> The reality is that broadcasters ARE in the middle
> of a technology
> change that is about to render the vast majority of
> the installed
> receiver base useless (without a STB). The other
> reality is that
> hardly anyone has purchased an ATSC STB, and hardly
> any of the homes
> that have new sets with integrated receivers use
> them.
>
> Rather than expressing concerns about rendering this
> small base of
> receivers obsolete, perhaps the industry should
> focus its attention
> on WHY consumers are either unaware or disinterested
> in the broadcast
> DTV transition. I think you will find that the vast
> majority of
> viewers have simply given up on OTA TV as it does
> not deliver what
> they are looking for.
>
> It is important to note that this has NOTHING to do
> with the
> technical ability of the ATSC standard to deliver
> high quality TV
> pictures. It has everything to do with the content,
> or lack thereof,
> that IS delivered, and the belief among broadcasters
> that what they
> have is so important, or so good, that they can
> perpetuate a (dying)
> business model that has changed little in 60 years.
>
> I think it is time to change your four nines to
> 14.99% of the
> audience (perhaps a higher percentage for PBS
> affiliates, as a larger
> portion of YOUR audience seems to be OTA.
>
> >
> >Imagine Aunt Millie's response to the disclaimer
> "In order to view
> >this week's episode of '24', your television
> receiver or Set Top Box
> >must be capable of decoding the H.268 video
> format." followed by a
> >"no signal" message on her screen.
>
>
> It is highly likely that Aunt Millie cannot receive
> your DTV
> broadcasts today, because you cannot deliver much of
> the content that
> she wants to see, even if both the transmitters and
> receivers worked
> perfectly (100%).
>
> Any hope that broadcasters have to survive, must
> either be related to
> the delivery of your signals by others, or a change
> in business
> models that makes OTA broadcasting competitive...
>
> Something that Aunt Millie WANTS!
>
> In another post John continued the thread with:
>
> >With OTA broadcast, it's a different story. The
> channel you're
> >killing is one of only a few on the air, and one
> that you used to
> >watch. There has been a suggestion on this list
> several years ago
> >that all broadcasters retain two channels in
> perpetuity, so that
> >they can continuously simulcast in the "current"
> format and the
> >"replacement" format. By the time the "current"
> format is turned
> >off, it is time for the latest and greatest again!
>
>
> You can forget about the second channel idea - some
> other competitor
> is going to get that spectrum and figure out how to
> use it to make a
> profit, AFTER paying a huge amount of money to gain
> control of it at
> auction.
>
> This FACT alone should be enough to to wake
> broadcasters up. Why is
> the spectrum so valuable to others, when the service
> we are
> delivering today is NOT considered valuable by 85%
> of the audience?
>
> Continuing with this thread, Bert wrote:
>
> >But, you know, there are apparently a lot of cable
> customers who only
> >want analog basic cable because they do not want to
> use the STB provided
> >by cable company. So this STB aversion is not going
> to go away just
> >because someone has a nifty new codec. I think it
> will be an ongoing
> >problem. But I agree that the upgrade path does
> exist.
>
> I think Bert is confusing issues here. The great
> appeal of analog
> cable is that it allows viewers to access the
> extended basic tier of
> content on every set in the home. But a very high
> percentage of cable
> homes now have digital cable and virtually all of
> these subscribers
> use STBs, at least on their primary set. Here's the
> stats from a
> September 2006 NCTA press release:
>
> Digital Television - Nearly 33 million cable
> customers - about 50
> percent of all cable homes - subscribe to digital
> services, receiving
> hundreds of additional channels, a clearer picture,
> and new
> interactive services such as video-on-demand. During
> the first six
> months of 2006, 4.4 million customers upgraded to
> digital cable
> service while cable gained 100,000 basic video
> customers during that
> time.
>
> Now add the 25 million DBS homes ( many of which use
> multiple STBs)
> and you must conclude that more than half of U.S.
> homes find that the
> services enabled by a STB are valuable enough to put
> up with the
> "bother." I would add that PVRs are growing rapidly
> as a driver to
> STBs.
>
> If broadcasters fielded a desirable platform for DTV
> - as is the case
> in the U.K. - it would be quite easy to include new
> technologies like
> H.264, PVR, and data broadcast services. Stations
> could still
> broadcast one legacy standard definition MPEG-2
> stream for a few
> years , and use the rest of the bits for the new
> services.
>
> In another post Bert continued down this blind
> alley:
>
>
=== message truncated ===
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