THE FRONT LINE: FEBRUARY 10, 2006
The Die Is Cast: Goodbye, Analog TV
With President Bush’s signature, the fate of analog TV broadcasting has finally been sealed, and TV is going digital on February 17, 2009 — ready or not…
It’s been a long time coming, but Congress finally scheduled the funeral services for NTSC television as part of a controversial budget bill that passed the House by the slimmest of margins, 216-214 and was signed into law on February 8.
When the DTV clock started back in 1997, the original cut-off date was January 1, 2007; now less than a year away and probably not attainable without seriously upsetting major constituencies. By extending the date a little more than two years, it is hoped that there will be less fuss from those viewers who still depend solely on antennas to get their TV programming — anywhere from 13% (CEA estimates) to as much as 25% (NAB, Consumer’s Union, and other estimates) of all TV households.
So — are we ready for the transition? It would seem so. If you want DTV and HDTV, you’ve got plenty of opportunities to watch it. HDTV channels abound on cable systems. Both satellite TV providers are carrying multiple HDTV channels and adding more capacity by transitioning over to supposedly more efficient MPEG-4 codecs.
As for traditional terrestrial broadcasting, the latest FCC stats show 1,561 TV stations broadcasting 8VSB signals, with 856 stations classified as “fully licensed” and 705 stations operating with temporary licenses. The top 40 TV markets are pretty well covered, but even smaller markets have a good sampling of DTV broadcasters.
From personal experience, I know that viewers in the #175th TV market, Watertown NY, can watch terrestrial HDTV from CBS affiliate WWNY-7, ABC affiliate WWTI-50 and PBS affiliate WPBS-16 (Fox WNYF-28 is a SDTV multicast), while those viewers with moderate elevation and directional antennas can also pick up ABC, NBC, PBS, Fox, WB, and CBS HDTV from Syracuse. (I travel though this area annually to take summer vacations along the St. Lawrence River, and have run numerous DTV field reception tests in both markets.)
Even the regional telephone companies are getting into the act, with Verizon and SBC rolling out high-speed fiber optic backbones to carry both broadband Internet and digital TV in the QAM format. In short, it would sound like everything is hunky-dory — right?
Perhaps, but what about those 13% to 25% of viewers who don’t own any kind of set-top box or integrated digital TV, not to mention all of those second and third TV sets that are connected to rabbit ears? Congress has thought of them, too (can’t lose any votes over something as crucial as being able to watch Judge Judy, Oprah, or Survivor, can we?).
The budget bill that Bush signed also contains a subsidy capped at $1.5B for set-top boxes, and presumably this money will be doled out in the form of coupons or vouchers worth anything from $30 to $50. Those can in turn be used to buy a simple ATSC to NTSC converter for a single analog TV set. A prototype of such a converter was shown by LG at the recent Consumer Electronics Show.
Figure1. This low-cost digital-to-analog TV converter could
turn out to be a real popular item in two years.
It has also been announced that some cable systems plan to continue carrying analog signals from local stations after the cut-off date to ease the transition for the lowest-tier basic cable viewers (of which I am one). Those tiers, which cost about $14 to $15 a month, are 100% analog.
According to a source I know at Comcast, basic tier customers may constitute as much as 50% of the total subscriber base, so it’s easy to see that an abrupt analog cut-off would cause major problems for Comcast customer service reps, not to mention the company’s image as a whole.
With direct fiber feeds from local stations, it shouldn’t be difficult to continue service by simply using a digital-to-analog converter (read: set-top boxes) and remodulate the digital signals to the NTSC format.
Problem is; Comcast, like many other cable MSOs, would like to add even more digital channels and services to stay competitive with Verizon, SBC, DirecTV, and Dish. The analog channels currently take up about 500 MHz of spectrum that is needed to make room for those digital channels and services.
At some point, cable MSOs will also have to “pull the plug” on analog TV, and my guess is they’ll wait for a while until the furor over the analog shutdown (if there is one) dies down before making their move.
Once the final eulogy is read for NSTC (which will have lasted almost 70 years), will anyone really care? With video available on the Web, playing on iPods and cell phones, loaded up on optical discs and flash RAM, the world of television certainly looks very different than it did in 1941. Tempus Fugit…
