is OTA TV doomed?

Thumper wrote:


You need to carefully check your monthly bill..

You are not getting HD for free,,you have subscribed to some "package"
which is running you 20 to 40 bucks a month more than the basic
subscription.

Some cable operators are including the HD feeds from the local
stations in the "premium Digital" package - for now that is. They will
not be doing that after 2009.

NGC, Discovery, and a bunch of others are an additional add on if you
want to see the HD versions.

Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:
In article ,
wbertram wrote:

A given market has a given number of "eyeball-hours" that it can reach.
If a broadcaster splits that audience up onto 5 channels, the total
number of "eyeball-hours" stays the same, and the amount of money I will
pay to get my advertising message to them remains the same. I am not
going to increase my advertising budget five-fold to reach the same
number of viewers as when you offered one channel.

Nobody is saying five-fold.

Actually, that is exactly the claim that was made:

wrote:

Unfortunately there seems to be this continuing confusion over what
digital TV OTA is,,,

Its not a mandate to broadcast HD , its a mandate to switch from
analog modulation to digital. Congress wants to sell off the analog
frequencies.

The economics are such that OTA broadcasters are going to send out 5
SD channels, not 1 HD channel. They get 5 times the ad revenue that
way.


Keep on back peddling.

Matthew

--
Thermodynamics and/or Golf for dummies: There is a game
You can't win
You can't break even
You can't get out of the game

Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:
In article ,
wbertram wrote:

A given market has a given number of "eyeball-hours" that it can reach.
If a broadcaster splits that audience up onto 5 channels, the total
number of "eyeball-hours" stays the same, and the amount of money I will
pay to get my advertising message to them remains the same. I am not
going to increase my advertising budget five-fold to reach the same
number of viewers as when you offered one channel.

Now, if you can somehow increase the number of viewers I can reach, then
I -might- increase my advertising budget. But simply increasing the
number of available OTA channels is unlikely to increase the number of
"eyeball-hours" my advertising will reach.

That's right.

However, it stands a chance of concentrating more eyeball-hours onto one
station over another.

How? What if all the stations do the same thing equally well?

In other words, now the broadcasters will compete with bigger toolboxes.

Too bad there are a fixed number of eyeballs in each market.

Matthew

--
Thermodynamics and/or Golf for dummies: There is a game
You can't win
You can't break even
You can't get out of the game

wrote:
Thumper wrote:

You need to carefully check your monthly bill..

You are not getting HD for free,,you have subscribed to some "package"
which is running you 20 to 40 bucks a month more than the basic
subscription.

Some cable operators are including the HD feeds from the local
stations in the "premium Digital" package - for now that is. They will
not be doing that after 2009.

NGC, Discovery, and a bunch of others are an additional add on if you
want to see the HD versions.

OTA hd from cable IS free, however.

Chip

--
-------------------- http://NewsReader.Com/ --------------------
Usenet Newsgroup Service $9.95/Month 30GB

wrote:

You are not getting HD for free,,you have subscribed to some "package"
which is running you 20 to 40 bucks a month more than the basic
subscription.

Time Warner here in Corpus Christi, Texas includes the local NBC and
PBS stations as well as Discovery HD Theater and TNT HD as part of any
digital package. The HD STB costs an additional $5. For an extra
$9.95 we get ESPN HD, INHD, INHD2, HDNET, and HDNET Movies.

Our local ABC affiliate has a long history of going to war with the
cable folks and has pulled his programming several times. Last year
they were off the system leading up to the Super Bowl but finally
struck a deal. TW was trying to get their HD signal as part of the
package but that didn't work out. Luckily, their HD signal is the only
one I can pick up OTA with an indoor antenna!

Dave Clary
Corpus Christi, TX

scrawled in message
...

Elmo

You seem to definitely know,,,

David composed:
ROTFL!

He refused to connect a $20 outdoor antenna to get a stable signal, so he
claims DTV is inferior to analog TV.

I swear, I think you're both in the 7th grade.



Duh?

I didnt post anything of the sort,,,?????

I have a roof top antenna, and 3 HD tvs and 2 HD tuners,,,

Guess we now know who the 7th grader is,,,LOL


Stop top posting.

Dood....I was referring to elmo fud.

Now, go do your homework!!

On Wed, 06 Sep 2006 07:22:49 GMT, wrote:

Thumper wrote:


You need to carefully check your monthly bill..

You are not getting HD for free,,you have subscribed to some "package"
which is running you 20 to 40 bucks a month more than the basic
subscription.


It costs no more to get HD than SD.
Thumper
Some cable operators are including the HD feeds from the local
stations in the "premium Digital" package - for now that is. They will
not be doing that after 2009.


I think they will. HD is similar to converting black and white to
color. It will become the standard. It will take some time bit it
will happen.
Thumper
NGC, Discovery, and a bunch of others are an additional add on if you
want to see the HD versions.

wrote in message
...
No Wes,,that came from the marketing manager at one of our local
stations - a good friend of mine.

Is he also a teenager?

You can google that to if you like,,,reported national figures are
similiar.

16 percent of his stations viewers depend on OTA, the other 84 percent
see his station on cable, or sat feeds (in analog btw). Only about 15
percent of the OTA viewers are watching the digital
transmission...thats 2.4 percent of his total viewers.

Exactly what bob posted.

Wes,,,you have proven yourself such a moron, you have been elected to
my covenanted IGNORE list,,,

"covenanted" ??
Did you mean "coveted"? LOL. . . .

You win first prize in today's Leo Gorcey Memorial Snappy Dialog Award.

On 6 Sep 2006 06:36:32 -0700, "Dave" wrote:


wrote:

You are not getting HD for free,,you have subscribed to some "package"
which is running you 20 to 40 bucks a month more than the basic
subscription.

Time Warner here in Corpus Christi, Texas includes the local NBC and
PBS stations as well as Discovery HD Theater and TNT HD as part of any
digital package. The HD STB costs an additional $5. For an extra
$9.95 we get ESPN HD, INHD, INHD2, HDNET, and HDNET Movies.

Our local ABC affiliate has a long history of going to war with the
cable folks and has pulled his programming several times. Last year
they were off the system leading up to the Super Bowl but finally
struck a deal. TW was trying to get their HD signal as part of the
package but that didn't work out. Luckily, their HD signal is the only
one I can pick up OTA with an indoor antenna!

Dave Clary
Corpus Christi, TX


I have had the same package for many years before HD and the only
change was a $10.00 charge for digital when that came out. That was
before any HD was available on the system.
Thumper

Ok I will concede that one - I meant 5 times the ad revenue
streams,,,ergo more ways to make more income - they are going to need
revenue after 2009.

Now if that's the best counter argument you can come up with,,then
maybe next you need to start checking/criticizing my spelling and
punctuation.




"Matthew L. Martin" wrote:

Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:
In article ,
wbertram wrote:

A given market has a given number of "eyeball-hours" that it can reach.
If a broadcaster splits that audience up onto 5 channels, the total
number of "eyeball-hours" stays the same, and the amount of money I will
pay to get my advertising message to them remains the same. I am not
going to increase my advertising budget five-fold to reach the same
number of viewers as when you offered one channel.

Nobody is saying five-fold.

Actually, that is exactly the claim that was made:

wrote:

Unfortunately there seems to be this continuing confusion over what
digital TV OTA is,,,

Its not a mandate to broadcast HD , its a mandate to switch from
analog modulation to digital. Congress wants to sell off the analog
frequencies.

The economics are such that OTA broadcasters are going to send out 5
SD channels, not 1 HD channel. They get 5 times the ad revenue that
way.


Keep on back peddling.

Matthew

--
Thermodynamics and/or Golf for dummies: There is a game
You can't win
You can't break even
You can't get out of the game