Journal

Question - is this your own research, or cut and paste from other sites?

It's my own summary of the state of equipment and the industry... I would have linked my sources if I was copying anything from anyone. But like my first flood of submissions, this is just a copy/paste of what I wrote-up on SoylentNews a while ago. And that was actually from my journal on /. years early, but was massively updated in the move to SN, to account for new equipment on the market, other equipment disappearing, and more.

I used to be a huge shortwave radio buff but now despite big investments in antennas, there's not much out there on the shortwaves. How is the trend going the other way in OTA television?

Shortwave, and radio more generally, is a format in decline (I'm very sorry to say), thanks largely to TV, so they're struggling for content. An interesting development is some news radio stations (CBS) playing the audio portion of TV newscasts... In addition, the growth of podcasting would seem to offer lots of fresh and cheap content ripe for syndication, but I haven't seen that happening. I consider PRI.org the best radio content out there, but they don't have many AM/FM radio stations airing their content, and certainly no shortwave stations: http://www2.pri.org/ProgramStationLocator/ProgramLocator.aspx

But I digress... video isn't going anywhere, and most original content comes from the big 4 broadcasters. And content on cable networks eventually gets syndicated on OTA channels, anyhow. In fact the switch to highdef has been driving demand for more content, combined with technology like digital cameras and CGI making it far cheaper to produce, there's ever-more and more of it coming out, not less. Industry reporters are calling today the "golden age of TV," with more big celebrities moving to the small-screen, more epic mini-series style shows coming after the success of The Sopranos, as well as technology (eg. DVRs, DVDs and Streaming allowing "binge watching") pulling-in larger and dedicated audiences. Sure, there's a flood of "reality TV," "CSI" spin-offs, and horrible sitcoms, but consider the astronomical success of: Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Downton Abbey, House of Cards, Walking Dead, Homeland, The Blacklist, Scandal, Agents of SHIELD, etc. etc. There's a huge amount of big-budget content on the small screen right now. And even where it's on cable networks, much gets syndicated to OTA a few seasons later.

It's just a question of distribution, and OTA is by-far the most inexpensive for the viewer. Cable had an advantage with the poor picture quality of analog broadcasts, and its ability to carry more channels, but HDTV reversed things, and digital OTA provides you the best picture available. The ability for broadcasters to multiplex multiple sub-channels means OTA offers much more content than before, further reducing the need/demand for cable. DVRs (and cheap DVDs) additionally eliminated the need for all those cable channels that mostly just syndicated broadcast TV shows, all for far less than the $70/month cost of cable... $800/year could be an awful lot of DVD rentals or purchases.

In addition, Netflix/Hulu/YouTube/etc., are making their presence known. People wanted cheaper and "ala cart" cable for a long time. Now they can get their favorite shows on-demand for ~$8/month over the internet, and that mode of distribution compliments OTA antenna TV viewing quite nicely. Streaming fills-in the occasional viewing of what people might be missing from OTA, but being weighing heavy on their internet pipes, being late/slow to get the latest content, missing local news and sports entirely, and more, so OTA antennas are able to perfectly fill-in the gaps in streaming, without the astronomical cost of cable.