I live in a large city across the border from a large mexican city. As long as the FCC doesnāt mandate a transition I find it hard to believe that local broadcasters would abandon that OTA customer base.
The problem is that ālocal broadcastersā donāt have a choice. The BIG content makers (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, etc.) will have total control over what gets encrypted and can force THEIR will on the locals. If that means shutting down channels/content, they have the ability to do that, so Iāve seen. Lon Seidman (Lon TV on Youtube) just put out a video explaining what would happen IF the big boys get control. This was put out prior to this posting, so he might have a follow up after this. Heās pretty informed, IMHO.
āBIGā content makers? Every broadcaster to my knowledge. Letās just say, if there is a broadcaster that is trying to be the consumer advocate, itās a broadcaster nobody has heard of. The (emphasis) broadcasters (all) are in control here and they are making a collective anti-consumer play. They (broadcasters) believe they are invincible. We need to figure out the best way to humble them all. Broadcasters āsayā thatās not possible. Soā¦ is it impossible? Are we the āantsā to be stepped on?
I donāt think you will find that the big 4 (ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox) own the majority of stations. The big 4 broadcast on affiliates which are members of NAB. These NABs decide what gets encrypted in each city. You could have Fox encrypted in one city but not another.
This was always going to happen. Itās just a matter of time, transition overlap (sudden vs drawn out), etc. Encrypted OTA content (or at least the more āvaluableā portion of it), will be the norm. Internet connect requirements will be the āpaywallā vehicle.
Price is still TBD. I see that as a variable that will be determined by market demand and competition. It is all so saturated already, itās hard to see how OTA broadcasters can āsellā what they have for very much, if at all. Especially if they refuse to give up their local advertising revenue. How much will people pay for local news, reruns, game shows, other āunscriptedā garbage? And commercials??
I think the potential āgold mineā will be live sports. Maybe also āon demandā content. However, that is all being spread more and more amongst the streaming platforms already. How much more market opportunity is really left?
The real āvoteā on all of this is consumer acceptance. We are all used to free OTA, especially us older folks. I wonāt pay for it. Thereās 1 vote.
This is not really the FCC saying ATSC 1 sunset is a go. It looks to be clarifying the requirements and application priority.
Seems like over 1 1/2 years ago the FCC was going to form a NAB group to ensure the big 4 was available in all of the top 55 DMAās before sunset could kick in. And that hasnāt happened.
So why they are even talking about other requirements seems rather strange.
The coverage requirements were not fully understood by broadcasters. They must have had alot of issues on the applications. The FCC must know if ATSC 3 is mandated and not naturally adopted, TV makers will be selling monitors with 4+ inputs that happen to host streaming applications. The tuner rule would not apply to monitors. Natural adoption has not happened because of the costs and it goes to one entity. They demand a forced mandateā¦that will make it happen. Its truly death of OTA TV by handing full control to private select few.
Itās interesting that the FCC just restated the existing policy to the broadcasters. I start to wonder if the FCC is dropping a hint that maybe theyāre not going to force the conversion and let the free market determine the pace of the conversion instead. If thatās the case, this fact alone could work into the favor of us consumers in the long run.
Itās obvious that most TV and device manufacturers are not willing to go through the A3SA hoops and spend all that money. The evil empireās only hope is to get a mandatory conversion.
I would think that the āhigh noonā revelation of ATSC 3, where the A3SA can disable an UNencrypted channel at will, would be highly objectional to the FCC commissioners. That would be taking away regulatory powers from a government agency and putting it into private hands that forces NDAs on its participants.
At the rate at which govāt agencies are becoming obsolete or ineffective, itās no wonder to me that this is happening.
If things arenāt going the way Trump wants, heāll just fire everybody. 