[opendtv] TV Technology: McAdams On: TV Stations With No Signal

From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 28 Mar 2015 01:18:34 +0000

I would agree that spectrum auctions are short-term lucrative for the
government, and that's motivation enough to hold them. But it would have been
more interesting if the article had explored what broadcasters can do in this
new Internet TV era. Looks to me like CBS is tackling the issue first.

Why assume that you need a broadcast tower to generate local TV news and
weather, for instance? Maybe, ultimately, you don't. As Internet radios and TVs
become affordable and commonplace, shouldn't broadcasters establish and
advertise their online presence vigorously?

The print media have had to wrestle with this already. It's not that we don't
need good reporting. It's that we don't need the noisy printing presses and
smudgy ink.

Bert

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http://www.tvtechnology.com/mcadams-on/0117/mcadams-on-tv-stations-with-no-signal/274969

Deborah D. McAdams / 03.13.2015 04:34 AM

McAdams On: TV Stations With No Signal
What happens to local news?

HERE, AFTER-Can a TV station exist as a local news operation without a signal?

I've been casting this question lately and haven't had a lot of bites. It
likely is out of the question in terms of current business models, so why spend
the cognitive energy? Another, somewhat larger factor I sense among TV station
personnel is that they are focused on what's in front of them.

Media staffs in general have been so stripped of any perceived redundancy,
there is nothing left to scrape but bone. They haven't the time or energy to
keep track of the hijinks at the Federal Communications Commission. Who can go
to work day after day and invest their personal best into an operation that may
go on the auction block and disappear? We all toil under such auspices to some
degree, but it's easier to ignore a specter that's not in our face every day.

Yet the specter-in this case, the spectrum auction- is coming, whether next
year, the year after, the one after that or maybe all three. Wireless providers
will get as much TV spectrum as they want. The upcoming incentive auction is
their second dip in the well since 2008, when they took 108 MHz in the 700 MHz
band. Those frequencies are still being developed-something conveniently
omitted from all the spectrum "crunch" caterwauling during the Julius
Genachowski FCC. You don't hear it so much anymore because A) the propaganda
achieved the intended goal of securing Congressional authorization for the
incentive auction, B) sometimes, even journalists will question something after
repeating it over and over again for a few years, and C) it was horse leavings.

The spectrum-transfer campaign has now morphed into a numbers game where the
potential value of a TV station license on auction approaches $1 billion. It
already may exceed that. I haven't looked at the latest estimates because
virtually all that I've seen so far are arbitrary and backed entirely by
agenda-fueled rhetoric. I.e., more horse leavings with a specific
intention-bringing broadcast licensees to the table.

One cannot argue with a successful strategy.

Interest in the auction has exploded compared to two years ago. The $45 billion
AWS-3 auction at the end of 2014 didn't hurt: Incentive auction estimates have
gone nuts. Whether or not they're realistic no longer matters. The consensus
among broadcast executives with whom I've spoken is that "you'd be a fool not
to look at the numbers."

Owners seriously considering a sale will dig past the hyperbolic figures.
They'll look closely at each of their markets and assess competition,
availability of media services, recent spectrum acquisition valuations specific
to those markets (versus the Brobdingnagian totals proposed by auction
promoters), station revenue, market position and local economics. TV stations
seem to be holding their own in the local ad market, but who knows for how
long, and who wants to hold their own when they can retire in the sun with a
humidor of Cohibas?

Let's count the hands.

While one can make a decent argument that local television news provides a
contributive community service, it's also a business. Businesses have to make
money. As much as the Consumer Electronics Association and the user community
in general spit nails at paying for content, creators of content comprise
mostly soft-bodied animals who require shelter from the elements and regular
meals.

For 50 years, we've had the uncomplicated triad of journalists, advertisers and
broadcasters (or publishers). Our increasingly rapid plunge into the Digital
Age is dismantling that arrangement and leaving the components scattered with
no clear path to a new structure. Detractors say "citizen" journalism fills the
gap, but anyone monitoring Facebook's meme cavalcade knows there is a greater
need than ever before for fact-checking, confirmation and analysis. Snopes
cannot go it alone.

The thing we've come to know as "news"-the local, regional and global
information that may effect our daily lives-was for decades the province of a
balance of personalities: Fervid, intellectually curious reporters;
dispassionate exacting editors; referees, artists, sales people, accountants
and managers. Those were the salad days. These are not. Now we have "one-man
bands" and "blog sites."

Truly, we get what we pay for, and with that in mind, I return to my original
query: Can a TV station exist as a local news operation without a signal? Will
Verizon and AT&T support market-based news? Will cable and satellite TV service
providers pay a fee for it? Can local programming of any sort thrive without
national network partnership?

There were 1,782 full-power TV stations in the United States as of last June.
Of those, 719 provided local news with fewer people, according to the Radio
Television Digital News Association.

As much as traditional journalism has suffered the digital transition and been
hijacked in general-think Anonymous, where no one wears a byline-the baby may
be sleeping in the proverbial bath water.

Local TV news can be a lifeline, and not just during disasters. A heat wave
isn't exactly a disaster, but it can be if you're 80 and your air-conditioning
goes out and no one knows you're suffocating. We always hear about the big
ones, where people are warned in time to dodge a tornado, or how transmitter
engineers in New Orleans risked life and limb to keep a signal on the air.

You don't hear so much about the heat shelter announcements, food donation
coordination, crazy person on the loose bulletins and the myriad other daily
pieces of information that keep us safe, informed and prepared when necessary.
We've had this type of information handed to us for so long that perhaps we've
forgotten what our lives might be like without it.

We may soon find out.

- See more at:
http://www.tvtechnology.com/mcadams-on/0117/mcadams-on-tv-stations-with-no-signal/274969#sthash.3lp20PuL.dpuf

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[opendtv] TV Technology: McAdams On: TV Stations With No Signal

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