Is DTV dead?
I’ve started an ongoing tally of engineers’ responses to my question, “When will you turn off your DTV transmitter?” It’s parsed in the sense I’m asking “when” would you turn off your OTA digital transmitter. Usually I first get a “You’ve got to be kidding” response. After some discussion, the answer becomes a bit more circumspect.
As of today, less than 3 percent U.S. households haven’t prepared for the DTV conversion. That means that these households have not purchased satellite or cable service, nor have they obtained a DTV converter box. This represents a 50 percent improvement over the number of households who were not prepared for the loss of analog television back in December.
Back to my question to chief engineers.
Way back in 1985, the then director of engineering at the KSN network, Jack McKain, told me “I’ve purchased my last transmitter.” When questioned, he explained that he believed that stations would increasingly rely on cable/satellite connections to deliver OTA television. “Why would I pay $10,000 per month for transmitter power, just to reach 5 percent of my audience, when I can feed 95 percent of my audience for the cost of a fiber loop to the local cable headend?” he asked.
Initially, I found his thoughts more than a bit radical. However, as time has proven, he was right. Add to that equation today’s economic woes, and the benefits of not having OTA transmission begin to look better and better.
Some engineers strongly protest the idea that broadcasters would ever stop OTA transmissions. After all, what are “broadcasters” than OTA, well, broadcasters. That argument used to carry water, but no longer. Just ask ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC. All of these networks have Internet delivery and cable-backed delivery of their programs in place. Add to that mash-up the desire of networks to feed directly to homes, sans any local affiliates, and the sheer cost of keeping a transmitter operating just to serve a few thousand viewers starts to look like a black hole.
Of course, there is the rainbow pot-o-gold many broadcasters are hoping for — transmission to mobiles. But, there has yet to be a revenue-producing OTA implementation, nor is there any certainty the technology will ever be profitable. While broadcasters hope the idea works and many may participate, the jury is still out, and we won’t know the results for more than a year.
I read a blog post titled “What if they gave a DTV transition and nobody came?” In the post, this Linux techno geek writer railed about the end of OTA transmission and how he didn’t need it anyway. His solution was something called MythTV, which is a Linux implementation providing a TiVo-like solution. While many of the comments to the post were supportive, it’s obvious that the average viewer is never going to use the solution. It’s simply too complicated.
So where does all this leave us? I came to the conclusion that the idea of turning off the station transmitter is still too early for reality. However, eventually, the bean counters will look at the numbers, make a financial decision, and the need for a “transmitter engineer” could become a historic footnote.
Tell me what you think.
May 18th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
If and when local broadcasters “turn off their transmitters”, they may be turning off their business as well. While they already have a lot of competition now, they still have a limited resource - TV spectrum. That gives them an advantage over their competition. Why would the networks deal with a middleman who only delivers to the cable company? They would go directly to the cable company. Local broadcasters aren’t the only source of local news or programming. Cable companies have shown their ability and desire to provide local news and programming as demonstrated by NY1 and others.
May 18th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
For better or worse, you are right. The only question is weather local stations will survive against the onslaught of the computer world. Broadcasters better wake up and smell the flowers (the ones on top of their station’s casket).
May 18th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
If you turn the DTV transmitters off the cable companies will turn you off. The reason you are on cable is because you have a transmitter.
Is there any reason a network can’t feed a cable head-end directly?
Don’t be too hasty.
Miek Hemeon - CPBE
May 18th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Here at KTAB/KRBC, a CBS/NBC duopoly in Abilene, Texas, we shut off our analog transmitters a month early, on May 12. Of course the phones started ringing off the walls, but a surprising majority of the calls I answered were from regular people who were having trouble with their new digital converters….I never talked to one person who wasn’t aware of the “DTV Conversion.”
Then, less than 2 days later, our ATSC transmitters failed. Turns out it’s a problem with the transmission lines going up the tower, but it’s been a complete nightmare. It will take weeks, at least, to get things back to 100%.
In market #165, at least, OTA transmission is far from obsolete.
May 18th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Not sure where you get the 5% OTA audience and that 95% get local channels by cable or satellite. In DFW the broadcast OTA-only households is over 22%. Would the bean counters give up over 20% of their viewers? OTA is the way I watch my local channels.
May 18th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
FREE DTV! If all of the broadcasters would begin marketing the multiple choice aspect of FREE DTV, maybe everyone would have a converter box by now. Hell, now that I think about it, maybe they should give the boxes away too; that’s right; FREE DTV!! If the major networks all will be providing 3 or 4 channels of programming for free, that may be enough, especially in this economy to fill the airwaves and maybe even the bank accounts.
May 19th, 2009 at 6:27 am
The problem with Mobile TV is that the consumer does not care about Market Exclusivity and other issues with the re-broadcast of content. All the local TV station has absolute rights to is the local news, weather and sports. Any attempt to offer anything else is simply paving the way for a national company to burn them.
The HD Conversion should have been all about HD Content. Instead millions of people have purchased new HD sets to watch very little broadcast HD. They find the HD content on cable, satellite, DVD and the Internet. They watch HD, then try to watch the local station with its limited HD content.
Game over.
May 19th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
I suggest that the real value of holding an FCC license is the ability to be wireless. Being wireless opens a degree of leverage that Broadcasters have not had in a long time (the ability to reach people without a gate keeper). It is not about HDTV, or multi-SDTV or Mobile DTV…it is about deriving a value from digital bits. Broadcasters that can pair the right services will survive for a long time.
Networks need the relationship they have with local Broadcasters…because of that need I believe there will be a larger interest on their part to make the wireless part of the future a part of their future. That brings me back to Mobile DTV…10 years of work and almost there…just in time!?
June 2nd, 2009 at 11:56 am
I lived in NY Metro on 9/11, when WTC took down most of the OTA TV stations with it, and I still remember the scrambles. Those stations who had direct feeds to the local cable were only OK there, but had to make up satellite links or be missing from cable systems in surrounding parts of the metro - the cable systems aren’t necessarily connected! And the video feed via internet was seriously compromised - the internet just doesn’t do well trying to “broadcast”. Serious scramble to get RF back up on the air. You want to try doing without that broadcast signal - better see first how well you make out on transition day - at least all the cable systems in your area should be able to look at the digital signal by now. Me - I still receive OTA only.
July 22nd, 2009 at 2:52 pm
It seems to me that the real question is whether or not the local stations are content creators or just carriers? I’ve always thought that the value of the local station was its ability to tell the community it serves about the community it serves. That used to be the mission and strength of local television. Now there is little difference between the network feed and the local station other than local commercials and local news and a lot of local news is a rehash of national news. So whether the content is delivered by the station’s transmitter, the cable system, the satellite system or the internet, the value is in creating the content, not just carrying it.
I agree with my friend Mark Aiken that in today’s environment, being wireless is an advantage. Television was wireless before wireless was cool. Before we give up on wireless broadcasting maybe we ought to try and ride the wave.
July 24th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
In Kentucky, there may be 95% cable/satellite penetration due to the hilly terrain. That hilly terrain is pretty much why cable was ‘invented’ in the first place. Even so - there are still plenty of viewers that have an antenna and now that the economy is weak, more and more folks are downgrading their cable (to Internet only) and putting up antennas. I would imagine the flatter the landscape, a larger percentage of folks will be OTA rather than cable…. Just a thought..
July 31st, 2009 at 6:55 am
The problem is that no solid business model has been developed for multi-stream programming on a local market basis. There will always be cost advantages to RF transmission that cannot be overcome by cable. Don’t overlook the fact that local broadcasting is still the only FREE service provided over the air.
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