[opendtv] Re: TV Technology: Opinion: Latest U.S. Broadcast Standard Will Founder on Mobile Industry Indifference
- From: Craig Birkmaier <brewmastercraig@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2017 08:48:03 -0400
On Jun 29, 2017, at 11:03 PM, Manfredi, Albert E <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Nonsense. Even that doesn't justify dedicating an entire medium to something
that gets used rarely, when more flexible media can do that too. Craig seems
to keep forgetting, live streams are NOT only possible over one-way broadcast
media.
Instead of focusing you energy trying to get the FCC to regulate broadband as a
Title II service, why not focus that energy on reclaiming ALL of the broadcast
spectrum, as nobody uses the service or needs it anymore?
Clearly broadcasting is a waste of spectrum, now that we have more flexible
media that can ALSO offer live streams. Recovering that spectrum may provide
even more wireless access to online services...
Right?
Only one problem. Ad supported linear TV is still producing most of the
revenues of the industry - about $74 billion this year. Some of this is ads on
the broadcast networks, a small percentage of which is viewed via an antenna;
the rest is national and local advertising in MVPD networks and online
streaming TV.
Contrast this with the revenues from OTT services in this chart from Strategy
Analytics:
These revenues include sales and rentals of TV content, SVOD subscriptions, and
ad supported streaming services. As Bert likes to say, the trend line here is
the important takeaway.
By 2021 the total of online TV ads and SVOD subscriptions may approach the ad
revenues from the broadcast networks and local affiliates - but the broadcast
ad revenues do not include the more than $20 billion/year broadcasters expect
to receive from retransmission consent by 2021.
Linear TV IS NOT dying.
Back to the subject line. The article talks about indifference of the mobile
operators. They are indifferent because they don't see a benefit to
incorporating broadcast receivers in phones. They don't get the extra
revenue, AND they can accommodate that mode on their own, should they think
it is worth their while.
Yup - they have no reason to support adding broadcast TV reception to our
phones, even with ATSC 3.0. The only way that this could change is if
broadcasters commit to distributed transmission systems rather than big sticks;
not very likely.
FWIW, many of today's online services could have easily be
delivered by broadcasters,
Unlikely, and more to the point, why bother? That sounds like something for a
marketing campaign, but not credible or captivating, and it would have failed
in the marketplace.
Hmmmm...
Why bother developing apps for smartphone that allow users to report and view
traffic conditions? Vehicles have had GPS based mapping systems for more than a
decade - getting traffic data from a broadcast data service would work just as
well as from the Internet. But broadcasters prefer to include traffic reports
in their linear programming (both TV AND Radio).
I would also note that Sinclair has been VERY vocal about using ATSC 3.0 to
deliver data driven broadcast services.
The very vast majority of "online services" require interactivity, so that's
out. And the ones that don't, say the news sources, post so much online that
you'd be filling multiple carousels, and would require lots of storage
capacity in the receivers, for people to even hope to have access to what
they're looking for. It's silly. People already regularly run out of storage
capacity in their devices. Imagine if you had to load them to the hilt with
crap they didn't even want.
Interactivity can easily be built into broadcast Apps. This is NOT to say that
there is a market looking for such a service. Many smartphone apps poll the
network periodically for data updates - these updates could be provided by any
broadcast data service.
So, why bother with such a tour de force? No one cares. The Internet era had
already begun, by 1998. Again, go back to the subject line, to see what we
are addressing here.
Something Bert and I can agree on.
Time to turn off the transmitters and shut down the FCC...
;-)
Regards
Craig
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