Mommy, What's a Channel?

Mommy, what’s a channel?

The question probably won’t be as common as one about the birds and bees but sometime in the not-too-distant future, you’re going to refer to a TV, satellite, or cable channel, or to a “network” and your young kid is going to ask.

Why, you say?  Hwhy?  Because the basic need for a channel – its raison d'être¹ – is as a mechanism for containing programming in order to deliver it to a viewer.  And now, with new technologies, they’re really no longer necessary.

I’ll give you an example.  Cable systems are trying to figure out ways to not have to deliver “ordinary” television.  The reason is simple:  they profit very little from it and that real estate (bandwidth) used by the “channels” occupied by standard commercial television is extremely valuable.

The value realization has already changed the topology of cable delivery.  You may remember when that piece of coax carried every channel all the way from the head end to your home.  Through lots of amplifiers and nodes and splitters along the way, but if you tapped into the cable at any point, everything was right there.  Now, systems are adopting the same technology that the copper twisted pair (AT&T, etc.) use where only the channels you select get forwarded to you.  That opens up a truckload of bandwidth to sell you other things – VOIP, Internet, VOD – ooooohhhhh do they love VOD!

So if cable wants out of basic program delivery, how are you going to watch your favorite NCIS series (how many are there now?).  You immediately jump to “over the air.”  Why’s that?  Because you know that CBS distributes the franchise and it’s that CBS channel that delivers the show to you – even though your local cable system is picking it up locally and passing it along.

That should tell you that there’ll still be a channel.  Maybe.  Maybe not.

First, let’s better define a channel.  Some would call it a distribution medium which gets content from one place to another.  In the past, that’s involved dedicated radio frequency spectrum, about 6 Megahertz worth.²  By dedicated, it meant, for example, the band of frequencies between 54 and 60 MHz for TV channel 2.  That band channeled the programming from the transmitter high atop something to homes in the signal area.  Did you care?  My favorite line is, “Nobody cares about what kind of car delivers their pizza.  They just care about the taste of the pizza.”

The pendulum has swung so many times that Foucault (I’m on a French kick. Maybe I need to surrender to someone) is dizzy.

But there’s a new direction…that of streaming.  Wait.  Why is that a new direction?  The world has been “streaming” since little Sammy Morse sent his dits and dahs through a pair of wires form one place to another.  Probably because just about any individual can access content around the world and can receive it, save it and/or switch to something else instantly, and all on a pair of wires or even over the air. 

What does that have to do with channels?  Well, from my vantage point, everything.  In the linear world of broadcast, someone’s pushing information to you through a dedicated pipeline.  It may be a 6 Megahertz collection of frequencies in the air or over a cable but that content is being pushed in the order and at the time the “owner” chose.  You have to take it that way.  Sure, now you can now DVR it but it’s still coming to you in a specific order at a predetermined time – through a channel.

Streaming can certainly be thought of that way – as a channel – but the difference is that everyone has his/her own, instantly.  And, more importantly, they can open that “channel” to all of the content available to them.

So, a content provider could provide an opening – go ahead, you know the word, a channel – directly to you.  Bellisario Online could offer NCIS, LA, NO, Boise, whatever directly to you.  First run³.  If you think DVRs make it easy, a well-constructed VOD service blows DVRs back to the days of cave paintings.  Yes, I know.  If you’re reading this, you know that already.  But when the Bellisarios of the world start doing that, the middle person won’t be needed.  If you can connect your device directly to the content provider, who needs Channel 2 – or 3 or 4 or whatever?  Who needs a transmitter sucking power and a channel hogging spectrum or a cable [satellite] delivering you specific programming.  It just ain’t necessary.  Forget the fight for ala carte cable.  It’s moot.

Back in the early eighties, a major CBS executive predicted that cable viewing would never cume to more than 1 percent of total sets in use.  It didn’t work out that way.  Looks like we’re in for a similar evolution away from channels altogether.

What’s in the way of it all?  Only a couple of minor hurdles.

First, promoting whatever new content is being offered.  Networks and stations can self-promote.  In fact, tune-in advertising is hard to escape, even in a dark, quiet scene of White Collar when USA Network pops a big, fat, bright, animated lower-third on the screen.  That, however, is changing, too.  Notice how CBS still promoted Thursday Night Football on NFL Network even after CBS had run its measly games?  Tell me that wasn’t part of the negotiation.

So, slowly, networks will, either obsequiously or by force, bite their collective backsides out of business.

Second, Net Neutrality.  The gummint is still trying to sort things out.  It’s a tough topic to discuss but I still think the marketplace can manage it.  Well, with a little antitrust “guidance” from that same gummint.

Third, Private Enterprise.  About that antitrust issue, if a single company owns broadcast, cable, development, production, online and streaming services, isn’t that getting a little close to the edge?  Now factor in the PCS folks like Verizon, Deutsche Telecom, Vodaphone and others, the pressure to give up channels becomes immense.

Anyone remember when the DC guys discovered that Eastman Kodak owned its own silver mines and paper mills?  The justice department got interested.  It’s possible that with a significant number of these so-called conglomerates offering these broad services, they’ll keep one another in check. 

Sure.  The media oligopoly will police itself.  One raises rates and the others will lower theirs to steal more business.  Ya think?  Not gonna happen.  But fewer and fewer entities are controlling more and more of the media world.  And it’s not just controlling a corner, but from creative thought to viewer delivery.  I’m not being political when I say the following:  That kind of control is dangerous.  Both content and pricing run amok.

But given the tenor of those involved – corporations battling for control and profit, gummint pushing for control and taxes, PCS folks screaming for bandwidth, and people having a “pay for it only if I can’t download it for free” mentality, it’s likely that channels will disappear.  Some of us may become frustrated.  Others, unemployed.  But for a lot of “channel” jobs currently in existence, there’ll be lots more in the streaming world.  It’s OK.  Go to the light.

Now, quick.  Teach your kids what a channel is, before they’re extinct. 

¹  I structured the whole sentence just so I could use that little bit of French.  I can’t say which is more silly – the phrase or me using it.

²  In the good old days, broadcasters and cable operators used the whole 6 MHz for a single program; 8VSB digital made room for a lot more in that same channel over the air.  Other compression like QAM on cable reduced bandwidth even further.

³  Which only means originally making it available.  It doesn’t “run” until you “run” it.

Change it, Rebuild it, Move it, Take it off the Air. Broadcasters and PCS Spectrum

The headline says, “The FCC Is Promising Big Payouts for Local TV Stations That Go Off the Air.”¹ Well, with respect to Dana Carvey, “Isn’t that special.”

 

Let me get this straight:  In the mid-nineties, when the government and administration were running record deficits (don’t let that “peace dividend” fool you) they went looking for new revenue.  

 

Well, alrighty, then…digital television.

 

Now, to be sure, we had been investigating DTV as a replacement for the weary NTSC for some time.  But it bumped into itself at every turn.  SPMTE, NAB, PBS, NTIA and others conducted numerous tests, all designed to fit 50 pounds of, uh, stuff in a 5 pound bag.  Yeah, 50 – actually more when you look at the bandwidth demands of a digital signal.  Then, once they got all that in a bag, they had to find a way to deliver it without the bag breaking.  You’d think we’d be smart enough to pick the most robust system consistent with the compression we needed (that necessary for the 6 MHz “five-pound bag” we wanted to keep.) 

 

And, true to form, ATSC chose 8VSB.  Brings back memories of the Magnavox AM stereo system.  In this case, at least, some people liked it.  

 

Everyone swallowed hard and implemented it.  It brought with it a lot of promises, not the least of which was multiple channels within the 6 MHz bandwidth.  That was a sacred value, the width of an analog channel.  

 

And everyone changed.  They really embraced it.  OK, June 12, 2009² was declared the final, final, really final, We’re not kidding final date for turning off the analog signal and no one had a choice.  

 

The transition meant billions of dollars of plant upgrades – from camera to transmitter and news van to file storage.  Everything had to be upgraded.  And we did that, too.

 

Some stations immediately launched second channels, the so-called “dot-two” channels offering additional programming.  A few even added dot-three and more, choosing to keep their main channel at 480 lines.

 

Networks began feeding in HD – a huge additional cost to them.  Do the quick math on a golf tournament or NFL game with 20 or more cameras, multiple replay devices and recorders, backhaul then studio and control room changes and, finally, HD distribution.  You’ll get to a number somewhere around the yearly GDP of a South American country. 

 

But it was worth it.  Worth all the expense to deliver great digital television to the masses.  (sarcasm)

 

Should I quit here?  Not without mentioning that the real reason for the move to digital was the government’s recognition that they could move most stations to the UHF band, freeing up, a great deal of spectrum in the VHF band to auction off to personal communications services (PCS).  That was responsible for the cutoff date, the development of digital and all of the money spent by broadcasters to convert.  The extra channels within the 6 MHz bandwidth became carrots, as did a number of regulatory concessions the commission offered to broadcasters when they moved.  Don't kid yourself; it was about the money.

 

Now, the commission is asking stations to take a bribe – fall to the canvas, if you will – in order for the PCS guys like Verizon, AT&T and the rest to have additional bandwidth to distribute their streaming fare on a 1:1 basis.

 

I wrote about the inefficiency of 1:1 awhile back.  To date, the ratio of bandwidth costs for 1:1 to bandwidth costs for 1:many hasn’t changed.  It’s still abysmal.  

 

But we’re going to move forward with that.  In fact, the government is proposing to pay the broadcasters for the spectrum so that they can auction it off to the PCS guys.  From their point of view, it’s “better.”

 

It could be a windfall – a station in LA could receive over a half billion dollars to turn off the transmitter.  That's a “B” you see there.

 

Once again, the Libra feels very strongly both ways: 

·         It’s a free market

·         PCS can be important

·        Stations could easily exist by serving their relayed customers (cable, satellite, copper) with the direct feed most of them now use

Then again,

·        If you’re that willing to give up the frequencies, where’s that public “interest, convenience and necessity” you’re supposed to be operating under

·        What about that [small] percentage of people who rely on OTA signals (I’d add away-from-home but given the 8VSB standard, away from home or portable viewing isn’t possible in many locations.)

·        If the commission’s actions are, in and of themselves, in the public interest, why should stations get any compensation?  How about another auction at the end of a station’s current license term.  Verizon and AT&T, Scripps and Linn, get out your checkbooks

Broadcasters have gotten the short end of the stick on this so far.  The minute the conversions to HD finished, the industry began nipping at their heels.  Channel repacking, channel movement³ and now channel vacation.  Upgrade an entire facility just to turn it off.  Ditch your dot-twos and combine with another broadcaster to save that precious spectrum.

 

As I showed in one of my earlier writings, there isn’t enough spectrum – DC to white light – to accommodate streaming to everyone all the time.  Do we really want to try?  Is you sending me a funny video of the squirrel in your back yard treed by a cat more important than news coverage of a major chemical spill?  No?  Well how about more important than The People’s Court or ET.

 

The commission is forming a task force to go on the road to sell in the idea to broadcasters.  Doesn’t that tell you all you need to know?

 

¹http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/the-fcc-is-promising-big-payouts-for-local-tv-stations-that-go-off-the-air-20141001

 

²September 12, 2015 for LPTV stations

 

³NB:  A number of stations lobbied hard to keep their VHF assignments in the conversion to digital.  They found out the hard way that the digital envelope behaves differently compared to analog and that it penetrates building far less reliably.  That prompted a number of filings to move to the very UHF channels they reviled.