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I STILL Want My HDTV
jhaberman writes: "Slate.com has an opinion piece talking about the horrific mess the HDTV rollout has been. It seems everyone's
been to blame from the hardware manufacturers, to the cable/satellite companies,
to the producers of the actual shows. I fell into the trap a year ago buying a
top of the line Sony Wega digital TV and I STILL don't have ANY HDTV! Here's why..."
From the article:
"Fox probably thought, 'Since widescreen at 480 is good enough for the millions who watch DVDs, why spend a lot more to please the few purists?'"
As much as I hate to admit it, from a purely business standpoint the network executives are probably being most prudent in not commencing with the conversion at this point.
Like any industry, television networks are in business to make money and their executives have an obligation to move forward with the best strategies possible to realize this goal. Unfortunately, what may make good business doesn't always equate to what promotes progress.
To use a simple metaphor, one need look only as far as the automobile industry. We have known for years that automobile emissions are bad for the environment. Additionally, we have much (if not all) of the technology available this very minute to switch to an alternative fuel source resulting in vehicles which would be much more 'environmentally freindly' - ethanol or electic power. Why don't we convert - because the automobile industry is just like the television industry, they are in it for the money. The obvious positive progress aside, such advances increase overhead and decrease corporate profit margins - aka 'bad business'...
I think it suck as much as anyone - I own a wide-screen, HDTV compatible set!!! However, putting myself in their position, I can't argue with their decisions at this point in time...
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. -- Benjamin Franklin
I'd like to make a case for blaming Neilson ratings. They determine whether a tv is tuned to a particular channel, and not whether people are actually watching it right? Well that allows TV stations to over report their viewership. Since media conglomerates want to appear to have more people watching for longer times, in prime demographics, maybe useing that extra spectrum they were given for many standard channels rather than one HD channel would allow them to more efficiently inflate their viewership to increase their ad revenue, while provideding more time to schedule infomercial programming for us insomniacs.
But if there were accurate reporting, ie people leaveing to get a pop when a commercial came on, sleeping through the news, in short if it tracked how much time people really spent watching TV, they might find trends which I'll preceed to predict with no basis in fact and only wild speculation as my guide. I would bet people with HD TV's recieving HD programing would spend more time watching TV than average, watch longer, and prefer HD programs to standard programs. Since they have the money to spend on purchases like HD TV's and are willing to spend it, it puts them in a better demographic. But most importantly, I'll try to justify this assertion with hand waving and magic powder, that they'd be more likely to watch commercials, as HD commercials would feature more eye candy and probably be more entertaining. And I'm not just talking about Victoria's Secret.
If the viewing habbits were accurately compiled, and my prognostication came to pass there might be a very real, very powerful market pressure where to get the really lucrative advertisers you have to have a HD signal.
But again, just how I think it might really be.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
I just call DirecTV. I have a "dormant" account. Each year, they put NFL Sunday Ticket on my spring bill. Each year I call up CS and ask, "$140 is a pretty good chunch of change - are all the games going to be broadcast in High Definition?" Each year the rep has informed me that the games would not be in HD. Each year I tell them to cancel my Sunday Ticket and call me when they start broadcasting in High Def.
I vote with my wallet.
--
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Heh, that was a while ago. Did you save it somewhere? Or is it deep in the /. archive?
I actually wrote it for my fraternity mailing list. The reference to Sun-day is an inside joke.
It pays to be a broadcast engineer in discussions like this.
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