How committed are OTA broadcasters to HD

[tencom]

HDTV viewers should be concerned, with the lack of interest that local OTA commercial stations are showing towards the HDTV format. And with estimates of about 30% of American households now have HD compatable televisions. Not one local commercial OTA broadcaster is able to originate local telecasts in HD. This is amazing.
  In the mid 1960's with only 20% of milwaukee home were equipped with color televisions. Most local stations were able to originate color telecasts With the cost of conversion to HD. well under a million dollars which is a small amount of money compared to the huge profits that commercial stations sre allowed to make.
  Why is it that non-commercial channel 10/36 with their limited income able to afford the cost of transistion where the local for profit broadcasters  are not?
 Who has the answer.

[jeffski]

Good question. Several markets now have at least one local station that broadcasts their news in HD. (Atlanta has THREE local stations with HD news)Of course,Milwaukee trails the pack as usual. Why is this? I'm sure once one Milwaukee station finally makes the move to local HD news,the others will follow within a year just for competition sake. Channel 12 broadcasting big bang fireworks is the only local HD (other than FSN and PBS) telecast I'm aware of, and that's once a year ... pathetic.

[mhz40]

Didn't a post come out some 8-10 months ago about WISN doing a complete overhaul of their studio?  Maybe they will be the first to move on this front...
IMO, the news market in Milwaukee is very competitive... I'm not sure that choppers, doppler radar, satellite trucks and hour-long morning newscasts are the norm in medium and small markets.  Being mid-30's in market size, Milwaukee stations have it all in that regard. I doubt going HD will bring in the incremental level of viewers needed to justify the expense at time time.  And unlike a chopper, there is a lot of capital investment required, which simply can't be cut out of a budget if needed.

[jjallou]

Why is it that non-commercial channel 10/36 with their limited income able to afford the cost of transistion where the local for profit broadcasters  are not?
 Who has the answer.

I would hardly call tax payer & viewer funded MPTV having a limited income. Where on earth do you think they got all of that HD equipment? Goodwill? They have some of the most high tech equipment out there and it's partially funded directly by us (and those who give via the 10/36 Friends). The other stations in town are driven by profits. So when the majority of local Milwaukee viewers are watching HDTV things will change. I wouldn't call it a lack of interest of OTA stations I would call it a lack of viewers. But the times are a changing.

[tencom]

I just wonder if the local OTA's have other ideas for their digital bandwidth, such as adding  shopping channels, or informercial subchannels, and cutting back on HD and using the extra bandwidth to increase there bottom line, and ignoring  the HDTV audience. and besides the locals added local color broadcasts well before 50%, of milwaukee homes had color receivers which required the television stations had to completely replace all there telecasting hardware with color compatable hardware.  This required a large expenditure, on their part yet they made the investment. Something they won't do with HD.

[Jayflap]

Most of the reason that MPTV has funding for HDTV is that fact that we are training the majority of folks that will work in the Milwaukee market. That funding is brought to us because folks that work in the industry and are members of the advisory board for the telecasting program at MATC want the students that are coming out of the program to be trained on the best equipment possible. That way when they are hired, they have worked on things that are the future for their stations.

To be very honest with you, tax payer money is not very much of the funding that comes into MPTV. The large majority of it comes from donations to the MPTV friends. Tax payer money would pay for a good pass though of PBS national with no local programming.

Even WISN's HD program of the fireworks was done with a rental. I know that WISN is very interested in being the first to have locally originated HD broadcasts, but it is a very expensive endevour to equip the studios with the necessary equipment. Many of the local stations would love to be the first commercial to go HD, but considering that news is just about the only locally produced programming produced, is it really worth the price tag to be the first locally originated HD newscast?? Once the local commercial stations start to do more locally produced HD, what would the impetus for spending that kind of cash to see a few anchors in HD? They will all pass the network HD though, but there really isn't a good reason to make the locally originated broadcasts to go that way.

I could certainly see an ability to air programs in HD that are not off the network. Maybe a few decks that are HD in the racks and a HD capable switcher for the digital feed, but getting a bunch of cameras, a production switcher, a graphics box and all the other necessary equipment in the broadcast chain might be a bit much to ask of folks that have to answer to their investors.

J

[Jayflap]

I would hardly call tax payer & viewer funded MPTV having a limited income. Where on earth do you think they got all of that HD equipment? Goodwill? They have some of the most high tech equipment out there and it's partially funded directly by us (and those who give via the 10/36 Friends).

I will also add the note of Educational Discount. That is VERY huge.

[Bebop]

Isn't anything donated to PBS tax deductible too, including equipment?

So, it would not be that difficult to get them from manufacturers.

[Tom Snyder]

I had heard that  the WISN Big Bang fireworks were done almost entirely with the staff and equipment from MPTV.

[Jayflap]

Actually, the WISN Big Bang fireworks was done almost entirely with the staff and equipment from MPTV.

Equipment was rented from MPTV, but the majority of the staff was WISNs. The camera ops were theirs, the director, Technical Director, Audio, producer, and a few other engineering positions were all WISN. MPTV did send an A2 (audio assist), tape operator, shading and uplink engineer.

WISN did a nice job with it, well what I saw while I was at work.

[Nels Harvey]

When analog broadcasting ends in February, 2009, the local commercial stations will need to have at least some ability to produce digital signals locally.  I think there will be a great discovery that more than one program channel can be transmitted!

Like several local stations are doing now, the addition of secondary channels, like Ch. 55's four channels, 58's three channels, and others, there will be many various schemes to produce additional outlets that can be sold.

All this may preclude the presentation of programming that takes more bandwidth, such as 1080P, and give us lesser bandwidth feeds in order to support the secondary feeds that are producing revenue.

I hate to be the bearer of gloom and doom, but I doubt that after analog goes away the world is going to be all glorious HD!

Also, I don't believe analog will really die on February 17, 2009.  While the main stations will go dark, the low power analog stations, like Ch. 41, and 63, will continue to exist, and may surprise you that they have possibly become network outlets!  The networks realize that there are too many analog sets out there, and they do not want to lose that audience to the satellite and cable outlets.

Just IMHO!

Nels....

[Steve Mann]

Also, I don't believe analog will really die on February 17, 2009.  While the main stations will go dark, the low power analog stations, like Ch. 41, and 63, will continue to exist, and may surprise you that they have possibly become network outlets!  The networks realize that there are too many analog sets out there, and they do not want to lose that audience to the satellite and cable outlets.

The analog TV spectrum is going to be auctioned off and will be used for other technologies after Feb 2009. The stations will have to give up the spectrum or face certain penaties/fines.

[Nels Harvey]

The main reason the analog deadline is pretty firm now is because the frequencies above Ch. 60 WILL be auctioned off.  The government sees the auction as a very important boost to the national treasury, so it will not delay the analog deadline any more as I see it.

That said, the frequencies that will remain, Ch. 7 through Ch. 60, will still be TV frequencies.  There are a whole lot of low power outlets across the country in that frequency range, and many are being sought after by the networks for reasons I mentioned in a previous post.

Nels....

[bradsmainsite]

The main reason the analog deadline is pretty firm now is because the frequencies above Ch. 60 WILL be auctioned off.  The government sees the auction as a very important boost to the national treasury, so it will not delay the analog deadline any more as I see it.

That said, the frequencies that will remain, Ch. 7 through Ch. 60, will still be TV frequencies.  There are a whole lot of low power outlets across the country in that frequency range, and many are being sought after by the networks for reasons I mentioned in a previous post.

Nels....

A


Actually that is incorrect the new core spectrum will be channels 2-51 with channels 52-69 being auctioned off starting in Jan. 2008.

Saw a document that said something about the LPTV stations getting some extra time, but do not know if they are out of the new core spectrum where they would end up.

[LoadStar]

I guess I would've thought that WISN would have at least gone to HD for their "On Assignment" program by this point. It's the kind of high-profile, high-production-value program that lends well to HD. Plus, it's pre-recorded, meaning that you don't have to worry about live HD production, it can all be edited/mastered back at the station (or at MPTV, if WISN doesn't even have that level of technology yet).

I would've also thought that WTMJ would've also made some moves towards HD production. I know there was some pressure on NBC affiliates to go HD in conjunction with the switch to HD for Nightly News.

The fact that neither of these two have gone to HD yet makes me wonder if we'll see any HD local production from any of the commercial stations anytime soon.