[opendtv] Re: France
- From: "John Willkie" <JohnWillkie@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 13:55:44 -0700
Dan (second take)
I posted a spreadsheet to this list several years back that allowed one to
play with these figures. Can't find it right now, but here's the gist.
If about 8% of the available cars were on the road at the same time, we'd
have solid gridlock. In New York City, 8 % of the population rides mass
transit; it's much lower elsewhere. Few people walk to work (at least leave
the house to walk to work.)
Of the cars on the road, the average number of people per vehicles is
somewhere between 1.2 to 1.4, depending on city and time of day. For mobile
video or text, you can remove the 1.0 from each of the previous figures.
So, in most U.S. cities, at best portable video can reach about 3% of cars;
and only about .03 % of those vehicles will have a viewer or viewer who is
not fully involved in driving. You can end up with perhaps a 1% boost in
viewership, and I'm being generous with that figure. At what cost?
That's such a small slice, I wouldn't even call it a niche.
I've been waiting five years for just a hint that this great concept --
portable and mobile video -- has even a slim chance of amounting to a
service used by humans.
It might happen. Sure, if we run out of oil and everybody stays at home or
rides transit to work, then after a few months, they might be interested in
tuning out their neighbors by watching a small tv set in their hand. If
they don't want to watch DVDs. I see people watching DVDs on public
transit. Notice the amount of ifs, and the drastic changes in the U.S.
economy that would be required.
In my life, I've seen exactly four people watching TV on public transit or
around transit stations. One of them was me: monitoring the output of an
LPTV station that I was then running.
Still waiting.
John Willkie
----- Original Message -----
From: <dgrimes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <tv-tech@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, June 03, 2005 11:20 AM
Subject: [opendtv] Re: France
>
> John Willkie:
>
> On the OpenDTV forum in topic "RE: France", you state:
>
> "the idea of mobile video in cars is close to absurd."
>
> And on the TV-Tech forum in topic "LPHDTV?" you state:
>
> "I totally agree on the "new services" mantra. I've been waving that flag
> for five or more years. Doesn't need to be video/audio, either: how about
> 5.1 channel radio? (counter programming to talk radio). Doesn't need to
> have audio, either: how about streaming news as text?"
>
> So if the new OTA DTV broadcast can broadcast various types of media,
would
> that not be desirable to be received in moving vehicles? Or am I mixing
up
> discussions and/or persons?
>
>
> Dan Grimes
>
>
>
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