US Switches To Digital TV And The World Doesn't End — Nor Does Hollywood
from the phew dept
We were quite surprised to find no further calls for delays on the switchover to digital over the air TV from analog — but we’re not at all surprised to find out that the actual switchover happened with relatively few problems. Sure there are some people who are confused or who are having difficulty getting their new converter boxes working properly, but there’s been no catastrophic failure or problems, and most of the issues seem to have been resolved pretty quickly. Perhaps the gov’t really did need a few extra months, but my guess is that the same thing likely would have happened back in February… or if we had done the switchover years ago. So, now can we put the old spectrum to good use, finally?
Separately, the EFF is noting that (once again) it appears that Hollywood lied and exaggerated its claim that it needed a broadcast flag that would stop DVR copying of digital TV or it would start pulling content off the air. Funny thing… that didn’t happen. As the EFF notes:
Entertainment industries like to argue that they “need” DRM to make works available. And policymakers have eagerly adopted this argument. But when the bluff is called, it turns out that the DRM wasn’t so necessary after all.
So will our politicians recognize this? Or will they continue to believe Hollywood, everytime it insists it needs some new kind of DRM with legal backing from the gov’t?
Filed Under: broadcast flag, digital tv, drm, hollywood, politics, transition
Comments on “US Switches To Digital TV And The World Doesn't End — Nor Does Hollywood”
Y2K anyone?
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20000102&mode=classic
DTV switch
I agree, it’s like the Y2K “false” scare.
Re: DTV switch
I dunno. I live in a community of about 20,000 people. We went from having CBS(9&10), NBC(7&4), ABC(29&8), FOX(33) and PBS(17,21,27) to only CBS(9&10) and FOX(33) stations now, and only because they are sister stations and share the same tower.
5 Stations, down to 2. Every station has 3-6 towers in northern Michigan as they cover the upper Peninsula too. Now anyone 50 miles north, or more, of Grand Rapids is very limited to their choices due to geographic issues (ie: large hills block signals).
In addition, the NBC/ABC station partnership can’t be allowed to reach us, in the Cadillac Michigan area, as they can’t go full power on their closest tower (13miles away). This is apprenyly due to a station in Grand Rapids 120 miles south of them having the same station number (channel 7) and it MIGHT interfere with their signal as you get nearer to the Grand Rapids area. I’m hoping a lawsuit will fix it before the end of summer – but nobody is saying how it might go…
Similar issues abound across northern michigan in multiple cities/areas.
That’s 2/3rds of the broadcast area in one of the largest states in the country that has lost up to half their broadcast station availability.
Is this what was supposed to happen?
Actually, it has taken a few years and an economic crisis to show that things are already turning out true.
Network shows are now available on torrents usually within minutes of the end of the initial broadcast, minus the commercials of course. Even while shows continue to be popular with the public in general, more and more people feel they should get them for nothing (no commercials), which in turn is putting the squeeze on the producers.
Economic times so tough that NBC has scrapped 5 hours a week of prime time drama programming, replacing it with Jay Leno’s new daily talk show, which is both cheaper to produce and so topical that it is better to watch it live. Some affiliates were even pushing to make that hour optional, to allow them to run the local news sooner, which would get them better rates / return on their operations.
Broadcast is quickly reaching a tipping point. By reducing costs (often by firing key characters and replacing them with cheaper new faces) they point has yet to be crossed. But soon it will, and that will likely be the point where the quality and quantity of new programming drops signficiantly to match up to people’s willingness to pay to see the material.
Re: Re:
A lot of flawed arguments in there that have already been addressed.
The fact that shows are available within minutes online after their broadcast is indicative of an underserved market. People want to watch TV shows but want to do so at their own leisure. Downloading the show is one way to do that.
Also you don’t know that NBC scrapped its programming because of economic times. It’s quite possible that people got tired of watching drama shows… or other shows on other networks during the same time slot are better (see USA network adding Burn Notice and Royal Pains this year and last).
Also for what its worth the actual revenue from commercials is down… and not because of downloading (at least entirely). It’s down for the same reason internet advertising is down: The economy sucks and companies are cutting costs from things like advertising.
Re: Re: Re:
USA is an NBC affiliate; this should add weight to your argument. Why would NBC pit two of their own channels against each other with the same type of show at the same time?
Re: Re: Re:
“The fact that shows are available within minutes online after their broadcast is indicative of an underserved market.”
Not really, unless you consider the underserved market to be “people who don’t want to watch commercials, and expect a free ride”. These are people who are not in market, people who don’t want to pay for cable / dish / antenna, don’t own a TV, etc. Yeah, they are an underserved market, but they are also NOT the target market.
“Also you don’t know that NBC scrapped its programming because of economic times. “
NBC made that clear. The Jay Leno show will cost them significantly less than producing comparable dramas in the same time slot. So as ad revenues are dropping, so it NBC’s interest in paying out big money on external productions. Further, NBC (and pretty much every network) continue to move to reality based programming and “live events” that require the audience to watch live to be part of the deal. It’s all an attempt to signficantly cute the price of production, as ratings, drop, ad revenues drop, and the resale market for scripted shows continues to go down as well.
The resale market on scripted shows is an important part of the cost / benefit puzzle, and when the shows are killed by file sharing / downloads, etc, there must certainly be some negative effects on the secondary markets.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
“Not really, unless you consider the underserved market to be “people who don’t want to watch commercials, and expect a free ride”. These are people who are not in market, people who don’t want to pay for cable / dish / antenna, don’t own a TV, etc.”
And why should any specific company own public airwaves? Public airwaves are for the public, we, as taxpayers (notice that taxpayers PAY), delegate to the government the authority to allocate public airwaves. However, we do so with the intent that they will delegate it in the best interest of the general public (in our own best interest). If they don’t then what’s the purpose of giving the government the authority to allocate airwaves? Let taxpayers decide how airwaves should be delegated and if some station doesn’t like it, then tough. If taxpayers want information broadcasted over the air (airwaves that belong to taxpayers) to be in the public domain then let it be in the public domain. If some station isn’t happy with that taxpayers can replace them with another station. While I don’t really buy your “quality of content will decrease” argument (I think the reverse is true in fact, but seriously, who are you to judge the quality of content? Let taxpayers as a whole judge that) but even if your argument is true, if taxpayers value open airwaves over proprietary content then TOUGH. They have that right and you just have to deal with it.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Making airwaves open itself adds value, people can now post things online and discuss them at their own pace. If that’s the kind of quality that people value over your opinion of what constitutes quality programming then the people have a right to that.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Not really, unless you consider the underserved market to be “people who don’t want to watch commercials, and expect a free ride”. These are people who are not in market, people who don’t want to pay for cable / dish / antenna, don’t own a TV, etc. Yeah, they are an underserved market, but they are also NOT the target market.
You know, I didn’t used to mind commercials when I was younger. Of course that was before commercial breaks started getting to be 4-5 minutes long and coming every 7-8 minutes or so. An hour program used to be about 55 minutes long. Now, you’re lucky if an “hour” program is 45 minutes. Then the show gets syndicated to cable and they chop out even more of the show to allow for even more commercials. However, even that’s not enough for them. They have to plaster banner ads across the bottom of the picture after every commercial break. Then they show more ads during the end credits, which nobody can even read any more. All of these things have made me hate watching “live” TV.
Don’t get me wrong, I still watch new episodes on TV, but the incredibly long commercial breaks mean that I can go channel surfing without fear of missing any of the show. Or I can go into the other room, fix a snack, use the bathroom and be back before the show comes back on. I wouldn’t be doing that if the damn commercial breaks wren’t so &%$#@!* long!
NBC made that clear. The Jay Leno show will cost them significantly less than producing comparable dramas in the same time slot. So as ad revenues are dropping, so it NBC’s interest in paying out big money on external productions. Further, NBC (and pretty much every network) continue to move to reality based programming and “live events” that require the audience to watch live to be part of the deal. It’s all an attempt to signficantly cute the price of production, as ratings, drop, ad revenues drop, and the resale market for scripted shows continues to go down as well.
I watch almost exclusively scripted shows. I hate “reality” shows, I don’t watch Leno or the other talk shows and I don’t watch “live events”. I used to watch at least 2-3 hours of TV every night, but as they fill their schedules with this crap, I’m watching less and less TV. Thanks networks, you’ve given me more free time!
The resale market on scripted shows is an important part of the cost / benefit puzzle, and when the shows are killed by file sharing / downloads, etc, there must certainly be some negative effects on the secondary markets.
Do you want to know one of the reasons for that? People want to see a complete copy of a show, not one that’s been butchered for syndication. Maybe if the secondary market didn’t drop entire scenes so that they could fit in a few additional commercials, people might watch the repeats more.
I once made the mistake of watching a syndicated Simpsons episode on a local channel. It was like watching Turbo-Simpsons. There were no pauses between scenes, as soon as the last line in a scene was spoken, it went directly to the next scene, usually omitting the establishing shot of the new location. The entire pacing of the show was destroyed.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
One of the things I learned a long time ago was not to attempt to treat my taste as the taste of everyone.
“I watch almost exclusively scripted shows. I hate “reality” shows, I don’t watch Leno or the other talk shows and I don’t watch “live events”. I used to watch at least 2-3 hours of TV every night, but as they fill their schedules with this crap, I’m watching less and less TV. Thanks networks, you’ve given me more free time!”
Here is a great example: More people watch “Amerian Idol” and “So you think you can dance” than watch most scripted shows. So while you have more time, more and more Americans are tuning into reality shows.
Since reality shows tend to cost much less per viewer than scripted shows, their ad rates are much higher – this is also due in part to their lack of a resale market.
“Do you want to know one of the reasons for that? People want to see a complete copy of a show, not one that’s been butchered for syndication.”
I don’t see that problem with syndication for the most part. It depends on the channel you are watching on, I guess. If a show is being chopped up, don’t watch it on that syndicator. It isn’t like the Simpsons isn’t on 27 times a day.
“An hour program used to be about 55 minutes long. Now, you’re lucky if an “hour” program is 45 minutes. “
The magic number is 44 minutes. The more the public clamours for big stars, big productions, and other costs, the more the networks will be looking to jam more commercials in. Remember, “free” TV isn’t free.
The funny part is the more people who watch online (and eliminate the commercials) the more likely the number of commercials will increase. Again, if the content producers can’t get their money back for making the content, they will stop making the content.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Here is a great example: More people watch “Amerian Idol” and “So you think you can dance” than watch most scripted shows. So while you have more time, more and more Americans are tuning into reality shows.
I know a couple people who watch such shows. I also know several who are sick of “reality” shows, which are anything but.
I don’t see that problem with syndication for the most part. It depends on the channel you are watching on, I guess.
EVERY syndicated show is cut, the only question is how much. Cable channels like USA, TBS, Spike, etc, are the worst, however local channels aren’t much better. Not to mention that some of them will often censor things that aired on other channels. Take USA for example. In their show “La Femme Nikita”, they showed a male character, fully nude from the back in a well-lit room in a shot that lasted probably 10 seconds or more. However in an episode of the show “Highlander”, they placed a blurry spot under a woman’s arm as she changed her top with her back to the camera, because you could see the side of her breast for about 1 second.
If a show is being chopped up, don’t watch it on that syndicator. It isn’t like the Simpsons isn’t on 27 times a day.
That only works for really popular shows that are syndicated to different stations. What happens when USA or Spike buys the exclusive rights to air a show?
The magic number is 44 minutes. The more the public clamours for big stars, big productions, and other costs, the more the networks will be looking to jam more commercials in. Remember, “free” TV isn’t free.
The irony is that most of the “hit” shows featured mostly unknowns when they first started, but yet they still went on to be big hits. Take “Friends” for example. What were any of the cast known for before the show started? Sure, you might have seen them in a couple other things, but if you had mentioned their names to anyone on the street, the response would have been “Who?”. Who’s the big star on Heroes? How famous was Kiefer Sutherland before “24”? I knew him from “The Lost Boys” and “Stand by me”, but that was about it. How many people in America knew who Hugh Laurie was before “House” premiered?
The funny part is the more people who watch online (and eliminate the commercials) the more likely the number of commercials will increase. Again, if the content producers can’t get their money back for making the content, they will stop making the content.
The number of commercials was steadily increasing long before downloading shows off the net became common.
I just wish I’d had a broadband internet connection years ago. I can’t count the number of shows I watched that were killed after only one season, or sometimes after just a few episodes and which have never been syndicated or released on DVD. It’s too bad this level of piracy hadn’t been in effect back then. If it had, maybe those shows would be “lost” now.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
“Not really, unless you consider the underserved market to be “people who don’t want to watch commercials, and expect a free ride”. These are people who are not in market, people who don’t want to pay for cable / dish / antenna, don’t own a TV, etc. Yeah, they are an underserved market, but they are also NOT the target market.”
Actually, I am one of the downloaders, and I not only have a TV, but Dish Network and DirecTV. So Why do I download all the shows I want to watch, because my local channels are stuck in disputes with the Satcos wanting more money for carriage of their HD feeds, and I get SD only. I definitely consider myself to be in an “underserved market”. I want to watch Prime Time television in HD. I’d gladly watch them from my locals, if they were in HD. Now I have the choice of watching them in HD from a BitTorrent (actually I rarely BitTorrent, I use other ALTernatives) or watch them in a horrible quality SD feed from the provider I pay to get television. Please explain how I am looking for a “free ride” as you state?
Re: Economic Crisis and Payment
People will pay the rate they feel is adequate. If the networks have any say they will get advertisements and have people pay for the material as well. The double charge is something the consumers need to stop and draw a line in the sand on right now. Online options are bringing back new/ old choices and these same arguments have been around for years.
People have been getting scammed for years by the entertainment industry. Cable was originally setup to be a no advertisement set of channels. Somehow the entertainment industry and cable industry thought they could get away with double charging for the channel and through use of advertisement content. I don’t view downloading as a problem since most of these people are paying for cable service already and content shifting such as DVR services are permissible by law. There is nothing wrong for people to chose they way the want to see what they are already paying for…you have been duped by these companies to think otherwise.
Cutting back on shows is completely a network choice. I view it as a mistake to show Leno every night. NBC will lose viewers in droves to any reasonably decent show in that timeslot. When NBC starts losing even more market share to other networks they will need to produce quality content again. Right now they are just seeing what they can get away with, but I doubt the experiment will last more than next year. Should be interesting to see the failure in action…
Politicians
They will do what the content providers bribe them to do, plain and simple.
Besides, the quality of TV has been terrible lately. I know that the reality shows are popular, but they are scripted and hardly anything you would watch twice.
Really?
The broadcast flag may have been defeated, but I guess the cable networks never got the memo. On my TiVo HD, every single show that is aired in HD that comes from a non-OTA broadcaster is “copy protected” and I can’t move the show to my iPod Touch or anything. Even shows that were originally broadcast (CSI, etc) are copy protected on other networks over the cable.
EFF, may I suggest that this be one of your next targets? Make the cable companies honor the ORIGINAL state of copy protection (or lack thereof) on content.
Down four channels since Friday
I have a digital tuner box and was doing pretty well with it a few months ago when I first tested it. I settled on a little simple bowtie antenna I had in the junk box.
I rescanned Saturday and lost 5-FOX, 7-ABC, 9-CBS and 20-MYTV. 20 always was iffy. The other three had been solid. 7 and 9 switched their digital signal to their old VHF frequencies and out of the range of my antenna. I have no idea what happened to 5.
I have 14 assorted channels left with 3 on the NBC affiliate and 4 on the ION affiliate.
Re: Down four channels since Friday
I can tell you live in my area by the channels you mention… Plan on rescanning again several times… The idea was for TV to stop using the VHF completely and move to UHF exclusively… I don’t know what 9 and 7 are up to, but they can’t stay in the VHF range too long…
FYI, I got a new set of channels after the change, a set of foreign language broadcasts (other than Spanish) around channel 35.1-5 (I think. Not at home, so confirm the new channels…)
Re: Re: Down four channels since Friday
Those are MHz channels on 35 if you are in the DC market.
7 & 9 thought staying on VHF would be a better deal for them but the don’t have the signal strength to reach outside the beltway to Fairfax. 5 and 20 turned up today when I switched antennas.
Funny story...not.
I was pretty much ignoring the whole digital TV switch thing (other than giving my converter coupons to my mother-in-law), since I have DirecTV with local channels included. But on June 10, we received a letter from DirecTV dated June 1, telling us that our existing dish and receivers need to be replaced to accomodate the digital signals. July 31 is the earliest we can get them replaced. Luckily for my family, I can locate online both the shows we watch from our local channels. I don’t have anything to stream media to our TV, though, so they either have to watch on one of the computers, or i have to burn to DVD to watch on the 27-inch “big screen”.
Re: Funny story...not.
This has nothing to do with the broadcast DTV switch, but with Directv moving many of its channels over to a different satellite and using a different video compression technology. Directv has already been phasing out its older HD channels that used the MPEG-2 format, in favor of the more efficient MPEG-4 format. In order to view the MPEG-4 channels, you need an elliptical dish and a newer receiver. HD subscribers have already been getting upgraded, and this sounds like another part of their plan to get as many subscribers onto MPEG-4 receivers as possible.
Directv’s older standard definition feeds still use the less efficient MPEG-2 format. Directv still has millions of subscribers that only subscribe to their standard definition service, but they still want to free up satellite capacity in order to accommodate additional national channels, particularly HD channels.
The easiest way to free up bandwidth is to eliminate the local MPEG-2 feeds in the smaller markets, switch the local stations over to MPEG-4, and upgrade everybody’s equipment in those markets. A local channel in New York takes up the same amount of satellite bandwidth as a local channel serving a small market. It would be cost prohibitive for Directv to upgrade everybody in the New York media market, but not as much so for a smaller market.
“Entertainment industries like to argue that they “need” DRM to make works available. And policymakers have eagerly adopted this argument. But when the bluff is called, it turns out that the DRM wasn’t so necessary after all. “
and the same exact thing is true for the patent scare. “We need patents to advance technology, it’s good for pharmaceuticals” but it’s all the same exact bluff. They need patents to protect their profit margins, the laws are in place for their purposes, not ours. Patents also increase the incentive to lie about the results of R&D and to lie about how much of it is government funded (ie: make it look like less of it is government funded than really is the case). We shouldn’t trust these people (or the government) to tell us the truth about anything, the best we can do is alleviate the incentive to lie by reducing the reach of the patent system.
Big Whoop.
I’m afraid I missed all the excitement, since I have not watched any TV at all in a couple of years.
My friend bought a set of converter boxes, hooked them up, scanned in all the channels and had a decent selection. Since the switch, that selection has dropped by about half. Also, because we’ve had some bad weather here for the past month or so, he says that one station has been unavailable to him at least half the time.
Really?
> So will our politicians recognize this? Or
> will they continue to believe Hollywood,
> everytime it insists it needs some new kind of
> DRM with legal backing from the gov’t?
C’mon, Mike. You don’t think those politicians actually *believe* Hollywood, do you? They know the stuff Hollywood asks for is nonsense and unnecessary. They just don’t care. They take the money Disney and Paramount and Warners hands out and do what they’re told.
I Don't Watch Them Now
Re: Re:
by Anonymous Coward – Jun 15th, 2009 @ 8:12am
——————————————————–
“The fact that shows are available within minutes online after their broadcast is indicative of an under served market.”
“”Not really, unless you consider the under served market to be “people who don’t want to watch commercials, and expect a free ride”. These are people who are not in market, people who don’t want to pay for cable / dish / antenna, don’t own a TV, etc. Yeah, they are an under served market, but they are also NOT the target market.””
Da market are da youts, to paraphrase “My Cousin Vinney”
This is the same market that now expects free music.
I record most of the TV I watch, and I have a 30 second button that allows me to skip forward. I torrent TV mostly because I missed a show, do I mind that HDTV_LOL removed the commercials, nope. It seems like you do not know who the TV people aim TV at.
“Also you don’t know that NBC scrapped its programming because of economic times. “
NBC made that clear. The Jay Leno show will cost them significantly less than producing comparable dramas in the same time slot. So as ad revenues are dropping, so it NBC’s interest in paying out big money on external productions. Further, NBC (and pretty much every network) continue to move to reality based programming and “live events” that require the audience to watch live to be part of the deal. It’s all an attempt to significantly cute the price of production, as ratings, drop, ad revenues drop, and the resale market for scripted shows continues to go down as well.
The resale market on scripted shows is an important part of the cost / benefit puzzle, and when the shows are killed by file sharing / downloads, etc, there must certainly be some negative effects on the secondary markets.
Please give me an example of a show killed by sharing.
I know 2 examples where sharing and reruns brought back shows.
Firefly, but sadly only as a movie.
Futurerama, coming soon to a TV near you.
I bet there are others.
Oh and I fixed your spelling for you too.
Digital TV cutover
I have a dish for watching all the channels other than local, and an antenna that I was using for watching local ABC,CBS, NBC and FOX. My TVs are not Digital, thus I no longer watch my local channels. Their loss.