Antenna Sales Are Rising, In Another Sign of Churn In TV Watching (startribune.com)

Rick Schumann shares a report from Star Tribune: Twenty percent of homes in the U.S. use a digital antenna to access live TV, up from 16 percent just two years ago, according to Parks Associates market research in Texas. The Twin Cities has an even higher antenna percentage. Local antenna installers say business has been rising about 20 percent to 25 percent annually for several years. It's the eighth largest broadcast-only market in the country, with more than 22 percent of homes using antennas to get local TV, according to TVb.org, a local broadcast trade association. Duane, Wawrzyniak, owner of Electronic Servicing in Silver Lake, Minnesota, cites high TV bills every month for the increased antenna sales. According to the report, "In the Twin Cities and much of Minnesota, antenna users can receive 10 to 60 TV channels, often in high-definition quality, over the air at no expense."

You can check the DTV signals that are available at your location here.

Comments

Re:OTA fills a perfect niche

[Ken_g6]

ATSC is being upgraded "real soon now" to version 3.0. On one hand ATSC 3.0 will have up to 4K resolution compressed with HEVC. On the other hand, it's may also have stuff like an effective "broadcast flag", so you may not be able to record your favorite shows, encryption, so you may get OTA pay-per-view or something, and upstream transmission which may be used for Facebook-like spying for advertisers or something.

On the other other hand, there's supposed to be a "lighthouse" station for awhile with the major ATSC 1.0 channels, but they'll be compressed to heck, like Joe_Dragon says below.