Re: OTA better than cable

phil-news-nospam@xxxxxxxx wrote:
On Mon, 28 May 2007 09:42:03 -0400 Matthew L. Martin <nothere@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

| I haven't said that. I do believe that it is unlikely to work. A | commercial station manager's job is to maximize profit. Most of them are | seasoned professionals who really do know what they are doing. If any | significant number of them thought that 4-6 sub channels with low value | programming would generate more income than HD with one sub channel, you | can bet that they would be doing that. Oddly enough, very few are. I | believe that very few will because more sub channels increase costs more | than they can recoup in revenue.

If I was investing in a high-dollar station with the intent to maximize
profit, or was running one that big investors were expecting high ROI,
then of course I would make it go with big network HD programming and
maybe add the sub channel.

I put some thought into the idea because I believed I could scale down
the operation of so many channels by means of automation I could develop
on my own.

TV station's don't generally develop their own software.

Then it would take maybe one or at most two people to keep
the ingest operation going. Add a sales person or two and giving them
ad ingestion capability would cover that end.

You vastly underestimate the cost of sales and production.

Or that part could be
outsourced to a local production company that might want to do the sales
on perhaps 50% commission.

Highly unlikely to happen with such low value content.

The idea is to minimize the costs everywhere
that is possible and run it on a low budget. Affiliations with other
larger local stations might even be possible for sales and promo exchange,
as well as possible news rebroadcast at odd times like 9PM or 3AM.

How does that make money?

I also put some thought into doing something like that with one channel
of radio. I've heard of that being done already.

I did all of the above for radio in the mid eighties. One Motorola 68000 running Unix automated three co-owned radio stations with PCM digital audio for local content and satellite delivery for everything else. Worked great until 2000. It was feasible because radio production costs are very low. Ultimately the stations failed because the cost of sales was too high.

In part, the idea would be to serve as a test-bed for the computer system
I would develop.

Good luck. It can be done. I could modify the software I have to do it, that would be simple. I just don't see a market for it.

|> But then, that's what they said about cable TV using the same model back |> in the early 70s.
| | Actually, I don't think that was said about CATV or early cable. The | business model was pretty compelling, especially given the monopolistic | licensing agreements. Once satellite delivery of cable channels came | about, there was no turning back. Of course, they didn't have to compete | with 200 channels on cable or satellite being readily available. They | were competing against a few OTA stations with a total of three or fours | streams of content.

My grandfather's first cable system had a grand total of 2 channels :-)
But that was back in the days when line amps used tubes. He spent a lot
of time climbing poles to change tubes. FYI, those channels were KDKA
and WSAZ. See if you can figure out where the system was. Of course,
back in those days no one considered originating programming on cable.


| Comparing multiple sub channels to '70s cable and CATV is just laughable.
| | Ad revenues are all about delivered eyeballs. Please explain how more | channels create more eyeballs in any market?

More channels _divert_ more eyeballs. The first channel might take away
some from another station, or bring a few more into viewing anything at
all. The 2nd channel would take a few away from the 1st, but also take
a few away from another station, and maybe even a few more might turn on
the set.

By this reasoning, if all the stations do the same thing all of them will get more viewers. That doesn't happen.

What networks are showing on prime time these days is mostly crap, at least
in my opinion. I believe a lot of people share that opinion. Certainly
not everyone does, or the big networks would figure out they are not getting
many viewers. Of course they do get a lot. But it has been dropping with
many people going in a variety of directions, including non-TV as well as
alternative channels on cable/satellite (like History, Discovery, etc).

I don't think sub channels with really low value content will compete well against HD, OTA, cable or satellite. I think you vastly overestimate how many people want to watch re-runs of content that has been in syndication for decades.

Would a 4-6 subchannel station with mostly old grade B reruns and cheap
syndication actually generate a profit? Maybe, if the costs were kept
low enough. And if it managed to get onto the local cable, that would be
a whole different story.

Only if there are must carry rules that require sub channels be carried. That is still controversial.

Matthew

--
I'm a consultant. If you want an opinion I'll sell you one.
Which one do you want?
.

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