Quote:
Originally Posted by bicker
Part of it is might be that the justification isn't really there to spend money on measures that will aid reception as much as some would like.
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If you mean the money isn't in the station's budget to run
PSA's about them flash cutting to a new frequency, then they are shooting their own feet.
From my locals to other's locals, as this has been discussed ad nausem in AVS, reception
PSA's didn't start until after the Feb 17th delay, when it as reported that was a problem.
But now all the PSAs referring to reception are overly generic. Saying just you may need a VHF/UHF antenna soon.
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Hence I would think, that a station cutting from U to V would have a few PSAs and infomercials about the coming change. If they loose those customers they loose revenue.
The
OTA only households is on the rise. The last Nielsen book for Gainesville FL shows an increase from 7 to 11 percent over the last 3 years. Granted it may have peaked. It may not have peaked yet.
Our locals I talk to (I used to work at one of them as a Remote Engineer) said they are watching the numbers close, as well as is management noticing it. One local is even now actually thinking about raising their VHF power (I hope). Where as before they didn't care as they saw the numbers slowly going down, and they had enough power to be called a DT station and under must carry rules (they were seeing their cable coverage going from 93 to 94 percent when it turned the other way (toward
OTA).
But this also follows what I consider less than common sense thinking.
Most stations had built out their digital, even if on a temp RF Channel, by mid 2006 to early 2007. Yet, unless you were "In the Know" from a forum like this or other places, you had no idea you could already view digital TV
OTA. They made no effort to tell their viewers they had it running in 9 cases out of 10 or more.
Even when Congress called the
FCC on the table in late 2007 why there were no public relations efforts underway toward the transition did they appoint a new person to that post. She did in fact do 1000 times more than the previous person that did absolutely nothing.
But her PSAs all said get ready for the switch on Feb 17, 2009. Not one word about the fact most towns already had
DTV running.
It wasn't until more investigations occurred spurred by the
DTV delay act of Feb 2009 that PSAs started to say, two new things.
1) you can switch now, and not wait till June 12
2) where you live you might need a new VHF/UHF antenna
Well the first was obvious and probably enough, go ahead and try it now, it's running even one local station said.
But that same station used a ClearStream1 for a prop in the
PSA. That station and it's sister station that used the
PSA they made were VHF!!! A CS1 has little to no VHF reception. Worse it's an antenna their viewers can run to Target, Bestbuy, etc and see that antenna , buy it, take it home and cuss up a storm about how bad WTLV and WJXX come in now
DTV because they are VHF!!! Good greif.
A) So part of it is money, but that is shooting their own feet.
B) Part of is they will only do what they have to do to meet
FCC requirements, not more, even when it's not in their best interest (see A above)
C) Shear ignorance and arrogance. Having worked in a local station and many of my old work associates and friends still in the stations one thing was always obvious. Engineering knows better, but the News and Production depts often hate Engineering so much they block their memo's, fight them in meetings, to the point it hurts the station. Been there, seen that, over and over.
Good example of C. I called up the Chief Engineer of WJXX/WTLV mentioned above. He knows me and of me, from around the area and takes my comments serious when I call to talk. He returns my calls when he misses them as do the other local engineers. He marched down marketing and pulled that ad, as he saw it was misleading showing a UHF antenna when all his stations were VHF. The ad was gone about 3 weeks.
Now the ad is back. I am sure the Chief has seen it's back and threw up his hands.
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Just having worked in local stations I wanted to give more of an inside view of what is happening. It's more than a money problem.
Less advertising throughout
Linear Mode
