[opendtv] Re: Hearings :Cost of Converter Boxes
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 13:34:19 -0500
I guess Bert just can't take no for an answer. And I can't ignore him...
;-)
At 7:31 PM -0500 3/1/05, Manfredi, Albert E wrote:
>Try to think this through, Craig, for once. If
>people all over the country watch the same
>nationwide channels, why do you have to restrict
>the OTA coverage to little cookie-cutter zones?
I have though this through many times Bert. Would you like me to
forward a few thousand posts to this list that discuss this very
subject?
While it is true that we tend to watch popular content that is
distributed nationally, the basis for our broadcast infrastructure is
not national, it is market based. I understand that you DO NOT see
any reason why a market based system is either useful or desirable,
but your views are not shared in the broadcast industry, in Congress,
or in the thousands of communities across this country that are
profiting from the current market based system and the regulations
that protect it.
The reality is that these little cookie-cutter zones are critical to
the underlying model of commercial broadcasting. It's about
advertising. With a national system, only national brands would have
an incentive to advertise. But most commerce is local, thus a
significant portion of advertising is local. You are complaining
about "zones" that encompass hundreds or thousands of square miles.
Many advertisers want to reach consumers in zones that encompass
just a few city blocks or square miles. Direct Mail can reach
individuals in a single zip code. Newspapers also offer zoned
advertising based on zip codes; many newspapers in large cities print
multiple editions with local news of interest to sub-markets within
the market they serve. Cable systems have been offering zoned
advertising for a number of years.
Only the DBS services currently rely on national advertising
exclusively, but this in not by choice. They are moving to deliver
local stations across the land, and more important to deliver
localized and personalized ads via their systems.
The basis for broadcast regulation, especially must
carry/retransmission consent, is cookie-cutter markets. The basis for
cable systems is local franchises. As Joe Barton says, "Always dance
with those who brung you." The history of protecting local markets
goes way way back, and there is nothing to indicate that this is
likely to change.
I am responding - again - because you do such a good job of teeing up
these issues for me to comment on - please don't tell anyone that
this is part of our deal :-X.
>
>Show me where Paris and 30-mile distant Mantes
>are separate markets requiring separate TV
>programs. So because they use low power
>transmitters, they had to use up more frequencies
>in order to install translators. Even low power
>transmitters cause interference in adjacent
>markets, you know. That's why they use
>translators in Paris and Mantes. Bigger sticks,
>or SFNs, would have needed only one frequency
>for each program channel.
The popular programs that broadcasters carry are largely irrelevant
to this discussion - they are merely vehicles to deliver the ads. The
only local content that has consistently delivered eyeballs is news.
I would suggest that there is a great deal of local content that
would be appealing, but only to a small percentage of viewers within
a market of sub-market. As we have discussed many times, broadcasters
can make more money running syndicated programs and infomercials than
with local content. In order to deliver the local niche audiences you
need a system that can deliver the bits profitably to small audiences
- this is just too much bother for broadcasters who are accustomed to
picking the low hanging fruit.
What is different about Paris and Mantes?
Could it be the same thing as the difference between Washington D.C.
or Baltimore and where you live?
Do you drive to Washington or Baltimore to buy groceries? Do you
drive 50 miles to a Home Depot when there is one around the corner?
Do you only support restaurants in the big cities, or do you have
some local favorites?
The trend is to make advertising even more localized and
personalized. Cable and DBS are moving in the direction of targeting
ads to individual homes, not just neighborhoods. Broadcasters CAN do
the same, IF the infrastructure is designed properly to support it.
You raise the issue of market into market interference, and rightly
note that even low power transmitters can interfere with one another.
While this is somewhat true, it is far less problematic than the
interference from high powered transmitters on big sticks.
One of the first TV stations I worked for was WLCY-TV Channel 10 in
Tampa St. Petersburg. I had the privilege of working with Cliff
Benham at this station in the early '70s. We had a big problem with a
little stick. The station was originally assigned a UHF channel, but
in those days (early '60s) most TV sets did not have UHF tuners.
Another station (channel 38 I think) went dark for lack of an
audience. So WLCY requested a drop-in on VHF channel 10 - no other
VHF channels were available and channel 10 was problematic.
The problem is that channel 10 is used in Miami and Tallahassee. The
distance from the Miami antenna farm (near the Dade/Broward county
line) to the Tampa antenna farm in Riverview is about 275 miles. In
between are a large number of communities that would be affected by
interference. The solution was to move the tower to New Port Richie,
about 50 miles northwest. This actually placed the tower at the north
end of the Tampa St. Pete market, (a grade B area for the other
stations in the market) and only a bit more than 250 miles from
Tallahassee. But the interference zone between the markets is mostly
the Gulf of Mexico and some sparsely populated areas in what is
called the Big Bend - mostly low lying swampy areas.
Being on the north end of the market it was also possible to use
masks to limit radiation to the north. There was one other problem.
The tower site in New Port Richie was in the flight approach path for
Tampa International Airport. Because of this the tower height was
limited to 500 feet. As a result, WLCY managed to put a grade B
signal out over most of the Tampa/St. Petersburg market.
And to get the drop-in, we were required to deliver 20 hours of local
public service content each week. I spent most of my time producing
and directing these shows.
Eventually the station was allowed to increase the tower height, and
now provides a strong signal over the market.
What does all of this tell us?
For one thing, VHF power levels are much lower than for many UHF
stations, but the propagation characteristics are not the same. In
most cases, the spacing between transmitters on the same channel must
be greater than 250 miles. Maximum interference probably occurs in
the area that is between 100 and 125 miles out from the adjacent
markets.
The result is vast taboo zones where a frequency cannot be re-used by
ANYONE. This is the real spectral efficiency problem with big sticks
when markets are NOT geographically isolated.
Now what happens when we reduce the tower height and the power
levels? Huge areas are opened up for re-use of that frequency. Not
only that, but natural terrain blocking may limit interference to
other markets, and you can put masks on the transmitters to limit
radiation to the desired coverage area.
In densely populate areas it may be necessary to checkerboard the use
of several frequencies to prevent local interference, but this is
MUCH easier to control with a mesh of lower powered transmitters and
gap fillers. The result is that every market can expect to have at
least partial use of 30 or more channels in the core spectrum (2-52).
And you can localize some of these frequencies to provide bandwidth
for services that are only attractive to sub markets.
Bert likes to complain about the number of towers/transmitters it
would take to build out SFNs. I wonder if he ever considered how many
towers it takes to make the current system work. I don't have the
exact figures at hand, but as of December 2004, this is the breakdown
on the number of licensed TV and radio stations in the U.S.:
AM RADIO 4774
FM RADIO 6218
FM EDUCATIONAL 2533
_____________________________________________
TOTAL 13525
UHF COMMERCIAL TV 777
VHF COMMERCIAL TV 589
UHF EDUCATIONAL TV 257
VHF EDUCATIONAL TV 125
_____________________________________________
TOTAL 1748
CLASS A UHF STATIONS 493
CLASS A VHF STATIONS 110
_____________________________________________
TOTAL 603
FM TRANSLATORS & BOOSTERS 3890
UHF TRANSLATORS 2631
VHF TRANSLATORS 1823
_____________________________________________
TOTAL 8344
UHF LOW POWER TV 1553
VHF LOW POWER TV 481
_____________________________________________
TOTAL 2034
If we consider JUST full power AM/FM/TV, that's more than 15,000
broadcast facilities. Many stations share tower space, so the actual
number of towers is significantly smaller; for discussion purposes
let's say half, or about 7500 towers. There are more than 200 TV
markets in the U.S. and even more radio markets. So let's say 250
markets, or an average of 30 towers per market.
Seems to me that a properly designed mesh of transmitters could
SUBSTANTIALLY cut down on the number of towers that blight the
landscape today. More important, we could eliminate MANY of the big
towers that cause problems in terms of siting, airplane crashes, and
the death of migratory birds.
See: Wireless Telecommunications Bureau on Avatar Environmental, LLC
Report Regarding Migratory Bird Collisions With Communications Towers
http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/audio/DA-04-3891A1.pdf
Now how bad is that? You get better spectral efficiency, fewer/lower
towers, more access for niche content providers, and the potential
for a wide range of new services, not to mention a real competitor
for cable and DBS.
>I'm not advocating nationwide SFNs, of course.
>That would be silly. But I do expect you to
>make sensible arguments based on reality, and
>to understand the concept of multiple viable
>solutions to a problem.
What you are advocating is nationwide high power transmission system
that knows no market boundaries. Just let the conglomerates take
total control.
I fully understand that there are multiple viable solutions to a
problem. For example ATSC, DVB and DMB. I also understand that each
market is unique and that the correct solution for each market is
unique; and yes this may involve some big high powered transmitters
where market into market interference is not an issue.
I also understand that big high powered sticks are NOT a viable
solution in every market. They ARE the problem.
>
>In the US, we do have legitimately separate
>markets close together (thanks to the FCC caps).
This has NOTHING to do with FCC ownership caps. It has everything to
do with geography and where people choose to live.
>But they are also huge markets, requiring wide
>coverage. Not so hard to understand, right?
Apparently it is for you Bert. Would you like me to forward a few
hundred posts where I have specifically stated that big sticks are an
important part of the overall system in the areas where you need to
cover large, sparsely populated areas?
Regards
Craig
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