NBC Might Scale Back Hours

[tripinva]

Does the Eyewitness News NOW programming count for WFSB-DT 3.3 in Hartford/New Haven? It's mostly local news with the scrolling ticker at the bottom and offers replays of their public affairs programming. You can access it online from their website.

I'm not sure.  Almost everything with that branding is the Accuweather channel.  My local CBS here at school has it "19 NOW" and it's just weather.

- Trip

[Nate Wesley]

Traditional OTA broadcasting as we know it is dead. The body just doesn't know it yet. With competition from satellite, cable, and fiber optics, the old business model doesn't work any more. Viewership is splintered so badly, no one station can truly claim to be "dominant" anymore. And with Internet delivery of TV shows and movies beginning to come into its own, why would anyone want to sit in front of their TV anymore (even if it is HD) and just "watch" TV?

Terrestrial broadcasting isn't dead.  In fact, given the declining economy, it could very well see a resurgeance with people dropping subscription television for free digital TV.   You do have a point that internet delivery of dramas, sitcoms, and movies is coming into its own, providing more of an on-demand choice for entertainment.  But in reality, all they've done is complement a regular linear broadcast instead of replace it. 

And where are you going to go for live events like the award shows, election coverage, and major sports? As greedy as the NFL, NBA, MLB, and major college football get in making another devilish deal with ESPN or from starting their own channels, they aren't going to beat the reach of broadcast TV.  You've still got to place The Finals, the World Series, the Super Bowl, and Ohio State/Michigan on a network TV.   Again, they're complementing broadcast TV and not replacing it for the majority of people.   

The business model has been adjusting for broadcast TV for a while now.  The networks have had to rely on cheaper reality programming, and they've been quicker to axe underperforming shows.  But to the extent that broadcasters will totally go away anytime soon is crazy.  You don't see the same obselescence occuring with  music delivery (moving from vinyl to 8-tracks to cassettes to CDs to MP3s).   

[azumanga]

You don't see the same obselescence occuring with  music delivery (moving from vinyl to 8-tracks to cassettes to CDs to MP3s). 

Though I wouldn't call vinyl "dead" yet -- in fact, it is making a comeback of sorts.

[4UH8SIMBKAGN]

Traditional OTA broadcasting as we know it is dead. The body just doesn't know it yet. With competition from satellite, cable, and fiber optics, the old business model doesn't work any more. Viewership is splintered so badly, no one station can truly claim to be "dominant" anymore. And with Internet delivery of TV shows and movies beginning to come into its own, why would anyone want to sit in front of their TV anymore (even if it is HD) and just "watch" TV?

Terrestrial broadcasting isn't dead.  In fact, given the declining economy, it could very well see a resurgeance with people dropping subscription television for free digital TV.   You do have a point that internet delivery of dramas, sitcoms, and movies is coming into its own, providing more of an on-demand choice for entertainment.  But in reality, all they've done is complement a regular linear broadcast instead of replace it. 

And where are you going to go for live events like the award shows, election coverage, and major sports? As greedy as the NFL, NBA, MLB, and major college football get in making another devilish deal with ESPN or from starting their own channels, they aren't going to beat the reach of broadcast TV.  You've still got to place The Finals, the World Series, the Super Bowl, and Ohio State/Michigan on a network TV.   Again, they're complementing broadcast TV and not replacing it for the majority of people.   

The business model has been adjusting for broadcast TV for a while now.  The networks have had to rely on cheaper reality programming, and they've been quicker to axe underperforming shows.  But to the extent that broadcasters will totally go away anytime soon is crazy.  You don't see the same obselescence occuring with  music delivery (moving from vinyl to 8-tracks to cassettes to CDs to MP3s).   

Major College Football is moving to cable/satellite. With the new contract that ESPN just got last week, the BCS will NO LONGER be seen on OTA television. Most every sport you mention continues its migration to cable/satellite (likely MNF was the first to go and it's doing just great on ESPN). Only major sporting events, such as the Super Bowl, will likely be broadcast OTA tv but with the BCS deal, maybe not even them.

Huh? Those growing up in the internet age don't have to turn a tv on or even own one AT ALL to get their entertainment. The internet does not complement OTA tv, it destroys it. I'll be happy when all OTA signals are replaced with WiMax and satellite. There should be no OTA broadcast signals at all, both radio and tv. Everything needs to move to the internet, wirelessly.

I got all my election coverage from cable/satellite networks and over the internet. I had ZERO use for NBC, ABC or CBS.

Ya, I watch the MTV Awards on NBC...next idea of yours I can throw in the trash heap.

If we're talking of "cheaper" programming, why don't we talk about all the hits on cable networks that are being produced for cheaper and yet audiences are flocking to them.

I wouldn't even mention the music industry. They're a good example of what not to do when technology is changing faster than their old execs can change their Depends. They still don't have the clue that their old business model doesn't work.

One of my friends is an installer for AT&T DSL and does so in poor areas of Los Angeles. He has so many jobs, he's working 7 days per week. They may buy their food with food stamps and be on welfare but they've got a computer at home and are installing high speed DSL at an increasing rate. The economy isn't going to hurt the internet ONE BIT.

[PTBoardOp94]

It might be reasonable to state that Cable and Satellite could replace broadcast TV.  It is simply not reasonable to say that WiMax could.  Essentially you'd be eliminating a huge portion of spectrum (VHF + UHF) to replace it with a relatively small bit of spectrum.  Each person who wants to watch NBC Nightly News would require an equal chunk of that spectrum.  If there are even 10,000 people in a small city who want to watch the program, the amount of spectrum required is immense.

Also note that DTV is more efficient than WiMax at using spectrum.

[Board Editor 1]

Some posts from this thread have moved to Take It Outside


http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php/topic,115796.msg928752.html#msg928752

[Nate Wesley]

Major College Football is moving to cable/satellite. With the new contract that ESPN just got last week, the BCS will NO LONGER be seen on OTA television. Most every sport you mention continues its migration to cable/satellite (likely MNF was the first to go and it's doing just great on ESPN). Only major sporting events, such as the Super Bowl, will likely be broadcast OTA tv but with the BCS deal, maybe not even them.

Now I know you're just being contrarian.  I knew about the BCS moving to ESPN in 2012 (I included CFB as making 'devilish deals' with the alleged world wide leader).  But your shading the story wrong on ESPN's Monday Night Football.  MNF is no longer the premier NFL telecast--NBC's Sunday Night Football is.  With the advent of flex scheduling to benefit the broadcast network, what ESPN essentially has is their old Sunday Night NFL game delayed by one day, surrounded by the past MNF history associated with ABC. Disney was tired of losing money on its expiring MNF contract, yet didn't want to be totally out of the NFL business. Clearing the games on the dual revenue platform of cable (along with the cheaper talent team of Tirico, Jaworski, & Kornheiser) put it back into the black. 

Huh? Those growing up in the internet age don't have to turn a tv on or even own one AT ALL to get their entertainment. The internet does not complement OTA tv, it destroys it. I'll be happy when all OTA signals are replaced with WiMax and satellite. There should be no OTA broadcast signals at all, both radio and tv. Everything needs to move to the internet, wirelessly.

Actually, I imagine you will need to own a television to watch the ESPN you were just talking about.  Even that satellite and FiOS services will need to connect to something other than a mere computer monitor (assuming you want to enjoy it fully).   And as another poster has pointed out, WiMax probably won't (or can't) be enjoyed by everyone.   

While all of those services have plenty of advantages, none of them have yet to the achieve rock-solid reliability that terrestrial broadcasting has had for basic entertainment and information.  Your notion that 'everything' will be replaced by some form or wireless internet is probably hogwash from a practical standpoint. 

I got all my election coverage from cable/satellite networks and over the internet. I had ZERO use for NBC, ABC or CBS.

Ya, I watch the MTV Awards on NBC...next idea of yours I can throw in the trash heap.

If we're talking of "cheaper" programming, why don't we talk about all the hits on cable networks that are being produced for cheaper and yet audiences are flocking to them.

Again, subscription services versus free services.  Some will place a priority on paying for the content they want, some will make due with the free stuff.  There's room for both to co-exist. 

One of my friends is an installer for AT&T DSL and does so in poor areas of Los Angeles. He has so many jobs, he's working 7 days per week. They may buy their food with food stamps and be on welfare but they've got a computer at home and are installing high speed DSL at an increasing rate. The economy isn't going to hurt the internet ONE BIT.

We'll see.

[Morgan Wick]

We don't need 1/2 hour or even hour long dinner hour network newscasts anymore. News is available 24/7 on cable, HDTV channels and the internet. This isn't 1970 anymore. Cancel the nightly newscasts. They outlived their model many years ago.

I'm glad you're not in charge of anything.  Not everyone has cable/satellite (15% of the country doesn't) and not everyone has Internet access available to them (not counting dialup, since trying to load a modern website on dialup is cruel and unusual).  And I hate to break it to you, but "HDTV channels" are the exact same networks we have now.  Nothing new there.  While some select markets have 24/7 news subchannels (mostly reruns of previous newscasts), the vast majority do not.

Plenty of people still watch nightly news.  Not as many people as once did, but still a lot of people.  Would I prefer all-news digital subchannels?  Absolutely.  Is it happening, no.  ABC's NewsNow was pretty close to perfect and now is broadband-only and only for subscribers of certain selected companies for some unknown reason.

- Trip

Analog tv as you know it ends on February 17, 2009. Get with the program. We're moving on. Either you do or you only get snow on your tv. There is no need for a nightly newscast. In many markets, such as the one I am in Los Angeles, some newscasts, such as CBS Evening News, sometimes come in 7th place and even lower in demos that matter. It's OVER for network evening newscasts.

Either you completely missed the point with this one or you're one of those people with the "DTV=end of OTA" misconception.

And where are you going to go for live events like the award shows, election coverage, and major sports? As greedy as the NFL, NBA, MLB, and major college football get in making another devilish deal with ESPN or from starting their own channels, they aren't going to beat the reach of broadcast TV.  You've still got to place The Finals, the World Series, the Super Bowl, and Ohio State/Michigan on a network TV.   Again, they're complementing broadcast TV and not replacing it for the majority of people.   

Yeah, you'd never see the BCS National Championship Game - which generally gets bigger ratings than three of those four events - leave network TV. Wait...

Internet delivery of live events is coming into its own as well, especially for live events.

Unlike 4U8 something, I'm not rooting for OTA television to die (I wrote a lengthy post on my blog defending it and excoriating the BCS and ESPN when that whole thing happened), but I suspect it may just happen, especially if, as some people seem to think, more people go to cable instead of away from it after the digital transition. By the end of the next decade, we could see the FCC making plans to scrap the OTA spectrum entirely and replace it with a wireless broadband network. Even cable could have trouble competing with the Internet. On the other hand, the DTV transition combined with the economy could turn out to be the best thing to happen to OTA...

By the time Fox's brilliance in scheduling only two hours became clear, the other three networks had big hits at 10 (especially NBC with ER and Law and Order, and later, CBS with the CSI spinoffs), and as has been mentioned, the affiliate agreements generally tend to be rock-solid and hard to change until they come up for renewal. I'd like to see a network schedule the 7-10 block every night of the week instead of 8-11 and only programming 7 on Sundays.

[Chad-Stevens]

4UH8 might be a little over the top in his death of OTA prediction, but I'm going with the idea that the technology that is the simplest to install and use will win in the long run regardless of whether the picture is in true HD.

I'm not certain that TV over the internet is necessarily that answer but I'm really uncertain that it will be OTA DTV unless the vast majority of viewers will get all the channels (not subchannels) that they got before with rabbit ears or some sort of small in-house antenna.  In hooking my own sets up as well as several family and friends sets as well I've seen no evidence that's possible in any area with any kind of hilly terrain.  Every person I've hooked up or that I've spoken to who installed a DTV converter to an in-house antenna has lost channels.

OTA DTV is just too unreliable without big rooftop antennas that are expensive and dangerous to install and even then you still have no guarantees that you'll get a signal.  (My father-in-law is losing FOX despite the beam and rotor atop a 30-foot tower.)  I'm going to make a go of it as long as I can (will lose ABC altogether and PBS, CBS, and NBC are all tricky on the bedroom set).

I'm predicting that the number of OTA-exclusive HHs will be near zero within a decade and if that happens, all bets are off as to whether the broadcast nets are willing to stay with the current affiliate-based system of program distribution and what the OTA affiliates will do if the networks abandon them.

[tripinva]

Chad-Stevens,

The other thing to keep in mind is that some stations will be making technical improvements after the transition. If I recall correctly, you're in Alabama.  WBRC-DT plans to move their channel 50 antenna to the top of the tower once they can remove the channel 6 antenna, which may provide some relief with regard to that signal.  WCFT-DT will be moving from 5 to 33 a few months after the transition, which should make ABC receivable if you can see 17-1 now.  (Honestly I'm not sure what exactly is keeping them from being ready on the transition date, but that's another story.)  Your PBS is known for weak signal, and their return to channel 10 is probably not the end of the story there, as I can't imagine that 3 kW on channel 10 will do too much.

Unfortunately, the FCC picked ATSC as our digital standard.  It was a poor choice that we now have to live with.  I've seen plenty of cases of it working poorly; just as many as cases of it working well.  I do think that if this economic downturn is as severe as it could be, we'll see OTA numbers grow somewhat at least in the short term as people attempt to cut costs.  I know my roommate's mom is planning to cut the satellite and get an antenna; I'm supposed to go do signal tests over the Winter break for him.  I think he'll have good luck with it.

I also think that Internet-based TV is the future (for better or for worse, I think for worse), but it cannot be done until decent internet speeds are more widespread and more affordable.  I also don't expect to see it go away entirely, some will stay on for emergency purposes basically, when other infrastructure can be knocked out. 

- Trip