Bill Gates Predicts Broadcast TV will soon be made Irrelevant by Internet TV.  Perhaps not; Cable and Satellite could get their first.

The most important statistic in assessing the value of a service is its usage by its target population. In the case of local television broadcasting that is of course the percentage of television households (TVHHs) that watch the service directly over-the-air (OTA). These homes fall into two categories. The first is TVHHs that depend entirely on the OTA service. They are referred to as OTA-only TVHHs. The other group, much less important from a commercial standpoint, is TVHHs that subscribe to cable or satellite service but have one or more TV sets that receive the OTA service.   

From the time of the launch of the broadcasters' $12bn DTV service back in November, 1998 to today, the percentage of OTA-only homes has fallen from 30% to 10%!

With analog TV broadcasting scheduled to end Feb. 17, 2009 and over ten million OTA-only homes yet to establish a reception capability for the replacement DTV service of who greater than 50% will encounter DTV reception difficulties.

The percentage of TVHHs that rely exclusively on the OTA service could be as low as 5% after the broadcasters complete their transition to DTV seven months from now, making the OTA service and thus the local TV broadcasters "irrelevant" without waiting for Internet TV!

TV dealers, at least in the Washington, D.C. area have not helped the cause! They generally regard the upgrading of the broadcasters' OTA service to digital as a wasteful investment in yesterday's TV delivery service in this the cable/satellite dominant age.

I found no TV dealer, large or small, that would or could demonstrate the OTA DTV service!

The big three TV dealerships, Best Buy, Circuit City and Radio Shack  evidently have exclusive deals, two with the two satellite TV companies and one with the local cable TV company that contractually prohibits them from demonstrating the broadcasters' OTA DTV service. Their salesmen, as one would expect in such circumstances, know little and care less about the OTA DTV service.

Congress, the FCC, nor and the broadcasters' lobbyists, all based in Washington, D.C., appear to be unaware or uncaring of this alarming state of affairs.

The TV industry does not in any forum acknowledged the evaporation of OTA-only TVHHs.

The FCC report, published in February of every year for the past twelve years that reliably indicates the percentage of OTA-only TVHHs as compared to cable and satellite homes was not promulgated this year! 

The last National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention before the broadcasters turn-off their analog OTA TV service held in April of this year had numerous panel discussions on matters of concern to their members but not one on the implications of a disappearing OTA-only viewership.

Almost $20bn was successfully bid in the auction this year for the 80 Mhz of spectrum the broadcasters will vacate when they transition to DTV. What is the remaining 300 Mhz worth?

Might the FCC decide to end the OTA service at 5% OTA-only coverage and thereby generate a huge sum for the government coffers through a second spectrum auction?  
                                                                                                                                                    
The cost/benefit to the broadcasters of providing the OTA service continues to drop. Would they support the termination of the service under the right terms?

The net effect of the above would be the end of OTA broadcasting without any help from Internet TV.

Why anyone would want to buy a TV station today is puzzling. But then, they may have heard of FreeDTVPlus^tm

FreeDTVPlus^tm is the only viable business platform if local broadcast TV is to survive and broadcasters are to remain as broadcasters in the coming Internet TV age.

A critical key to the success of FreeDTVPlus^tm  is that it must enjoy the overwhelming endorsement of the broadcasters in the first instance and the encouragement of the FCC, Congress and others subsequently.

Secondly, it must incorporate the Internet in order to prevent being succumbed by it as cable and satellite service in their current forms most surely will!                                         

Some of the major features of the FreeDTVPlus^tm concept are as follows:

o FreeDTVPlus^tm would provide the broadcasters with a unique opportunity to control the Internet's inevitable encroachment into television rather than being supplanted by it.
 
o FreeDTVPlus^tm would enable the local broadcasters to deliver Internet and other interactive services through the local broadcasters directly to proprietary home DTV sets. 
  
o FreeDTVPlus^tm would deliver Internet and other interactive services furnished through the local broadcasters directly to proprietary home DTV sets. 

o  FreeDTVPlus^tm by the uniqueness of its architecture would no longer be threatened with extinction by cable and satellite. 

o FreeDTVPlus^tm would benefit from the fact that the local TV broadcasters would still provide the only free national and local TV programming service.

o FreeDTVPlus^tm would secure the cooperation of the consumer electronics industry in the, manufacture and marketing of FreeDTVPlus^tm service-specific DTV sets.

o FreeDTVPlus^tm Inc., would be a single purpose organization, charged by the broadcasters to create and maintain a broadcaster-centric nationwide multi-faceted DTV service platform that would survive and thrive in the Internet TV age.

The TV broadcasters really have no future as broadcasters lacking the adoption of the FreeDTVPlus^tm business concept outlined above.

We are fast approaching the time when local analog TV broadcasting, i.e. over-the-air (OTA) broadcast TV, is scheduled to be switched-off (Feb. 17, 2009) permanently!  Viewers who want to continue to receive the only free TV service thereafter, as some have done for over 50 years, will have to purchase a digital-capable TV set, or alternatively, a Federal government subsidized digital-to-analog converter box and affix it to their analog TV set.

The multi-billion dollar so called "DTV transition" has been an unmitigated business disaster with no one in overall charge and the FCC, Congress and the broadcasters all sharing the blame for its impending collapse. Certainly not the TV viewers! But let's go back to the beginning or thereabouts.

The last 50 years and more has seen the steady growth of cable and later satellite delivered TV service such that the number of homes that now rely on their local broadcast TV service has declined steadily to  little over 10% today! Most if not all TV broadcasters know that but have not come up with a response, even with their reported expenditure of some $12bn on their creation of an all-digital broadcasting service.

The rate of erosion of OTA-only homes has not declined at all in the last 10 years during which time the broadcasters' DTV service has been expanded nationwide! Something went wrong in the planning, or the lack thereof, of the service which is supported by the fact that the nation's TV set retailers have never demonstrated or promoted it and no concern has been voiced about that critical omission by the FCC, Congress or the broadcasters themselves!  

The only answer at this late stage is the creation of FreeDTVPlustm, a not-for-profit company whose sole mission would be the creation and growth of an economically viable local OTA TV broadcasting.

Contact me if you agree with my contention that the current broadcast DTV transition plan is irreparably flawed and want more information regarding its only salvation, FreeDTVPlus(tm).

In a little over six months our TV broadcasters are scheduled to cease using analog technology to broadcast their programming to their local communities. Thereafter their service will be broadcast entirely digitally.  That will bring to an end a 10+ year analog-to-digital transition that has cost the broadcasters a reputed $12bn and that has done nothing to further the interest of their broadcast TV service. In fact, contrary to the accepted norms of investing such a huge sum in a new service the broadcasters have in fact seen their share of TV homes as compared to cable and satellite decline steadily from 30% in 1998 when the DTV broadcast service was introduced to less than 11% today with the promise of dropping below 10% by 2009!

Local TV broadcasting appears to be heading fast to extinction yet that has not merited discussion within the broadcasting industry nor at the FCC or in Congress.

Local TV dealers have declined to demonstrate the service in their stores during the past ten years; a serious omission that has not seen public discussion.

Also, the FCC, which has for a dozen years reported on the competition between cable and satellite in serving TV homes and by deduction reported on the steady decline in the percentage of homes that depend on their local TV broadcast service as opposed to subscribing to cable or satellite, stopped reporting that this year!

Finally, the erosion of TV homes that rely on the broadcasters' service did not merit discussion at the recent NAB 2008 convention!

It seems reasonable to ask - do we have a conspiracy of silence on this important subject?

Do you think we can go much longer without FreeDTVPlusTM?

"Local TV stations are still hurting from a 2.3% Q1 nationwide drop in advertising revenue. The drop in ad dollars could speed the stations' search for alternative revenue streams like mobile and online." The Wall Street Journal  4/25/07

"With more than 105,000 attendees, the 2008 NAB Show was one of the most successful to date."   NAB SmartBrief  4/27/08

The above recent news item excerpts are most germane to the broadcasters efforts to convert to an all-digital local broadcasting service.

a) Revenues will continue their decline under the broadcastert's current ill-defined conversion plan. The introduction of DTV/HDTV services by the broadcasters has done nothing to stimulate viewer interest in broadcast TV. Also, any move towards offering a mobile service will end up like bankrupt USDTV.  Incorporating online services must be done as prescribed by the FreeDTVPlustm plan.

b) The view that NAB 2008 was ""one of the most successful to date" has to be questioned in light of the fact that the future of broadcasting is at best doubtful and merited no discussion in any of the multitude of panel discussions.