End of Analog TV in the US: Were You Affected?

[jtbell]

You have local and national tv stations, we don't we just have national.

Actually, almost all broadcast TV stations in the US are "local." They produce their own local news programs etc. and carry advertising for local businesses, in addition to carrying national programs and advertising from one of the networks (NBC, ABC, etc.). A station may be owned by a national or regional chain or even by one of the networks, but it's managed at the local level. And stations owned by the same chain in different cities are often affiliated with different networks, except of course for ones that are actually owned by a network.

In many states, the public broadcasting (PBS) stations are owned and operated by a statewide agency, and the individual stations are basically "repeaters" controlled from a central office. South Carolina is like this. I can get five or six SCETV stations, but the programming is identical on all of them. For some reason they chose to build a lot of lower-powered stations rather than a few high-powered ones in order to cover the entire state.

But there's nothing like this on the national level.

 

[russ_watters]

Can the farm reports not be sent out via the internet or radio? I'm curious as to why some here think having a TV is a necessity of life and not a modern luxury. Do newspapers not exist in that part of the country?

Apparently, TV is as essential to some people as food:

So when people don't have bread, we should tell them to eat cake?

Who do you think provides the food you find in the stores of that big city? People who live in rural areas.

Moonbear, turbo-1, we're talking about *TV* here. TV!

People make choices about living in a city vs a rural area partly because of the availability of such things. Living in a rural area means you don't get good movie theaters nearby, have to drive further to find a Home Depot, and you can't go see a major league baseball game on a Wednesday night after work. Living in a city means you can't use your telescope in your backyard.

These are the types of pros and cons people weigh when choosing where to live. This isn't the rural electrification program and no one is in danger of starving to death over this. It's TV! It is a luxury item! Entertainment. It isn't an entitlement - it isn't a necessity of life.

What has people upset is that the switch to digital tv has made getting that luxury/entertainment item out to rural areas more difficult. They are used to having it, so they have started believing it is an entitlement. But it isn't. It's just a fact of life that sometimes the provider of something decides they can't/don't want to provide it anymore. This is no different than if someone closed a nearby movie theater in a rural area because it was unprofitable.

And might I add: broadcast tv is free! People who lost something only lost something that they were getting for free!

 

[JaredJames]

Actually, almost all broadcast TV stations in the US are "local." They produce their own local news programs etc. and carry advertising for local businesses, in addition to carrying national programs and advertising from one of the networks (NBC, ABC, etc.). A station may be owned by a national or regional chain or even by one of the networks, but it's managed at the local level. And stations owned by the same chain in different cities are often affiliated with different networks, except of course for ones that are actually owned by a network.

In many states, the public broadcasting (PBS) stations are owned and operated by a statewide agency, and the individual stations are basically "repeaters" controlled from a central office. South Carolina is like this. I can get five or six SCETV stations, but the programming is identical on all of them. For some reason they chose to build a lot of lower-powered stations rather than a few high-powered ones in order to cover the entire state.

But there's nothing like this on the national level.

I'd say that's basically what I meant with it, ish. Obviously I didn't think you had national transmitters, but I meant you have national channels/shows and more specific local ones.

 

[russ_watters]

The poor planning included the failure to take terrain into account and the failure to actually test relative signal strength in the normal broadcasting area before making the switch-over.

You're just assuming all that. Maybe they did do all of that testing and just decided that your area wasn't important enough to make it worth their effort to give you better reception. Or even more likely - maybe they were aware of the general issue and decided the issue (serving people in rural areas) wasn't even an important enough concern to make it worth doing the testing.

 

[JaredJames]

And might I add: broadcast tv is free! People who lost something only lost something that they were getting for free!

Wish it was like that in the UK. There are four/five channels on analogue. BBC 1 + 2, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5.

All are free (advertising based) except the BBC ones. We have to pay £140 each year for a tv licence. The only upside of which is that there are no ad breaks and no adverts between shows.

Worst bit is if you have a tv you have to have a license whether you watch the BBC channels or not. When digital comes in, yes we get more channels (especially a whole load more from the bbc) but we still need the licence.

 

[russ_watters]

By the way, what does "local" mean anyway? I don't watch local news, but if I did, I guess a recent murder in Philly would be relevant to me since I'm there a couple of times a week, but even living 20 miles away, a Philly weather report isn't specific enough for my taste. If I lived 40+ miles from my "local" tv station. I couldn't even imagine caring what was on it!

[edit] Possible exception: the Phillies baseball and Flyers hockey. But they have their own network that airs most of their games anyway...on cable.

For weather, the nearest doppler radars are in Philadelphia, but that doesn't mean I need to watch tv to access them. You can watch them in real-time on the internet, so the internet is a much better source for weather information than tv, even if the tv station owns the radar.

 

[JaredJames]

By the way, what does "local" mean anyway? I don't watch local news, but if I did, I guess a recent murder in Philly would be relevant to me since I'm there a couple of times a week, but even living 20 miles away, a Philly weather report isn't specific enough for my taste.

Within a certain region. So perhaps by state or even by large cities / towns.

 

[jtbell]

And of course there's politics. Local and state politics can get interesting at times. In a nearby county, a county councilman recently got into trouble for planting spyware on the county manager's computer, apparently to try to dig up dirt on him in order to get the council as a whole to fire him. The FBI got into the act on this one.

 

[Office_Shredder]

You're just assuming all that. Maybe they did do all of that testing and just decided that your area wasn't important enough to make it worth their effort to give you better reception. Or even more likely - maybe they were aware of the general issue and decided the issue (serving people in rural areas) wasn't even an important enough concern to make it worth doing the testing.

They did a test run on a city in South Carolina (if I remember correctly) and found that the range wasn't what they'd hoped back in November '08 or something. The FCC decided to make distributed transmission systems permissible to recover analog range, but it seems nobody's bothered to do that

 

[russ_watters]

And of course there's politics. Local and state politics can get interesting at times. In a nearby county, a county councilman recently got into trouble for planting spyware on the county manager's computer, apparently to try to dig up dirt on him in order to get the council as a whole to fire him. The FBI got into the act on this one.

Well yeah, the best soap opera around right now is the Philly tv reporter who hacked his co-anchor's email account because he was in lover with her and jealous of her. She's no angel either, getting arrested for assaulting a cop!

But what makes a drama more compelling simply because it happenes 20 miles away instead of 200 miles away? Right now, the most compelling political drama is happening 10,000 miles away from me! To me, the concept of "local" doesn't have a whole lot of meaning.

 

[Evo]

I haven't read the entire thread, did anyone mention that the reason that tv stations were forced to give up their analogue frequencies was a result of lobbying by companies that wanted those frequenicies released so that they could buy it up and the resell it for new "for profit" services? This was not something tv stations wanted to do, they were forced to give up those frequencies by the FCC.

 

[Astronuc]

I haven't read the entire thread, did anyone mention that the reason that tv stations were forced to give up their analogue frequencies was a result of lobbying by companies that wanted those frequenicies released so that they could buy it up and the resell it for new "for profit" services? This was not something tv stations wanted to do, they were forced to give up those frequencies by the FCC.

In post 64, I mentioned these guys - Maximum Service Television.

http://www.mstv.org/aboutus.html

The Association for Maximum Service Television, Inc., is the recognized industry leader in broadcasting technology and spectrum policy issues. Formed in 1956, MSTV has endeavored to ensure that the American public receive the highest quality, interference free, over-the-air local television signals.

Yeah - right.

 

[edward]

One local station, the ABC affiliate, is on the reception fringe. The set top boxes keep losing their digital signal. This requires re- scanning the converter boxes for available stations.

The odd thing is that they are now running mini infomercials on how to rescan the boxes on the cable channels??

 

[Ouabache]

Like a few others mentioned here, I too am unaffected by the switch to digital TV and haven't owned a television that receives broadcast stations for the past 7 years. It isn't necessary. Although the internet has given us much useful content, even without it, AM/FM radio fills in local news coverage.

It may have been desirable from some viewpoints, but to people in rural locations, it seems that we have sacrificed a lot of access to information (weather reports, storm warnings, traffic disruptions) that might have been pretty valuable, but often taken for granted. If you are in the path of a cell of severe thunderstorms, and you can't get local weather reports, that's not good.

Since the advent of AM broadcast radio and due to their use of longer wavelengths, they operate effectively over variable terrain and reach rural areas in the absence of analog television.

Also for emergency weather, a basic VHF scanner can receive NOAA weather transmissions
In http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr/stations.php?State=ME there are 11 frequencies to choose from. Across rural America there are comparable broadcast frequencies.

We have already lost local AM/FM radio to the national conglomerates, so that channel of communication is gone.

Rural areas have benefited from AM radio for local news coverage for quite some time. You may want to revisit the list of local AM stations and retest their reception. Stringing up a long wire for an antenna, stunningly increases the gain (reception) for these signals. Since these are rural areas, there is no shortage of space for a long wire antennas.

Here is one list of AM stations in Maine. extracted from this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_radio_stations_in_Maine" . (there are comparable lists for stations across rural America).

 

[turbo]

Do you realize that there are lots of elderly, infirm, shut-ins that rely on broadcast TV for information and entertainment? Often they are living on meager fixed incomes and can't afford satellite or cable TV, if they are even available where they live.

As for the arguments that TV is a luxury and that broadcast TV is "free" I beg to differ. The broadcasters' costs are paid by advertising revenue, and the advertising is eating up about 25% or so of the available air-time, which the viewers "pay for" by watching the ads. The broadcasters were forced to give up their frequencies and buy, install, and maintain new digital equipment so that fat-cats could buy up the band-width and use it to sell services. The public was led by the nose and went along for the ride with the promise of better pictures and audio, when the result for many is NO pictures and NO audio.

 

[Cyrus]

Do you realize that there are lots of elderly, infirm, shut-ins that rely on broadcast TV for information and entertainment? Often they are living on meager fixed incomes and can't afford satellite or cable TV, if they are even available where they live.

As for the arguments that TV is a luxury and that broadcast TV is "free" I beg to differ. The broadcasters' costs are paid by advertising revenue, and the advertising is eating up about 25% or so of the available air-time, which the viewers "pay for" by watching the ads. The broadcasters were forced to give up their frequencies and buy, install, and maintain new digital equipment so that fat-cats could buy up the band-width and use it to sell services. The public was led by the nose and went along for the ride with the promise of better pictures and audio, when the result for many is NO pictures and NO audio.

Wow, you really just tried to rationalize getting free TV by basically saying "well, I watch the Ads, and those Ads bring in money".

Are you up for congressional election in 2010? The spin you just posted is making me dizzy.

Have you considered that you don't "deserve" *any* free tv - whatsoever? For crying out loud, you don't even pay for it!

Also, are the EMTs 'fat cats' wanting to use the bandwidth?

The switch to DTV will offer a host of important public benefits, to include:

Freeing up parts of the broadcast spectrum for public safety communications (police/fire/rescue).
Allowing some of the spectrum to be auctioned to companies that will be able to provide consumers with more advanced wireless services (such as wireless broadband).
Allowing stations to offer improved picture and surround sound (enhanced audio).
Expanding programming choices for viewers. For example, a broadcaster will be able to offer multiple digital programs simultaneously (multicasting).
Providing interactive video and data services that are not possible with analog technology.

 

[JaredJames]

Do you realize that there are lots of elderly, infirm, shut-ins that rely on broadcast TV for information and entertainment? Often they are living on meager fixed incomes and can't afford satellite or cable TV, if they are even available where they live.

As for the arguments that TV is a luxury and that broadcast TV is "free" I beg to differ. The broadcasters' costs are paid by advertising revenue, and the advertising is eating up about 25% or so of the available air-time, which the viewers "pay for" by watching the ads. The broadcasters were forced to give up their frequencies and buy, install, and maintain new digital equipment so that fat-cats could buy up the band-width and use it to sell services. The public was led by the nose and went along for the ride with the promise of better pictures and audio, when the result for many is NO pictures and NO audio.

I'm curious who forces you to watch these ads? I for one channel hop or go get a drink or something. As I said before, here in Britain we HAVE to pay for a tv license each year whether we like it or not. You do not. You cannot make out that you losing something which is free to begin with is unfair. Again, no one forced these people to live in these areas, they are/were free to move whenever they liked. They made a choice to stay there knowing full well what the situation was.

 

[turbo]

Mainers live here primarily because we were born here and made livings for ourselves here. It was not a conscious decision "I have to move to Maine" for most of us. Maine was the lumber capitol of the US for many, many years, and we still supply lots of maple syrup, potatoes, blueberries, salmon, groundfish, lobsters, etc that people in urban areas come to rely on when they go to their stores. Urban populations cannot possibly live without rural populations to supply their food-stuffs. There is no way that DC, NYC, Philly, etc could sustain any but a tiny portion of their populations without people in rural US catching their fish, raising their cattle, growing their vegetables, etc.

Again, if you think broadcast TV is "free" then you don't understand the dynamics of ad revenue. Ads pay for eyeballs, and you don't have to do too much research to find studies that explain this in detail. The claim that broadcast TV is "free" and that we in rural areas have no reason to object if it is suddenly removed by FCC action is not only simplistic - it is dead-wrong. Whole industries were built on TV advertising, and you shouldn't have to think too long to come up with some examples. I won't bother, since you seem predisposed to ignoring reality.

 

[JaredJames]

Mainers live here primarily because we were born here and made livings for ourselves here. It was not a conscious decision "I have to move to Maine" for most of us. Maine was the lumber capitol of the US for many, many years, and we still supply lots of maple syrup, potatoes, blueberries, salmon, groundfish, lobsters, etc that people in urban areas come to rely on when they go to their stores. Urban populations cannot possibly live without rural populations to supply their food-stuffs. There is no way that DC, NYC, Philly, etc could sustain any but a tiny portion of their populations without people in rural US catching their fish, raising their cattle, growing their vegetables, etc.

Again, if you think broadcast TV is "free" then you don't understand the dynamics of ad revenue. Ads pay for eyeballs, and you don't have to do too much research to find studies that explain this in detail. The claim that broadcast TV is "free" and that we in rural areas have no reason to object if it is suddenly removed by FCC action is not only simplistic - it is dead-wrong. Whole industries were build on TV advertising, and you shouldn't have to think too long to come up with some examples. I won't bother, since you seem predisposed to ignoring reality.

Your lack of evidence and continual stating that you will not provide any makes your claims here worthless. Why is it dead wrong, if its supplied to you free, then it is costing them to broadcast it to you. Given they cannot guarantee anyone watches the adverts it is a hit and miss technique for the companies advertising. Can I assume you have evidence waying up the revenue of adverts with the costs of broadcasting, maintenance etc? So that you can trully way up the losses from these few broadcast areas.
You were born there, and? Nothing stopped you moving away.

 

[turbo]

Your lack of evidence and continual stating that you will not provide any makes your claims here worthless. Why is it dead wrong, if its supplied to you free, then it is costing them to broadcast it to you. Given they cannot guarantee anyone watches the adverts it is a hit and miss technique for the companies advertising. Can I assume you have evidence waying up the revenue of adverts with the costs of broadcasting, maintenance etc? So that you can trully way up the losses from these few broadcast areas.
You were born there, and? Nothing stopped you moving away.

Worthless claims? Man! what claptrap! Broadcast TV has been financed by ad-revenue all my life. Perhaps you haven't noticed that the "free" TV has been paid for by the perceived value that the advertisers paid for to get their ads in front of people. Do you think that Kraft Foods, P&G, Campbells, etc would spend billions to write, produce and air ads if they weren't convinced that the ads make them much more money than they spent? Learn something about advertising before you start throwing around claims that are soundly refuted by decades of the producers "putting their money where their mouth is". Some of the highest-powered people in these consumer-products companies are the folks who run the ad campaigns. That is not a coincidence.

 

[JaredJames]

Worthless claims? Man! what claptrap! Broadcast TV has been financed by ad-revenue all my life. Perhaps you haven't noticed that the "free" TV has been paid for by the perceived value that the advertisers paid for to get their ads in front of people. Do you think that Kraft Foods, P&G, Campbells, etc would spend billions to write, produce and air ads if they weren't convinced that the ads make them much more money than they spent? Learn something about advertising before you start throwing around claims that are soundly refuted by decades of the producers "putting their money where their mouth is". Some of the highest-powered people in these consumer-products companies are the folks who run the ad campaigns. That is not a coincidence.

Did I say the ads don't make money? It's how it works here in the UK and there with you. You are arguing that you DESERVE tv. It is a modern luxury, something people have come to expect. It does not mean they should get it. Yes the ads pay for it, but that does not mean you have to get it. Show me where it says the advert money has to pay for everyone to get tv/to see the ads.

 

[Phrak]

I haven't read the entire thread, did anyone mention that the reason that tv stations were forced to give up their analogue frequencies was a result of lobbying by companies that wanted those frequenicies released so that they could buy it up and the resell it for new "for profit" services? This was not something tv stations wanted to do, they were forced to give up those frequencies by the FCC.

I hadn't heard of any opposition by the broadcast stations to this change, and they own the grievances pulpit. They come out, in general, head with HDTV capability. A short search of the web hasn't revealed any objections. Do you know something I don't know?

 

[turbo]

I hadn't heard of any opposition by the broadcast stations to this change, and they own the grievances pulpit. They come out, in general, head with HDTV capability. A short search of the web hasn't revealed any objections. Do you know something I don't know?

The broadcast stations in this area tried to comply as well as they could, and one of them spent the extra money to provide parallel analog service all winter and into the spring, in the interests of public safety, before they were forced to abandon the frequencies that they broadcast analog signals over. Evo can explain the dynamics nationally (and within the industry, which she works in). I can only comment on what I know, which is that local TV stations were forced to move to new frequencies and adopt digital technologies, and people (sometimes not too far from the trqansmitters) ended up with no TV at all. It's a bit disconcerting when we had an analog system that had been working for the last 50+ years here, financed by ad-revenue, and suddenly the FCC steps in and absconds with that bandwidth and forces TV signals into a frequency-range that is highly directional, leaving many people with NO TV.

 

[Evo]

I hadn't heard of any opposition by the broadcast stations to this change, and they own the grievances pulpit. They come out, in general, head with HDTV capability. A short search of the web hasn't revealed any objections. Do you know something I don't know?

Apparently I do.

I work in telecom, for one of the giants, I have since the late 70's. I happen to have been following this for years.

Do you know one of the main culprits in this is Google because they wanted to go into the cell phone business, but they needed the bandwidth? Companies are alloted ranges, they needed a range. They spent millions lobbying for this. This is all backed by greed and lots of gullible stupid people that are clueless about telecom thinking this was going to mean universal service options. This is of zero benefit to local affiliate stations.

There was no need to take away all of the analogue frequencies. Big greedy companies wanted to be able to bid on and snap up these frequencies. It's a bit disgusting and a loss for the consumer.

 

[JaredJames]

Apparently I do.

I work in telecom, for one of the giants, I have since the late 70's. I happen to have been following this for years.

Do you know one of the main culprits in this is Google because they wanted to go into the cell phone business, but they needed the bandwidth? Comnpanies are alloted ranges, they needed a range. They spent millions lobbying for this. This is all backed by greed and lots of gullible stupid people that are clueless about telecom thinking this it was going to mean universal service options. This is of zero benefit to local affiliate stations.

There was no need to take away all of the analogue frequencies. Big greedy companies wanted to be able to bid on and snap up these frequencies. It's a bit disgusting and a loss for the consumer.

So do you see any upside for the consumer?

 

[Evo]

So do you see any upside for the consumer?

Not unless you consider more companies selling more expensive services is a benefit. I guess if you can afford it, more is better.

 

[Integral]

... Maine was the lumber capitol of the US for many, many years, ...

LOL, I am sorry I just had to laugh at that statement. But then I am from the PNW, we are now just logging sticks here, but our current sticks still are bigger then anything ever logged out of Maine. All Maine sticks are good for is 2 2x4s or pulp.

When was Maine the timber capitol of the US, 1820?

 

[Moonbear]

Apparently, TV is as essential to some people as food: Moonbear, turbo-1, we're talking about *TV* here. TV!

We're talking the local stations that provide weather and emergency reports. Nobody is asking for the 500 channels you can get with cable TV, they're asking to keep their 3 or 4 stations that tell them if it's going to rain and how much to decide if they should plow the fields that week, or plant the corn, or move the cattle to higher ground, or if there's going to be a frost after the planting season has begun. They are people living in areas where there is no cable TV. Before people jump in and say they can just get their news and weather reports from the internet, stop and THINK about where these people live. Many people in those very rural areas do not have internet, or if they do, it's slow dialup, or expensive satellite (many can't afford it). There are no cable lines out there to provide cable TV or cable internet, and they are too far spread apart to get DSL. These are areas without cell phone service as well. And, that's because they live in the areas where the next nearest neighbor is a mile down the road on the next farm.

They aren't going to just run down to the nearest Blockbuster to rent a movie for entertainment either, because the nearest video rental could very well be an hour away, in the town where they also buy their groceries once a month, pick up other supplies, see their doctor and dentist, or get their hair cut.

And, indeed, many people really haven't chosen to live there. They were born there, their whole family lives there, and the only way they know how to make a living is farming. The idea of moving to a suburb or city, even for the ones who might want to leave, isn't usually an option, because they simply can't afford it.

It's the information they get from TV that's important, not the entertainment. You've probably never turned on your TV in the city and heard a farm report, because your local stations aren't going to broadcast it...people in the city don't need a farm report. But, when you get out into rural areas, that is broadcast on the local stations. Weather, crop forecasts, crop pricing, etc. These things are essential for these people to get their crops in on time, harvested at the right time, off to market at a time when they can make a profit, all so they can afford to keep on growing the food you need.

 

[Ouabache]

Do you realize that there are lots of elderly, infirm, shut-ins that rely on broadcast TV for information and entertainment? Often they are living on meager fixed incomes and can't afford satellite or cable TV, if they are even available where they live.

For humanitarian reasons, I sincerely hope these elderly, infirm and shut-ins; are not living in remote rural areas. They would have more basic concerns ahead of news & entertainment, such as obtaining food, medical supplies & services.

So assuming most of the elderly, infirm and shut-ins are close to town; they may get a converter box or a digital TV to watch television. For entertainment, the elderly may join a senior's group. They may invite neighbors over, tell stories, make some music (here's a couple of folks having fun http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwaOqEQApZM"). They send out shuttles to bring these folks to social events, meal sites, etc. For local news, an AM receiver does a nice job.

It's the information they get from TV that's important, not the entertainment. You've probably never turned on your TV in the city and heard a farm report, because your local stations aren't going to broadcast it...people in the city don't need a farm report. But, when you get out into rural areas, that is broadcast on the local stations. Weather, crop forecasts, crop pricing, etc. These things are essential for these people to get their crops in on time, harvested at the right time, off to market at a time when they can make a profit, all so they can afford to keep on growing the food you need.

Having enjoyed living in rural America for five years, I noticed TV wasn't essential. For detailed weather information, NOAA transmits on VHF, and can be heard on scanners and weather radios (e.g. weather frequencies for http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr/stations.php?State=WV" ) They listen to all the farming news on the radio (even out in the barn, while milking cows, ...Moooo )..

 

[russ_watters]

We're talking the local stations that provide weather and emergency reports.

Sorry, that's just plain not a good enough reason. Heck, TV isn't even the best medium for an emergency weather report: radio is. Anyone who lives in a disaster prone area should have a battery - or better yet, hand crank - operated weather radio. That's a federally funded service that exists specifically for that purpose.

Nobody is asking for the 500 channels you can get with cable TV, they're asking to keep their 3 or 4 stations that tell them if it's going to rain and how much to decide if they should plow the fields that week, or plant the corn, or move the cattle to higher ground, or if there's going to be a frost after the planting season has begun.

My grandfather had a battery operated weather radio sitting on his kitchen table for decades precisely that purpose. Today, a computer is better for that, but he never really got into computers. Either way, you don't need a tv for it. About the only thing he ever watched on TV was Phillies games.

More importantly, I can't see forcing tv stations to cater to such a tiny fraction of the population.

 

[russ_watters]

Worthless claims? Man! what claptrap! Broadcast TV has been financed by ad-revenue all my life. Perhaps you haven't noticed that the "free" TV has been paid for by the perceived value that the advertisers paid for to get their ads in front of people. Do you think that Kraft Foods, P&G, Campbells, etc would spend billions to write, produce and air ads if they weren't convinced that the ads make them much more money than they spent?

So... Kraft pays for it, therefore you are entitled to it? That math doesn't add up. The TV stations do what they need to do to get ad revenue and make a profit, that's it. If that means ditching you, that's life.

 

[russ_watters]

Mainers live here primarily because we were born here and made livings for ourselves here. It was not a conscious decision "I have to move to Maine" for most of us. Maine was the lumber capitol of the US for many, many years, and we still supply lots of maple syrup, potatoes, blueberries, salmon, groundfish, lobsters, etc that people in urban areas come to rely on when they go to their stores. Urban populations cannot possibly live without rural populations to supply their food-stuffs. There is no way that DC, NYC, Philly, etc could sustain any but a tiny portion of their populations without people in rural US catching their fish, raising their cattle, growing their vegetables, etc.

Congratulations. Is TV your reward for raising cattle and catching fish?

Again, if you think broadcast TV is "free"...

It's free for you. That means the TV station has no obligation to you, only to the ad company - the one who pays th bills.

Whole industries were built on TV advertising, and you shouldn't have to think too long to come up with some examples.

It's a numbers game - if there aren't enough people out there for the ad revenue to justify putting effort into giving you service, then they won't. Maybe it makes you feel unimportant. If this is a blow to your ego, tough. Get over it.

 

[Evo]

I have to say that I agree with different sides here.

I agree a lot with Russ as far as there being alternatives for essential news and broadcasts.

I agree with turbo & Moonbear that a lot of the poor and elderly rely on tv for a connection to the outside world. Just for that connection to a link to the outside, if nothing else, that's all they have and this legislation just steamrolled over them and it was greed that did it. We do not need google to provide us cell phones.

That link did not have to be removed in order for the Big Companies, such as Google, to get their license to sell cellular (which was one of the main drivers in this whole thing). Some analogue frequencies could have been left, at the very least, for some local tv affiliates, and I think it should have.

This decision in favor of big business without regard for consumers was wrong and ill conceived. Big business won, the little people lost.

Yes google we need yet another cell phone company, thank you.

 

[JaredJames]

I have to agree with russ, you gave a long rant about how you NEED tv, you had a go at every other available service yet neglected radio.

Given that they spend their whole lives there, they must have done something to entertain themselves all those years? I imagine sitting in front of the tv 24/7 wasn't it.

What are the odds of a power outtage in a severe storm, rendering the tv useless? A lot higher than your hand crank radio running out of charge!

 

[JaredJames]

Congratulations. Is TV your reward for raising cattle and catching fish?

If it is, I know some scientists due for a round trip to the moon!