I disagree with the contention that the suburbs need access to multiple
markets. Every market in the U.S. is well defined. You live in an area with
overlap between two or more markets; but the FCC considers your to be in the
Washington DC market. The MVPD systems are only allowed to offer the stations
in the market where you live as designated by the FCC.
In other words, stations are assigned specific territories; the fact that the
existing broadcast system cannot be "controlled" so as to only reach homes in
the assigned market is a FAULT not a benefit.
From a "content" perspective there is little reason to pull signals from two
markets, as virtually all of the content is duplicated. The only advantage to
someone living in these overlap areas is that they may see news and ads
specific to one market or the other.
And this is where Bert gets it completely wrong. There is no real benefit to
reaching homes in another market. Actually there is a major benefit if you can
pre-empt the competitor in the neighboring market; but the FCC quickly shut
down attempts by broadcasters to replace local stations in one market with
distant signals from another on MVPD systems.
The advantage of moving to SFNs and improving spectral reuse is in the ability
to improve the ability to reach homes in your assigned market; AND to address
sub markets. There are major benefits if broadcasters can offer targeted
advertising to a subset of their market.
The reality is that in large markets like Washington DC and Baltimore, the cost
of TV advertising is so expensive that many businesses cannot afford it; or
there is little benefit in reaching the entire market for smaller neighborhood
businesses. A well designed DTV system will allow broadcasters to address these
opportunities.
Keep in mind, that Internet advertising targets INDIVIDUALS, often within
seconds of the time they searched for something. If broadcasters are to survive
they will need to trade in that old shotgun for some sniper rifles!
Regards
Craig
On Jan 20, 2017, at 10:29 PM, Manfredi, Albert E
<albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The reality is, any reasonably sized TV market is quite large. Up and down
the East Coast, radii of 40 miles or more are hardly rare.
Given this fact, and that SFNs can only in practice consist of very few
towers, and the fact that overlap in the suburbs is also required, you cannot
assume that the same frequency channel can be used throughout adjacent
markets. That makes no sense.
Yes, you can use the same channel, if you limit the coverage in the adjacent
market. So the same channel in adjacent markets won't interfere with a full
power station needing overlapping coverage in the distant suburbs. SFNs would
permit this, and so do big sticks.
I know I've done this before, but some people forget these facts in a
heartbeat. The sort of frequency reuse, where the same frequency channel is
used in adjacent markets, but without encroaching in the overlap area, is
*already* taking place.
Here are some real-world examples, with Philadelphia, Baltimore, Wash DC, and
Richmond:
Ch 38 is used in Philadephia, Baltimore, and Richmond.
Ch 45 and 48 are used in Philadelphia, Wash DC, Richmond.
Ch 24, 30, 33, 34, 35, 47 are used in Philadelphia and Wash DC (or Fairfax
VA).
Ch 25, 28, 44 are used in Wash DC and Richmond.
And this doesn't even consider close-by smaller markets, such as
Fredericksburg VA (Ch 44, like DC and Richmond), or Roanoke VA (Ch 5 like
Fredericksburg, 20, 28, 30, 36, 44, 45, 47, like DC and sometimes Richmond).
So, "hundreds of miles" is nonsense. SFNs or no, frequency channels are
reused between adjacent markets already, as long as they don't encroach on
the suburbs between the two markets. In practice, SFNs of 2 to 4 towers,
which can actually cover these same market areas, will not do much better.
Sorry, Craig.
Bert
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways:
- Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at
FreeLists.org
- By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word
unsubscribe in the subject line.
