The End of Free TV?
First I want to clear things up… this isn’t a doomsday post. (I don’t like those, in general.)
It’s just that I read two articles in the last two days that pointed to the same thing, but for different reasons. It intrigued me.
Monday, I read this article “Cell Phone Mania Forces Scramble for More Airwaves” which discusses the bandwidth/spectrum issues that cell phone providers are facing. As more cell phone users are needing more bandwidth for their cell phones, providers are running out of usable bandwidth. One potential solution is to free up the spectrum used by broadcast television.
Then this morning, I read this article “Broadcaster’s Woes Could Spell Trouble for Free TV“. Apparently the 4 networks are having financial woes because their historical business model has collapsed. (I guess somebody moved their cheese…) Faced with less ad revenues, some industry experts think that the networks will eventually give up broadcasting for free and switch solely to a pay-TV (cable, satellite, etc…) business model.
Both articles are worth reading.
Is the end of free TV in sight? Maybe… I hope it takes a while, though, because we cancelled our DirecTV service several years ago and I really like not having a cable or satellite bill. (Sorry Denny.)
Interesting consequences for HD also. We don’t have an HDTV yet, but I’m told that the local broadcasts are higher quality than what you get from Cox Cable, DirecTV, etc…
Thoughts? Are we the only household in America that still relies on the free airwaves?
we don’t have cable, either. while some shows on free tv are very good (think “30 Rock”), free tv is sliding a lot, too (e.g. the # of infomercials is climbing). maybe the Internet will finally let us watch shows a la carte; then again, that business model seems shaky, too. who knows. i think there’s plenty of money out there, someone just needs to organize a platform or two. who can argue that iTunes and digital music has been bad for music? viva la revolucion!
Interesting, and I’ve been thinking of switching of pay TV as well.
That was switching off, not of……predictive text….
My friend Denny added a comment on Facebook reminding me of the recently announced Comcast purchase of NBC. Another leading indicator?
Interestingly, freeTV is both a govt funded organisation and something enshrined in our legal system…free TV must be available no matter what in Australia
Of course, the quality of what’s on it might be another matter entirely
We’ve never had cable and while we have a $20 set-top box to get digital channels, we don’t have HD.
But we watch most shows on the net these days.
If the credit card companies tried to charge me to use their product I would cut them off; the same goes for TV, if they do away with free over the air broadcasting I will stop watching. I gave up cable and satellite because the programming was not worth 2 cents and now this new digital signal comes and goes like satellite in a rainstorm, it’s a disaster. The suckers will pay $10 a day for TV but millions of us will shut it off and curse the greedy sons and daughters of a Beaach.