OK, some random thoughts here that I've had for awhile. Is greed pushing OTA TV towards an early grave just as it should be on the rebound? Personally I've seen growing interest from people looking for cheaper options for TV with more people considering going OTA. Most people who discover what free OTA TV has to offer with a good setup (especially with a device like a TiVo) are pretty amazed. I've helped quite a few friends "cut the cord" and the interest only seems to be growing. So many people don't even realize what's available. If they know OTA TV at all they just think of a few snowy channels that come and go. There does seem to be published data showing something of a trend. Unfortunately though, that data seems to get skewed depending on the source and that source's motivation. So it's hard to know the true numbers and I think that is by design.
So at the same time there is growing interest in free over the air TV, the FCC is selling off even more of the broadcast spectrum as quickly as possible, TiVo is struggling for survival, and competitive products, Tablo, Simple TV, and DVR plus seem to have trouble getting any real traction. It seems to me that those who have competing interests are doing their best to kill off OTA TV as quickly as possible before it really rebounds and gains too much traction to go away quietly.
The FCC/federal government is making billions of dollars selling off the spectrum, pay TV providers want to maintain their virtual stranglehold on consumer choice and eliminate the competition, cell phone companies want to gobble up the maximum possible amount of spectrum etc. That is a tremendous amount of money and competing interests to make them want to at the very least marginalize free OTA TV.
I do realize commercial supported TV is struggling but it is a model that has worked for many many decades and still has a large audience (even if t's smaller than it once was). I think it can remain viable if the offerings remain attractive enough to consumers. And as the commercially supported OTA TV audience expands, so does the ability for them to sell advertising and stay profitable.
I have often felt that if the digital TV conversion had happened a decade earlier, prior to consumers becoming as entrenched to the cable/pay TV we would see a very different television market today. I think we would see more broadcast stations, and even more sports TV being broadcast via OTA. Could the likes of cable channels like ESPN have become a broadcast network? And if we had kept the full television spectrum we had before the digital conversion there would be tremendous capacity for additional stations and even UHD broadcasts. It's disheartening to see that opportunity being eroded. Yes, broadcast TV will likely always have some terrain issues but they can still reach the majority of the US population and innovation may have made more inroads to greater expansion of its reach.
Just curious if anyone else has considered these questions?
So at the same time there is growing interest in free over the air TV, the FCC is selling off even more of the broadcast spectrum as quickly as possible, TiVo is struggling for survival, and competitive products, Tablo, Simple TV, and DVR plus seem to have trouble getting any real traction. It seems to me that those who have competing interests are doing their best to kill off OTA TV as quickly as possible before it really rebounds and gains too much traction to go away quietly.
The FCC/federal government is making billions of dollars selling off the spectrum, pay TV providers want to maintain their virtual stranglehold on consumer choice and eliminate the competition, cell phone companies want to gobble up the maximum possible amount of spectrum etc. That is a tremendous amount of money and competing interests to make them want to at the very least marginalize free OTA TV.
I do realize commercial supported TV is struggling but it is a model that has worked for many many decades and still has a large audience (even if t's smaller than it once was). I think it can remain viable if the offerings remain attractive enough to consumers. And as the commercially supported OTA TV audience expands, so does the ability for them to sell advertising and stay profitable.
I have often felt that if the digital TV conversion had happened a decade earlier, prior to consumers becoming as entrenched to the cable/pay TV we would see a very different television market today. I think we would see more broadcast stations, and even more sports TV being broadcast via OTA. Could the likes of cable channels like ESPN have become a broadcast network? And if we had kept the full television spectrum we had before the digital conversion there would be tremendous capacity for additional stations and even UHD broadcasts. It's disheartening to see that opportunity being eroded. Yes, broadcast TV will likely always have some terrain issues but they can still reach the majority of the US population and innovation may have made more inroads to greater expansion of its reach.
Just curious if anyone else has considered these questions?
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire