What’s broadcast?
What’s the point of broadcast TV anymore? Eighty-eight percent of Americans receive TV via cable or satellite. And now, of course, there are more ways to get video: the internet, mobile, and soon mobile satellite. Our kids have no idea what the difference between a broadcast and a cable channel is. Soon, they won’t have any idea what the difference between cable and internet TV is. And before you know it, they won’t know the difference between professional and amateur TV.
So do we tear down the broadcast towers? Not yet. But very soon, the cost benefit of owning that license and equipment will fall to nearly nil (one wonders when delivering via wi-fi mesh networks in cities and satelllite in boonies will become more effective and profitable — perhaps even now). Local TV licenses used to be money machines; now they’re shrinking. Viewership for networks of those stations continues to fall year after year, of course. The barrier to entry to making and now distributing TV is gone. Radio is arguably in better shape so long as we drive and satellite and radio-via-phone grow to critical mass, joining the iPod. And the radio business sucks.
What’s the point of broadcast? What’s the power of it? There’s far more perceived value to broadcast — by us older folks — than there is real value anymore. The business and regulatory attention given to broadcast is overblown. So what happens to broadcast? Does it matter?
Tags: Exploding_TV
December 1st, 2006 at 12:14 pm
This question arose for me in discussing the censorship and regulation of broadcast vs. cable channels. I’ve always had cable and wondered why TV stations would subject themselves to such difficulty for such a small percentage of TVs. The answer I received was the feeling of power these licenses give broadcast companies. I agree that there is also a perception of value as well, but time should fix that wagon.
I was worried that this would eliminate some creative pressure that produced quality shows that couldn’t utilize some of cable’s freedoms. But I am hopeful that there will always be a market for that kind of programming. I don’t see The Office, Scrubs, or Studio 60 turning into Nip/Tuck or Rescue Me; I enjoy both camps of programming too much to see them homogenize.
On a related note, I’m interested to see how sites like allfg.org and bittorrent influence the landscape. It’s an exciting time to be observing the media world.
December 1st, 2006 at 12:27 pm
For at least several more years, broadcast will be valuable because of HDTV. HDTV broadcast signals are higher quality than the HDTV signals delivered by most cable networks.
December 1st, 2006 at 1:18 pm
For most broadcast TV, I think this is right on. There are of course, exceptions: Heroes, Lost, and other hit shows show remarkable viewership. There’s just less of them.
Sports, however, is still very much broadcast TV’s big arena. Especially when you factor in HD. I have an antenna up on the roof coming into my media center, even though I have a satellite TV feed coming in right next to it. There’s currently no one-size-fits-all for a sports consumer.
December 1st, 2006 at 1:25 pm
In what some arrogant folks call “fly-over” country, there are still plenty of places where terrestrial broadcast is all they get. My brother worked until recently in programming for a PBS station in one of the plains & prairies states. They had two transmitters and 11 translators to cover an audience smaller than any one of my more than 20 local SF Bay area stations.
A lot of folks in these not-quite rural communities still only get a couple of terrestrial TV channels, and only those in the top 5% to 10% income brackets would pay the subscription fees for satellite. There’s no chance of a cable company serving them in the foreseeable future. There’s little chance of them getting any local news over satellite — they might have to go back to terrestrial radio or small-town weekly newspapers for that.
Internet? It’s kind of fun for those folks, but it ties up the phone line too long when someone might be trying to call. If some rich outsider isn’t willing to invest in CATV infrastructure, they’re certainly not willing to invest in broadband Internet infrastructure.
This PBS station he worked at has an interesting strategy for the digital transition: It’s to “go dark.” That’s right, so little of their audience are in a hurry to buy digital TVs, and the cost of studio and transmitter conversion is so high, that when they’re told to turn off their analog transmitters, they’re out of business.
I don’t doubt the transitions you’re talking about will come. But you (sitting in New York) and I (sitting in the Bay Area) have a warped view of the rate of progress.
December 1st, 2006 at 2:07 pm
Steve, you made me laugh. I know you didn’t mean it, but to someone who actually lives in “fly-over country,” your description sounds just about as arrogant as the term itself. Is it really true that only the top 5-10% of income earners spring for satellite and/or cable if it’s available? That seems awfully low to me. I know very few people with only broadcast channels. And those who don’t have cable or satellite TV weren’t watching much TV to begin with.
The Internet is “kind of fun for those folks?” You probably need to live in fly-over country to understand how condescending that sounds. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to log off because I’m waiting for a call from a rich outsider.
December 1st, 2006 at 2:27 pm
Broadcast is free.
December 1st, 2006 at 3:01 pm
I’m one of those with only broadcast even though I live in the NYC metro area.
I fail to see why I should pay a monthly fee to watch something and then have to watch commercials as well. I also fail to see why I should have to pay for 100+ channels that I’ll never watch for the two or three I might be interested in.
Let me know when I can get the independent film channel and Sundance without ESPN and then I might be interested.
I did buy Sirius radio because classical music has disappeared from the NY market during the day. At least they don’t insult me by putting ads on the music channels.
In any other industry the bundling that cable companies do would be considered illegal. Just shows how important it is to have friends in high places.
December 1st, 2006 at 3:09 pm
David, I live in fly-over country also and didn’t take any of Steve’s comment the way you did. I do agree with him 100% that those that live in NYC and SF (or other large tech sauvy areas) don’t have a clue as to the real world and where it’s sitting when it comes to the internet, broadband, new tech, etc. Most don’t get out enough to experience the rest of the world. I see that in most popular tech blogs.
December 1st, 2006 at 3:31 pm
One value of over the air broadcasting is in an emergency. We had a rain and wind storm that knocked out power for a week in Memphis that we called Hurricane Elvis. All I needed to watch what was going on in Memphis was a 750 watt power inverter hooked up to a car battery to power my TV. The cable lines were down so the only way to see what was going on was with an antenna. There were people still waiting to get their cable and high speed internet back months after the storm.
December 1st, 2006 at 3:33 pm
David B. wrote: “Is it really true that only the top 5-10% of income earners spring for satellite and/or cable if it’s available? That seems awfully low to me.”
Those were the results of a late-2004 survey that my brother’s regional PBS station commissioned. It’s hearsay by me, I’ll grant, but I trust the source.
David B. wrote: “I know very few people with only broadcast channels. And those who don’t have cable or satellite TV weren’t watching much TV to begin with.”
I know a lot of people here in the Bay Area who don’t pay for subscription T.V. services, myself among them, but you’re right, none of us were watching much T.V. to begin with.
I have a best friend from college living in southeast Iowa who doesn’t expect to get any kind of broadband Internet service in his town of 1,113 in the forseeable future. He’d love to be checking out podcasts and YouTube, but not over a 32kbps dial-up.
FWIW, I lived in Iowa about as long as I’ve lived in the Bay Area.
December 1st, 2006 at 3:41 pm
I don’t agree at all that it’s time to write the epitaph of a broadcasting licence.
December 1st, 2006 at 7:16 pm
Can we bury, with extreme prejudice and possibly a machete in its head, the notion that the sparsely populated stretches of the so-called Heartland constitute the ‘real-world’? Someday? Soon?
December 1st, 2006 at 7:43 pm
Christian…Sorry, it “is” the real world!
December 1st, 2006 at 8:29 pm
I Believe that broadcast tv is doomed- it’s broken.
Why? Because advertisers, who drive the delivery of traditional media, are placing their bets on internet and digital distribution. If you read alot, like I do, regarding trends in the industry, you’ll realize that the writing is on the wall. Why else would Google pay YouTube billions and FOX pay MySpace billions of dollars for their product/services?
Technology will catch up to increase bandwidth delivery to the masses in the heartland for internet connectivity and video streaming- believe me. It’s too large a market for media/advertisers to ignore.
The future is digital media distribution via internet, phones, mobile devices and probably some device that we don’t even know exists yet.
There is a company on the forefront of this wave; Wi-FiTV, that is selling internet based TV channels for $25,000.00 now.
http://www.w-fitv.com
If your a small to medium company, your locked out of the broadcast TV market due to the high cost of producing and airing your content to the masses; and a small mass at that. But, if you have a product/service/compelling message to share, an internet based tv channel allows you to reach globally, 24/7. For 25 grand you can’t beat the price compared to traditional means of delivery and it’s a sure bet you’ll reach all those great people in ‘fly-over’ land; eventually.
Your not going to see companies, especially small to medium, advertising or broadcasting on MySpace or YouTube or some other TV portal where you have to pay a monthly fee for access to some arcane content just so you can also watch/download broadcast TV content. Just look at the current ‘top 100′ videos on those sites and, for the most part, all you see is pirated content or amateur video shot of friends letting friends do stupid stunts. What mainstream legitimate company/organization wants to post content there?
Everyone knows that TV, PC’s and mobile devices are merging at a exponential rate. Where it takes us, nobody knows for sure, but, without a doubt traditional ‘dumb-TV’ (no pun intended) is headed for the local electronics recycler.
December 1st, 2006 at 8:35 pm
mike moore Says: “One value of over the air broadcasting is in an emergency.”
That’s a good point. If you knock the infrastructure out from under some urban area, it reverts to the boonies really fast.
Case in point: old fashion ham radio was a large portion of the only reliable electronic communication in New Orleans for several months. Just check out numerous articles in QST Magazine about this. Likewise, the over-the-air broadcast stations, especially radio, were the most useful and reliable electronic news media for several weeks.
Christian, it’s a drag when the real world comes crashing-in on one’s urban facade. Unexpected events such as these give us more reasons not to bury the old technology just yet. Now as for the old business models, that’s another story.
December 2nd, 2006 at 12:53 am
Urban facade? I actually live in an unincorporated area. My nearest neighbors are acres away. And I agree whole-heartedly with what’s been said about the utility of broadcast in these areas. But that’s miles away from this other claim about the relative proximity to reality of San Diego and Thermopolis, Wyoming.
December 2nd, 2006 at 1:59 am
Steve, I wasn’t offended or anything. And I knew you weren’t really slighting fly-over country. I was mostly just giving you a hard time. Having said that, I don’t think the future of rural connectedness is as grim as you do. The very most rural homes may remain on dial-up for a long time to come, but I think it will be an extremely small percentage that doesn’t have access to some kind of high-speed solution within 2-3 years. I just think the technology is advancing so fast that it’s bound to happen, and soon.
December 2nd, 2006 at 12:21 pm
Broadcast towers speak; cellular towers listen.
December 2nd, 2006 at 10:51 pm
My 9 year-old son and I were eating Chinese last night when the restaurant owner came by our table to announce that a high-profile local news personality would be arriving soon. “Maybe you can meet him, get an autograph!”, she enthused to my son. “Who ….who are you talking about?”, he responded. Once the MAN arrived, I saw flashes and turned to see a Chinese family taking a pic, of themselves. Only the Americans over 50 seemed in awe of this local news don.
December 3rd, 2006 at 3:22 pm
Broadcast continues to exist entirely because of regulation. If “must carry” disappeared, 90% of the local stations would disappear as well. Those that could survive would enhance their local coverage and presence to become actually meaningful to their viewers. The New York 1 style of programming would be the only that would continue to exist.
December 4th, 2006 at 4:02 pm
Ari has it right. Current regulation gives broadcast operators a “head I win, tails you lose” negotiating position with the cable companies.
“Heads I win” are the must-carry provisions, which let fringe shopping or religious channels with no real demand force their way onto the cable systems.
“Tails you lose” are the requirement for retransmission agreements which cablecos have to negotiate with the non-must-carry stations (the major networks). It is through these agreements that Disney can force all cable subscribers to underwrite the cost of ESPN, as a precondition for being allowed to carry the ABC affiliate.
Without these regulations, very few stations would find it worthwhile to continue paying the electric bill for over-the-air broadcast.
FWIW, I am one of that 12% who still rely on broacast TV reception. Netflix is my cable company.