The above posts are exactly the reason I continue to think the best and most understandable "channel branding" should be to follow the actual assigned frequency. To do otherwise makes TV similar to what radio has become with meaningless brands like "Qxx", "Yxx", "Cool-FM" (when 'cool' is not KOOL), "Jack/Mike/etc.".
It sounds as though you'd approve of a radio station branding with its actual calls - KQQL, say, or WMKK, instead of "Cool" or "Mike." But there's nothing intrinsically more meaningful about "KQQL" than there is about "Cool." Both are essentially arbitrary identifiers for transmitters. So is "54457," which is how the FCC itself identifies the station in Anoka, Minnesota known on air as "Kool 108" and in its legal ID as "KQQL." (The FCC doesn't license the station as "107.9," either - it's licensed as "Channel 300C," yet another form of mapping.)
It's true that most of the station's listeners are indeed tuned in to 107.9 - but not all of them, and to those listening on-line, "kool108.com" is a much more descriptive, useful, and understandable brand than "54457," or "300C," or "KQQL, Anoka." This sort of multi-platform broadcasting is only going to get more common with increasing use of HD2 FM relays of AM signals, multi-station regional networks, radio stations on iPhones, etc.
In any event, you still haven't answered my questions from earlier in the thread:
1. How does your "brand by RF channel number" proposal account for the very real, and very serious, confusion that it would cause in places like Syracuse, where "channel 24" has been associated with PBS outlet WCNY for more than 40 years - but on 2/17/09, that channel will become occupied by NBC affiliate WSTM ("channel 3" since 1950), while WCNY-DT stays where it is now, on channel 25?
Again, here's the difference in how it plays out to viewers -
Your way:
"The NBC shows you've been watching on channel 3 for 59 years are now on channel 54 if you have a digital tuner, but they're about to move to channel 24. But the PBS shows you've been watching on channel 24 since the network was called NET? They're now on 25. Oh, and CBS isn't on 5 anymore, it's on 47, and ABC's not on 9 anymore, it's on 17, and Fox isn't on 68, it's on 19."Channel mapping:
"Everything is exactly where you're accustomed to finding it - NBC on 3, PBS on 24, and so on."2. You're not at all concerned about the inequity of some stations - say "channel 11" and "channel 13" in Baltimore - being able to keep the familiar brands they've used for 60 years, while the competition has to go from being "channel 2" to being "channel 38"?
Do keep in mind that the stations involved in all of this, who have already spent millions of dollars with no immediate return on investment, had little or no say in what DTV channels they were assigned.
To go back to the fast-food analogy someone was making earlier - it's the equivalent of the government dictating that Burger King can still sell Whoppers and Wendy's can still sell spicy chicken sandwiches, but McDonald's must replace the Big Mac with something called the "McGrub Deluxe." (It's still the same sandwich that used to be called the Big Mac, but the name has to change.)
3. Did you understand W9WI's explanation that even your old analog TV already does "channel mapping"? There
is no "channel 21," per se. There's a standard, defined in the days of mechanical tuners, that says that for analog TV, "channel 21" is 512-518 MHz. With today's technology, "channel 21" already has multiple meanings - it's still 512-518 MHz on my UHF analog TV tuner, but it can just as well be 162-168 MHz on my analog cable tuner, or pretty much any frequency on the dial on my digital cable box or satellite receiver.
I don't need to know any of that to watch TV, and my cable company can remap "channel 21" anywhere else on the dial it needs to put it - the modern tuner does it for me, just as the old mechanical tuner in your analog TV doesn't make you know "512-518 MHz" to watch "channel 21."
Maybe this will make more sense: right now, your computer is connected to a server at the IP address 74.201.255.130. How do I know that? Because that happens (at least at the moment I'm typing it) to be the actual ("physical," if you will) IP address of radio-info.com, pointing to a specific server in some server farm somewhere.
I don't need to memorize that meaningless string of numbers, and the operators of radio-info.com can move the site to any other server with any other IP address that's convenient for them, because there's a "mapping" process going on behind the scenes that tells your browser where it really needs to go when you type in "radio-info.com."
Would you really prefer that this site brand itself as "74.201.255.130"? Because that's essentially the same thing as forcing digital TV broadcasters to brand with an RF channel number that's both meaningless and potentially subject to change as technology keeps evolving.
