fredfa said:
Walt, I am not sure if the distant HD provision remains in the House bill.
I know there are those in the Senate who believe if DBS (and cable) companies are allowed to import distant HD signals for areas not served by HD, it will speed the DTV transition.
But the broadcasters are fighting it very, very hard.
They feel (with some accuracy, I think) that once people get distant network HD, they are going to be pretty unhappy if they have to give it up a few months (or even years) down the road.
Fred,
It would be interresting if an accurate poll could be had about that. I know, as a Vermonter, there are many of us in the country hills that have very limited OTA viewing options.
Even though I get all my locals, the SD distants of NBC and Fox and the NY feed of CBS HD from Dish, when all things are equal, I choose my local affilliate. For instance Fox and the Nascar races or NFL games. Unless there's a problem with PQ or the local prempts the national feed, I would watch the local. Similar with CBS; unless it's in HD, I watch the local CBS out of Burlington.
I my particular case, apparently all the local network affilliates (all in Burlington) have formed some sort of coalition in their efforts to construct new towers and say the earliest they expect to do any HD is sometime in '06.
They site enviormental issues that have to be worked out, etc. That may indeed be valid but my point is, because they're are approaching HD as a "coalition", they've taken competition out of the equation. There's no incentive to "beat" the other network. There are similar situations throughout the country.
Local broadcasters and cable have been protected from satellite providers for years and all it's done is stiffle competition and growth. We have a situation where networks can send HD, viewers want HD but the the two can't get together because of politics. Doesn't seem fair to me.
WaltinVt