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Local TV Could Go the Way of Newspapers
Hugh Pickens writes "Alan D. Mutter writes on his 'Reflections of a Newsosaur' blog that the economics of local broadcasting may begin to unravel as dramatically in the next five years as they did for newspapers in the last five years, due to the unparalleled consumer choice made possible by a growing mass of (mostly free) content on the Internet. 'Once it becomes as easy and satisfying to view a YouTube video on your 50-inch television as it is to watch "Two and a Half Men," audiences will fragment to the point that local broadcasters will not be able to attract large quantities of viewers for a particular program,' writes Mutter. The economics of cable TV programming already are geared to serving small but targeted niches, but as audiences shatter, those options won't be available to local broadcasters, who will be deprived of the vast reach that enabled the high ad rates and enviable profits long associated with their businesses. Although barely 8% of US households had access to IPTV in 2009, this technology is likely to be available to some 20% of the more than 100 million homes subscribing to pay-television services in 2014, according to senior analyst Lee Ratliff of iSuppli, a private market research company. 'We already have gotten a hint of what the future could hold. Acting to trim spending during the recession, many local stations cut back their news staffs, resulting in a decline in the caliber and depth of their coverage,' writes Mutter."
Local sports on TV will not die and WGN is good with there local news and they have the best meteorologist.
Also CSN CHI / CSN + is one of best sports channels.
as local TV currently runs very little news about local events, politics, etc., only celebrities and murder, so the results of this include an out of control county and city council. So the faster they dry up the better in my opinion because they are not really providing any service to the public.
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
"Once it becomes as easy and satisfying to view a YouTube video on your 50-inch television as it is to watch "Two and a Half Men," I don't know... Two and a Half Men... That's a pretty high bar as far as satisfaction is concerned.
Considering the local news in must burgs, there is not much room below absolute zero to fall.
I watch HULU through the PS3 I have hooked up to the wide screen TV. I use it to watch the show "Community" as I cannot DVR it due to only having 2 channels that can be recorded. I really do not notice any quality difference. In fact, I prefer it as there is only 1 commercial between breaks.
You pay for cable tv to get access to those channels. They then make you watch 15 minutes/hour of commercials. Either free and with commercials or pay for no commercials. You cant have your cake and eat it too. The local channels need to go commercial free and that will increase the value of their product and will attract viewers.
Whether or not a two hour "Who's the Boss" block in the evenings is worth anything is fully up for debate, but local news channels fulfill a niche that the crush of 24/7 news channels doesn't touch. I want local weather, local street closings, local politics, local crime, local sports. In the hours right about dinner I'd guess that the ratings of local channels rate higher than cable news. How they fill the rest of their schedule, I have no idea.
Jealously hoarding mod points since 2007.
... and I didn't speak up because the music business sucked.
Anybody in local newspapers had better have seen this coming since craigslist if not before. Can the blogosphere figure out how to monetize at a rate high enough to support independent reporting on a local level? That depends on how much money there is in advertising in an interactive medium where space is free (and the wind blows hot). One thing seems certain, we are entering an age where media skills are not based on specialization, have a limited shelf life and the playing field changes every 2 years. Kind of like the music business of the late 20th century.
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
Also, local TV is free, and works when the Internet is congested. Pay-TV, on the other had, is screwed.
There's certainly room for community television -- shows about the community produced by people in the community to satisfy local interests -- but the old model of doing things just isn't sustainable. Local news is *awful*. If anything, that song "Dirty Laundry" is too optimistic. We get a half hour of local rape and murder with half the stories being ads for what's coming on at 11, a half hour of national news watered down and leeched of any real content, and then a half hour of infotainment celebrity shit. And half of all that time is spent on commercials.
Local television is dying? Good. Let me know when they finally bury it, I want to piss on the grave.
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Exactly. Local sports, weather, traffic and regional news are the main reasons we watch the local stations at home. While traveling, local TV is also quite useful. And it's free over the air. The content on the web won't stay free, I guarantee you.
What the hell are those?
in old times, local tvs were limited by the power of their antennas, their syndication deals, and government licenses.
now internet gives them the possibility to broadcast to ENTIRE world. no limitations.
unless telcos kill network neutrality, and bring an environment in which local broadcasters would be forced to make syndication deals with isps, this will be the big break of local televisions.
imagine. one video goes viral and you are on top of the world in just a few hours. keep quality content up, and youll get subscribers in no time.
Read radical news here
Most everything I watch is on Discovery, History or one of the other cable networks. For the most part ABC, CBS, NBC, etc all run low budget and out of date programs & 100's of interchangeable sitcoms.
Last weekend, when I walked around my local Fry's, I found a $700 Sony laptop with BluRay and HDMI. It was TINY, and it would fit snugly next to my Wii. Thanks to HDMI, I could plug it straight into my TV or home theater without any hassles. I'm very tempted to upgrade.
No, I will not work for your startup
Back in the day local news used to actually do local and fairly decent investigative reporting. These days all they do is read propaganda badly disguised as press releases from city, state, federal and corporate officials. I'm going to miss the hottie weather trollops though.
er... hasn't WGN been a cable network for the last 15-20 years? I don't even live in the same state (or even time zone) as Chicago, but all the local cable operators carry WGN, and have carried it even back when it was "Chicago's Very Own Channel 9."
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My mother is not 60 years old yet and will NOT touch a computer. She is not alone.
News used to come from reporters.. and some of it still does, full time professional ethically balanced reporters. These are different from news readers and talking heads who have a bias and and a point of view.
However more and more of what seems to be news is actually generated through the PR business; PR companies pitch stories to reporters looking for "news." Some time they provide footage and certainly make people available for interview including primary sources but also third parties who may seem neutral, etc.
As more and more news comes from the PR process, there is less and less need for the local news since they are not really reporting anything that could not be directly posted on YouTube. In the end we will have "news" channels' like http://gothamist.com/ which collects and presents, curates, and presents stories that other people have reported.
In the future we will have a few real reporters and the rest will be a collection of people who report ABOUT the news pushed by the PR folks. Collaborative filtering and other social filtering methods will help us find the news we need.
http://www.hawknest.com/
I was reading a while ago that while print newspapers are dying, a few niche papers are actually doing very well. The most profitable being local police blotter info reprinted with pictures with mugshots etc. I foresee this whole business moving to the Web along with local news. There is already a Web site that provides hosting for 10 local newspapers in my area. Likely someone will come up with a Web site for communities where amateur reporters as well as a few on staff writers will consolidate news relevant to a local area and live off the advertising revenue.
While I certainly watch sports on local TV I don't really watch any kind of sports reporting or weather reporting or traffic reporting on TV. The internet provides all off that in a much more efficient package. I can go check the local weather right now without having to wait for the news to come on and get around to the weather report.
Right now I am more likely to get news, weather and traffic information from AM radio than I am from local TV stations.
Still, there will have to be some kind of local reporting somewhere, even if its not in the form we have been used to.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
As satisfying as watching Two and a Half Men? Well, that wouldn't take much. An out of focus, artifact ridden, 6 fps, 320 x 240 puppet show would be as satisfying.
I've been thinking about this for some time, since I am about to drop cable and Tivo and go to strictly an internet connection.
It especially came to light this last week when a number of severe storms went through the area. At present the local TV stations offer fantastic coverage of severe weather events, giving the viewer pin-point information on where tornadoes are and where they are headed. People can get prepared more quickly and only need to head for shelter when a storm is imminent. However, if local TV loses its revenue source, how can it financially support such excellent coverage?
Of course the National Weather Service and the county government have a warning system, but the NWS issues a tornado warning for an entire county. This means that the neighborhood sirens go off even though a storm might be 30 miles away -- an unnecessary inconvenience.
I'm also wondering how cable TV will fare. I don't really have a need for it anymore, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. After local TV disappears, cable is next.
Proverbs 21:19
Soulskill is a different person? I thought him and kdawson were the same mongoloid monkey punching keys.
Some people say punctuation is good it makes it possible to break up individual sentences so that they can be read clearly but I have to agree with you that punctuation is a waste of time I dont have time to try to think where to put commas and periods and things and I dont like speling eether speling is too much trouble
When I was in the Caribbean a couple of weeks ago, I discovered that my local CBS affiliate was also the CBS affiliate for the entire Caribbean. Apparently a while back they used to just shot their feed from Erie PA all the way down to the Caribbean and all of the residents down there would be able to watch the local news and advertisements from that Erie.
There are however many other ways a local station can stay afloat. Broadcasting on a tri-weekly schedule can help gather higher quality news for a better broadcast overall. The problem with many local news stations is the attempt to try and stuff daily local news in when there just isn't any news happening at all. There's no need to go overboard every day when three broadcasts a week can cover nearly everything and in many cases improve the quality of the shows and reporting.
Until the Weather Network can give as good a forecast as our local meteorologist, the local TV will still flourish.
Calgary is a very quirky city. Its weather is the strangest thing ever. We have had snow in July, then +30 the next day, we've had sunny skies to rain to hail to sun again in less than 30 minutes. We have had the temperature expected high/low span of more than 35 degrees celcius, for a single day.
There are a few sayings that roll around Calgary:
"If you don't like the weather, wait a bit"
and
"If you plan on going camping, bring your swim suit and your parka."
Its just a matter of time before TV as we know it will go away in favor of something that is completely On-Demand, which the internet is currently king at providing. Some cable companies have their own On-Demand service, but its horrible at best, and they often charge outrageous amounts for it.
I've had a MythTV box running since about 2001, and prior to that I never owned a TV at all. As cable TV switches from analog to digital with restrictions on what you can/cannot record and the requirement of pricey incompatible set top boxes, it won't be long before MythTV fails to work as well. At that point I will likely drop my cable TV entirely and hopefully Google TV or some other alternative will suffice by then, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
The bottom line is that broadcasting programs at specific times of the day is just horrible practice to begin with. People are too busy nowadays and their schedules fluctuate too much. Who wants to schedule their life around the next episode of "Lost" (gag), only to accidentally miss one and be completely "lost" for the rest of the season.
Luckily for them, most cable TV companies offer the internet as well, because eventually TV subscriptions will disappear along with a vast portion of their revenue.
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The local stations here do, and not just celebrities (except impeached governor Blago) and murders, either. There's politics, road closings, city council meetings, etc. Your local stations may not be like that, but the local (Springfield, Decatur, and Champaign) stations are. All three stations cover stuff from the whole central Illinois area, and are worthwile.
Since you live in LA, I can see why they're so celebrity-obscessed, but LA isn't anything at all like anywhere else in the country. Your visiting here would be only slightly less alien than visiting Peru.
Personally, I think the article is full of it. Most folks (not we nerds, but normal people) don't bother with anything more than plopping down on the couch, turning on the TV, and channel surfing. The internet isn't going to change that.
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I hope local TV stays. I am on the verge of ditching the huge sewage pipe AKA Verizon FIOS and just go with local digital TV, internet options, and maybe re-activate my C-Band Sat system. Verizon FIOS has a zillion channels of which almost all of it is garbage programming and the rest is near un-watchable due to 5 minute+ commercials.
Local TV may be free over the Air, but it really works best in cities and suburbs. Regardless, many people get the local channels through cable anyway.
What I see happening generally with TV, is a move towards everything streaming over the internet.
The idea beingyou pay for a service, and it gives you access to on-demand streaming of the entire back-catalog of most prime time TV shows, and other programs that largely follow the same format. Most regular TV shows would be watched in this fashion. On the air date they just appear in the list of streamable programming.
Other programs would support live streams. For example most news programs would have live streams, as would the Weather Channel, sporting events, etc. Those that make sense to also have available on-demand, would be available that way after the live stream is concluded.
Under such a system there would be no such thing as local programming. All sporting events would be national, (although pro sports may insist on black-out regions), and even local news programs would be available nationally, since it would actually be simpler to allow that, and really not add any cost.
Now I recognize that this if it ever happens will take a while. It requires substantial Internet infrastructure upgrades, requires near universal broadband, and it would be opposed by local stations (who would do little besides create the local news broadcasts), the networks (the service would largely replace the networks), producers (thing will change the way funding works, and would definitely really hurt the sales of box sets).
Never the less, we are already gradually heading in this direction, so it is still possible, especially if the networks chose to co-operate, perhaps creating this service as a joint venture among the Big Three and the Little One.
Besides it is really the only chance the Television industry has, since there are already numerous unauthorized TV show streaming sites popping up, and they are far more convenient than tuning in at broadcast time, or even setting up a DVR to tape the shows. All those sites are missing is set-top box support.
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I thought the local events in Los Angeles were celebrities and murder? I agree with you though that the faster the city council dries up, the better, because they are not really providing any service to the public.
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I only get OTA televison. 2 of the local affiliates continuously run weather radar and scrolling news on their 480p subchannel. During storms, the coverage there is better than anything I can get on the internet.
The best local news coverage on the internet are just web versions of the local newspaper and tv/radio news stations, so I don't think the internet will replace them, but rather just supplement them.
Go Cubbies!
That is all.
Parent may be FB, but he's right. TV can do tons of stuff locally that newspaper can't, if only because the lag time between an event and the coverage is so much shorter.
Additionally, with tech advances like some of the ones mentioned in TFA, it only becomes easier to do, as well as cheaper and more profitable with targeted advertising.
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I don't think Pay TV is screwed at all. It's now automatic for Americans to move-into house and hook-up the utilities: electric, water, internet, and cable TV. If you don't have cable TV you're in the minority (~20%).
As for local TV, I think its future is in the hands of the FCC.
And unfortunately the FCC seems to have sold-out to big corporations, because they keep talking about killing broadcast/antenna television. If that happens, I'll be disappointed. I got about 40 non-duplicated channel using my antenna, all free. I have no desire to be forced into paying Comcast $20 a month for "lifeline" basic. I enjoy what I have:
ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CW, MyNetTV, Ion, Univision, Telefutura, PBS (main channels)
Subchannels:
- GetWellTV
- This movie channel
- Weather channel
- NBC Sports
- RetroTV
- MiND
- Megahertz
- Link
- PBSworld
- PBSarts
- TBN
- Church Channel
- Smile of a Child (kiddie programs)
- JCTV
- ENLACE
- qubo (kids)
- IONlife
- Family Channel (old shows and movies)
- Syndicated Channel (current movies, plus shows like Legend of the Seeker)
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Local TV news is easily replaced by the internet. Hell, even Google News has a local section customized to your area.
But the internet provides something that TV simply can't -- hyperlocal news. There's two or three blogs that cover my own neighborhood. You can read up on events in the area, park closures, or see photos of interesting stuff (great for when you're too lazy to venture outdoors.)
It simply wouldn't be economical for TV stations to provide this level of granularity.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
There have been many times where we get snow while it is 30.
I don't care which ones you use, but units are helpful.
Stopped newspapers a few months ago.
Haven't found a good replacement.
Part of the problem has to be the local staff making six figures and the spectrum being bid up.
TV used to be cheap to make. But it can't go backwards so it will die instead.
There is more entertainment and news available than I can consume. I fall a hundred hours behind every week despite occasional binges.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
What are the effects of conglomeration? Smaller, local stations will be crowded out and unable to compete for business.
How do you fight against this tide? Quit trying to emulate CNN and fill a niche that attracts customers who can't find something anywhere else. For example, focus on smaller, local news items that big name cable channels won't touch.
Wait, did you just hear something? Like a localized implosion?
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
Acting to trim spending during the recession, many local stations cut back their news staffs, resulting in a decline in the caliber and depth of their coverage
That's odd, the caliber and depth of news coverage seem exactly the same as before.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
In the last ten years, I've lived in the Pacific Northwest, the Southeast, and now I'm in Texas. If you turn on the local news in any city, they all look exactly the same. They have the same set design, the same color schemes, the same graphics, and the on air personalities are so similar it's weird.
Clearly they've all hired the same set of consultants and just copy from each other. It's really sad and is very similar to what newspapers did.
The local tv stations could go away and I wouldn't miss them. I could just turn on a station from any where else in the country and get the exact same experience.
One notable counter-example that I've seen is CityTV in Toronto. This was about 10 years ago, so things may have changed, but they definitely were trying some new tactics. I'd be curious to know what their broadcast looks like now.
Local stations use to provide something called "local programming" - everything from locally produced "professional wrestling" to kids shows, what have you. But this sort of thing is long gone. Now, "local" stations are little more than network conduits.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
The biggest local station already gets an increase in viewers when the weather turns sour. It's hardly surprising that they have almost as many meteorologists as reporters.
The way that local TV stations will survive is if they figure out what the newspapers didn't— the local angle will sell. The newspapers cut staff and started relying heavily on the AP, which readers can get just as well online. If the news stations start creating more in-depth local stories, they'll get viewers. And as much as people like to decry the feel-good stories, they're watched, so there's no reason to not make them.
Incidentally, I work as a board-operator on a PT basis at the local talk station. You know who is incredibly popular? The gardening guy. You can't do anything but local for gardening; it just doesn't work.
Actually I am a lab rat in an elaborate plot to take over the world.
How many folks in the US *really* get the kinds of speeds needed, plus real unlimited capacity, to make this fly? Where's this ultimate connection outside of a few lucrative fiber roll out areas? Sure, *some* do today, but there are vast areas with millions and millions of people where OTA TV signals will still rule.
The reason why I say this is because I have read every single broadband article here for the last long time, and not one article contained information like " and today, the major telcos and big ISPs announced a trillion dollar plan to roll out fiber optic high speed connection to 98% of the population within x-small number of years".
They aren't spending any profits, not that much, on upgrading physical delivery infrastructure, they are bidding against each other and dropping all the serious coin in buying up media/content producers and each other, bigger fish gobbling the little fish. That leaves like some small percentage for infrastructure upgrade.
In other words, ain't happening without them being forcefully mandated to provide credible high speed connections, not this joke stuff they claim is high speed, like way back when telephone and centralized grid power were first started and they got *ordered* to do it by the government, to not just pluck the low hanging fruit, but to provide it everywhere where they rolled it out.
Paper newspapers are different, they cost a lot, and today, the news is stale by the time you get it. Unless you got a flock of kids in school locally, where you want to read about the little soccer games and so on, local papers got not much anymore, and the larger metro papers, again, stale news. That's why they are folding. But good def TV, being replaced by zillion megahertz-to-think-about-it connections? OK, everyone pack up and move into a few apartments in Korea or something. I mean we *just got* good OTA digital TV all over recently, and it works really well if your antenna-fu is strong, so how is any net TV going to really compete with that when only a small percentage of the population will have that sort of compatible connection?
I used celcius later on. I got lazy and didn't add em to the first one. Figured those smart enough to read the whole comment could use deductive logic.
The airwaves belong to the People.
Corporations have no right to take away the People's airwaves, and leave them cutoff from receiving weather and news reports (for free). It's theft of the People's collective property, just as surely as if a corporation took over control of roads and started charging to use them.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
"The economics of cable TV programming already are geared to serving small but targeted niches"
Yeah, right. So I call Comcast and say I _only_ want Syfy and the result will be.....?
With broadcast, I still have meaningful choice.
Internet stream is still a different matter -- until Hulu starts charging. Next week?
>>>hasn't WGN been a cable network for the last 15-20 years?
No. WGN-TV and WGN America are separate entities. WGN-TV is local broadcast while WGN-A is distributed via satellite (and the piped through local cable lines).
Same goes for WTBS and TBS
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I like it when the conservative local news makes the lone black person on the news neam talk about black crime.
LOLZ. Can you say "awk-warrrd?"
Once it becomes as easy and satisfying to view a YouTube video on your 50-inch television as it is to watch "Two and a Half Men,"
It already is boring to watch youtube on a 50-inch.....I guess we've reached that point
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I define news-sourcing as soliciting news sources from the audience. Already a lot of weather pictures/video and investigative reporting tips come from the audience in my area. A TV journalist polishes up this material and adds a pleasing face and voice. I suspect there will always be a market for journalistic polish. But it may be based from an internet carrier rather than a broadcast studio.
Most folks (not we nerds, but normal people) don't bother with anything more than plopping down on the couch, turning on the TV, and channel surfing. The internet isn't going to change that.
I'll ignore the condescension and just say that I'm a nerd *and* a normal person, and I know quite a few non-nerd normal folks too. My experience says different. Just plopping on the couch something people rarely do - more common is catching all the local info we've all been praising while getting breakfast/lunch/dinner ready for the family, catching up quickly on the way out to sports practice, etc. It's during those hands-free busy times that the local tv info is most useful, particularly around breakfast and dinner times. To be honest, any other time and I would not care if they weren't broadcasting.
has always been financed by advertising on the nationally syndicated programs. The proliferation of cable channels has already fragmented the audience watching local stations. This has reduced the amount that stations can charge for advertising. If people turn to the Internet for their programming, this will only accelerate this fragmentation, making local stations financially unsustainable. It is already happening in Canada where TV networks have demanded that cable and satellite TV providers begin to pay fees to carry their programming, which the cable providers have traditionally not paid for.
Don't forget exploding vans. I'd love to have actual news in Southern California.
Who wants to watch YouTube-quality video on their 50-inch TV when you can get high-def streams free over the air?
P.S.
>>>Local TV may be free over the Air, but it really works best in cities and suburbs.
Not sure where you get that idea. I know lots of people who live in areas classified "rural" by the Census Bureau, and they get free television from 40-60 miles away. It works just fine. ----- IMHO a single point transmitter is still the most efficient way to reach ~1/2 a million households living in a television market. It's transmitting 20 Mbit/s * ~10 stations == 200 Mbit/s of data to each and every home. That's certainly more efficient than running 1/2 million cables.
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>>>the Big Three and the Little One.
I'm guessing "little one" refers to FOX but that's no longer true. They are now the #1 network in viewers, as of this 2009-10 season.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I want my CLTV on Directv!!!!!!!!!!
Once it becomes as easy and satisfying to view a YouTube video on your 50-inch television as it is to watch "Two and a Half Men,"
Is it ever easy or satisfying to watch "Two and a Half Men"?
I dropped Comcast for broadcast TV last week because the signal quality was better. The DB4 antenna really pulls the stations in steady while comcast was always dropping out. I seem to be able to get all the cable content on the web that I care about but for HDTV I think broadcast is best where I live.
Blackhawks games have better ratings then free TV
Just in the last 1-2 rounds there ratings on CSN CHI where better then shows on FOX and other big national cable networks. Also the VS ratings are good as well.
If the publically broadcast television stations can't produce content that is any better or more locally relevant than a you tube video, then they deserve to fail.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
I remember when they said TV would kill newspapers. But we knew then that you can't wrap fish and chips in a TV. Sadly, TV has no such redeeming prosaic use.
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Its not as if there are many programs worth watching surely? I can easily go a week without turning on the TV and I don't feel like I missed much. There are some exceptions of course. I like "Castle", I watch TV shows from Britain (where they still make high quality TV), but overall - at least for me - 99% of the stuff across all the channels is a complete waste of time.
Moreover, the amount of advertising drives me away from watching anything. When you watch an hour of TV and 20mins of it is advertising, whats the point? Particularly if its an old show they are repeating and had to butcher to fit in the extra advertisements.
I buy shows on DvD and watch them without ads. Its far more enjoyable that way, and I control the "broadcast" times.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
From a perspective of having an informed populace, this is probably a good thing. A major aspect of local TV is local TV news which is just awful. Full of emotional strings, whether fear over the latest thing kids are doing, or heartwarming stories about a local cat, they have nothing substantial. And it shows. See for example this study http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/319.pdf which shows that people in the US who get their news regularly from local TV are less informed than any other group of people excepting the people who have no regular news source.
Oh, thank god. I can't wait for local TV's imminent collapse. That, having to hear the watercooler conversations about reality TV (which is thankfully lessened in Tech companies) and the local news only covering "human interest" stories.
I'll deal with my blogs and my alt-weeklies, thankyewverymuch.
Good luck with that.
ObDisclaimer -- I'm not one to talk this year, being an Angels fan.
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WGN is good with there local news
"Local" markets with greater population than some European countries don't really qualify as "local". I live near Sioux City, IA; that is local.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I guess I must be one of those 8% with IPTV.. Well if that's what you want to call a old PC hooked up to the TV.
I already had a hacked WRT54G acting as wireless bridge in the equipment cabinet for the Blueray and Dish DVR. Adding a PC was dead simple.
I can remote control it via Ultra VNC from my laptop or directly by wireless keyboard/mouse sitting by the TV.
Flat screens have made it easier than ever to watch content off the internet on your TV..
Between Netflix, Hulu and the great signal I get from the OTA HD tuner for locals I hardly even turn on the Dish network box anymore.
I'm thinking about dumping Dish at the end of the contract..
At that point I'll build out the existing PC as a Myth box and add HD card for OTA reception.. That will get me the local news and whatever major network junk I want.
Hopefully the locals will pick up on what's going on and offer their local broadcasts online via Hulu or their own web sites.
If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. --Red Adair
WTF? In five years, with luck, youtube may be smooth on my 12" laptop. For a 50" screen I would guess at maybe 70 years, at the current rate of progress.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
I got about 40 non-duplicated channel using my antenna, all free. I have no desire to be forced into paying Comcast $20 a month for "lifeline" basic.
Comcast all but forces you to buy "lifeline" basic if you switch to satellite TV and keep cable Internet.
No shit it's going to happen. Networks are already preparing to air their content on the web with annoying 30 second ads periodically.
Sadly, TV has no such redeeming prosaic use.
Sure it does. I hurl more obscenities at my TV than all my other appliances (and computer hardware!) combined.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
All sporting events would be national, (although pro sports may insist on black-out regions)
Local TV has local advertisers. Who would advertise on a Fort Wayne Komets hockey game being watched in Boise, Idaho? I haven't seen a lot of geotargeted advertising of businesses within my home city on web sites that use the major ad networks, but then that might be because the ads are often SWF, and I have my web browser set up to use a whitelist for SWF.
expected high/low span of more than 35 degrees celcius
I don't care which ones you use, but units are helpful.
Did you miss the "celcius", or are you trying to make a joke about it being spelled "Celsius"?
many people only get cable because it is tied to their ISP.
I can't tell based on the summary if we're talking about local TV or network broadcast TV. I didn't read the articles, of course - that's just absurd.
The summary talks about Two and a Half Men. That has nothing to do with local TV except that local stations are the distribution mechanism. The local TV stations could dry up and blow away. If the audience were there, the advertisers would be too, and we'd all watch it on Hulu or CBS.com.
Local TV is mostly about local news - sports, weather, traffic, and stupid human interest pieces. And occasionally hard news, when the mayor is caught stealing money or the school catches on fire.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
Let's see:
- Cable Internet + DISH satellite == $25 for 1 Mbit/s (or $43 for 15 Mbit/s) + $12 for Dish == $37
- Cable Internet + Lifeline TV == $25 for 1 Mbit/s plus $20 for TV == $45
Yeah the prices are fairly similar in cost. I'd still choose the satellite as it's cheaper.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
How / why do people buy into these crackpot stories?
TV may be able to do many things locally that a newspaper can't, but I don't think they are competing against newspapers, newspapers are already dead -- subscription rates have plummeted and will continue to do so as the new generation gets their news online. I'm not even in the new generation but I haven't subscribed to a newspaper in over 10 years.
TV can't do anything that the internet can't do, and it's more limited. Even when I'm sitting in front of the TV, I don't watch TV news (though maybe because they've stopped showing real news). I prefer to get my news on the web where I can browse several competing news sites and drill deeper into stories I'm interested in. In less time than the 30 minute news, I can read much more news on my own.
Oh, and thanks to Netflix movies on demand and hulu, I don't even watch cable TV, I can watch the shows I want when I want and don't see the need to pay the cable company to deliver 100 crap channels I don't care about just to see the 8 channels that I do care about.
Weather is a local phenomena. I am not interested in knowing the weather 200 miles away, especially if it is "downstream" (Weather systems come form the west.
The weather channel used to have on the bottom of the screen the local conditions, but now it just scrolls through major cities nationwide. We have to wait for 'the local on the 8's
Where I live (Fort Wayne, Indiana, serviced by Comcast), cable Internet is $43 if you have TV through Comcast or $60 if you don't have TV through Comcast. The difference is very close to the monthly price of lifeline cable.
Sure blame the internet and ignore the fact that most news papers are biased, wildly inaccurate, over sensationalised and often printed flat out lies just in an attempt to improve ratings.
With the price of cable and all the available options to watch things for free online, I have found that there is a growing minority that is relying on over the air local tv and getting everything else online. I ditched cable about a year ago. I just use over the air tv, netflix, and hulu. Easily saves me $1200+ a year. As long as you are not a sports junkie it is a very viable option.
The comsumer demographics have driven the broadcast/cabel/movie/enterainment TV interface (you pick the delivery method) since the viewer fascination with Philo's electronics fizzled (1948 entertained some with watching test patterns). My dad's opinion of my shows was low, and I cannot tolerate the current entertainment fads of the young. Dad, Mom, and their buds were lost when radio dropped big band formats, and coming soon, Bye, bye classic rock American Pie! Old people watch news and I despise plotless special-effect marathons that are outdated in 2 months by the next tech advance. "Dancing with the Millionaire Bachelor Star Biggest Loser Survivor Swap Wife Big Brother Jackass all they do is show their lack of intelligence" programs are dog barf! No drama, no plot, no sctipt, no writing slop!
I can watch this style of entertainment while standing in line at the BMV, but I'm not the current demographic paying the freight.
well, back at ya, dude, as you admit, you have a *mid* level quality connection,(apparently a high "mid" level) not lower tier or dialup, which untold millions have as their "choice". You are in that top range they are talking about in the article..not the 80% who can't do this yet, stream large screen HD content with a net connection. And I also indicated I was perfectly aware some people could get it now, *just* to avoid this sort of anecdotal. I am fully aware some folks can get better quality cable or fiber, but most cannot. They get this thing that the providers call broadband, but really isn't..it's barely better than dialup-band, which still don't cut the mustard for high def whizz bang streaming.
See that's the difference, "some" people, not even a majority, but a smallish minority can get it now, and even in some years time from now, it might hit a high 20% penetration who can get this quality of service (in the article, their figures, not mine). So, the other 80% is SOL, so that's why I said "Says who?" to that article in general that it is going to kill off OTA TV because IPTV will "take over" Nuts.. I call BS, the guy is out to lunch, even using his own figures. I won't be taking investment advice from the writer, put it that way.
I think you are misunderstanding me also on another point. I didn't say that internet TV and so on wasn't spiffy, sure it is, seems just wonderful, just that all the other "dudes" out there who aren't already getting mid level or better service, like you are, won't be using it because they can't get that quality of service. Catch 22. Apparently you can, congrats. My anecdotal cancels yours. I have very low tier alleged "broadband", which I am grateful for a lot, stuck on dialup until last year, but no way can it stream even crappy vids. Buffering every ten seconds and just a series of fast stills. This is called "high speed internet" here. If I want to see a vid, I have to download the thing entirely first. And this is the *best* I can get, and millions more are in the same boat..because these providers just upgrade areas where they already provide the best service, they are *not* rolling out to new areas very much.
This gets discussed all the time here, go back and look at every similar discussion, it is called the "low hanging fruit". All sorts of people have complained about it, the FCC is trying to fix it, etc, but the reality is, these big providers absolutely do not give a crap to roll out good service except mostly to areas that they have already "harvested" for customers. They have some magic formula, so many customers per foot or something..outside that area, which apparently 80% of the population is, you won't be seeing true high speed internet unless it is mandated by the government.
I'm glad broadcast TV is going away. It's about time. It sucked, and it always did.
What will be interesting to watch is how they garner sponsors for new TV shows. Right now I see Apple and Dell hardware on shows like Bones and House. I'm guessing well be seeing the usual jock itch and toilet paper products popping up in the appropriate settings.
Best regards.
I can now get, no thanks to the cable guys or ma bell, may they rot, but serious props to a local WISP with the best customer service I have ever had for any product, something better than dialup and cheaper, but that's it. It's not real broadband, it is "other". Youtube streaming is out, but I can download like a linux ISO overnight. Lemme see, I timed it, just upgraded to 10.4 Ungowah linux, took I think 16 hours. On dialup that would have been sixteen days or something.. It's better than dialup, but not "IPTV" level.
My OTA TV though improved dramatically with the digital conversion, three channels to over a dozen any random day, and I still haven't really fixed my antenna all that well(needs full rewiring) or added a rotor(the secret to great reception at a distance, precise aiming and good/the correct elements). My only gripe with digital is it is y/N, there is no mid ground watch a fuzzy channel action like with analog TV.
I am not all that much complaining though, there is NO WAY I would trade my job or location just to watch internet TV living in town someplace. Ta heck with that. The tradeoff is lopsided towards my personal choice lifestyle out here not really in the sticks, but edge of 'burbia where the farms really start.
Anyway, you want better TV, *height*. Go higher on your tower, and get that rotor, you really need both if you got zilch or crappy signal. I spent many a weekend helping my dad slap in antennas/towers for people when I was growing up.
Lemme see... http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx
You can input your x-y there and see what you can get theoretically with varying antenna heights. Every section higher, every ten feet, increases your odds of snagging good signal from *someplace*.
Now if you mean there is no local TV signal to get at all, because of that economic FCC gerrymandering..I got bupkis. If there is no station, there is no station.
Or you could start a station... ;) quarter million people seems a decent enough market..
The FCC could have and should have killed it during the "digital changeover" There is absolutely no reason that TV should be broadcast over airwaves. For the government cost of the changeover they could have subsidized basic satalite/cable to any poor people who don't get it(which is who actually?). Then we would have had more spectrum for better uses.
Occasionally I catch glimpses of the local TV news on the rare occasions I watch a local TV station. More often than not, it's some inflammatory piece of garbage poisoning everyones minds. The rest of the time it's trite garbage pretending to be "news". A couple weeks ago the big teaser headline was their "investigative report" on food sold at local supermarkets that was past its best by date. Shocking!
This isn't just my area. I've seen local TV news shows across the US before, and by and large they're all exactly the same. This form of news I will not miss, and welcome its death with open arms. Frankly if I knew how, I'd try to hasten its death.
AccountKiller
Well, in order for Internet to defeat TV, people need to start hooking up their TV's to their computers.
It's not hard. Modern digital TVs are computer monitors.
But I've never seen it done. In open society, inertia is rampant.
It's transmitting 20 Mbit/s * ~10 stations == 200 Mbit/s of data to each and every home. That's certainly more efficient than running 1/2 million cables.
Yes. But the question is, how long can you get enough people to watch the same 10 stations?
The elephant in the room is "balkanization," and everyone is struggling to figure out how hard it will hit.
Personally I think it's possible to be "not much," but only if broadcasters make a concerted effort to appeal to an audience.
If broadcasters take the route of cutting costs and services, then it will be "severe."
What is the old adage? That you have to spend in a recession? How does cancelling Leno and Conan figure into that equation?
Local sports on TV will not die and WGN is good with there local news and they have the best meteorologist.
Also CSN CHI / CSN + is one of best sports channels.
Amen to that. Rupert Murdoch and the cartel that is NewsCorp is doing a hell of a job keeping local sports alive on TV with FSN. So much so that there's a likeness north of the border being run by Rogers Communications called RSN.
"Ahhh Noooooo - they are ruining the add show with another movie break - fuck man can't these guys do anything right?"
Most of the TV is the reject sitcoms from the US and A, and what local content there is - is just garbage.
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Then there are the late night porno adds for watching strippers lezzing it up on your mobile phone; and the ring tone adds.....
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After 11pm - and it's just total bullshit. 5 minutes of adds - with the same 2 or 3 adds being the same add played over 3 or 4 times.
.
The station programmers are such cock heads - that during the marriage of Prince thingy of Denmark and Princess Mary of Tasmania (Australia) like for the premium rating in the premium moment - just as they were about to say the vows and slip the rings on - On comes another add for "Fucking Happy Harry's new and used caravans"
.
I mean that is how stupid these cunts are.
Fuck them - Except for the ABC - all TV in Australia is just shit.
10 antenna-received stations == about 25 channels because of the -2 and -3 subchannels. That's not as many channels as basic cable offers (~50) but then it also doesn't come with a ~$65/month bill.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
FSN sucks CSN gives the teams control CHI is 80% team owned.
I never said that it did not work in rural areas, but rural areas often require much larger antennas, possible including large towers for mounting the antenna depending on the distance from the city. Those can be significant costs. In the city a a $10 antenna is often more than good enough. Similarly weather is far more likely to affect rural reception than urban reception (although I will admit weather is more like to affect satellite than terrestrial reception).
As for Fox, They are #1 in Nielsen ratings, but that means rather little. Nielsen ratings are biased heavily in favor of Idol type shows, because those have a strong advantage for watching live, rather than using a DVR. The appellation "Little One" would still be appropriate anyway even if it was far and away the #1 network, since it has a smaller prime-time lineup than the others given the earlier news program.
Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524
I guess I'm a hipocrite; I never watch local news anymore (you will never find louder commercials than those within small-market news shows), but I do rely on local, timely updates of weather during tornado season (that brief period from March to September). I do use the NWS online, but it doesn't tell you the whole story like spotters and local meteorologists can. Unless you live in a major media market, or want to know the forecast for Aruba, The Weather Channel, et al are worthless to us more rural folk.
Do you mean to state that you cannot understand what the GP is saying?
If I had to summarize I would say
"Many obstacles to the growth of media providers have been removed by the internet. Assuming this remains the case, local broadcasters should benefit."
While the factual accuracy of this statement could be disputed, I don't see specifically what makes it so hard to read/understand.
I am not sure where the "disrespectful teenager" interpretation comes from.
I did notice that the first letters of sentences weren't properly capitalized. Is that what you were focusing on?
While technically true, they need *some* computing device connected to their TV, it doesn't necessarily need to be a computer. In my case, it's a "Roku" streaming device where I can get Netflix. This alone has been enough to prevent me from ordering cable service. Many new blu ray players are also coming with Netflix and other streaming services including Youtube. In 6 months, it may be a "GoogleTV" device.
Like most people on Slashdot, I have the technical know-how to connect a computer to my TV, it's just not worth the hassle to me so I went with the dedicated streaming device (as will most people).
If Hulu gets onto streaming boxes, then cable is *really* in for some competition.