Get OTA antenna to stop paying for local channels...help
- Thread starter NABRIL
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Coming SOON: “NexGen TV compliant antennas!” Upgrade early and beat the rush.
Yes TV antennas by the late 60's were receiving color information if the broadcasters sent it.Was it a color TV antenna?
TV antennas in the 50s were receiving color information if the broadcasters, can you say NBC, were sending it. Those antennas were the same ones receiving the black and white information that all broadcasters were sending....
Those are good antennas, used to install a lot of them back in the early days of satellite when there was no local channels.
A little off topic but .... almost 10 yrs ago I posted that I thought a viable sat tv business model would be to provide only "cable" channels via sat and better integrate ota. This could save a lot of money and complication (1000 less channels, less sats, no spot beams, etc). Maybe then the cost savings could be passed along to the consumer who would pay maybe $50 a month for AT250 instead of $100 and use an antenna for ota networks. I thought it was a good idea but pretty much no one agreed. Now they are doing something similar and even installed antennas for some customers. But now its too late to save any money because E* already has over a dozen sats in orbit broadcasting 1000 LIL's with 6 or 7 orbital locations and customers needing to see 2 or 3 of locations.
Another Programming Dispute
Another Programming Dispute
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This is not a new idea. This is actually how it started out. To begin with, there were no locals via satellite. At one time (before DVRs and HD), Dish even had an SD receiver that had an NTSC tuner builtin, so that you wouldn't have to switch between satellite and TV to watch you locals. To me, it wasn't all that long ago that we got locals via satellite. I remember when Dish wanted to merge with Direct. They were promising that if they were allowed to do so, they could provide locals everywhere. I was disappointed that it didn't go through, and I still had to wait a few more years to get locals.
I for one am not disappointed that Dish didn't merge with Directv. ATT treats Directv like the red-headed stepchild and they do not have the interest in developing new hardware that Dish does.
If Dish and Directv had merged, then ATT would probably not even be in the picture.
When I first got Dish back about 1999, I think we only had East/West Networks. There were no locals. For additional Network and Ind channels, the Super Stations were available. One reason I went with Dish was they had a Super Stations. I wanted KTLA, which I still have. But everyone wanted with own locals. So I guess to compete with cable both Dish & Direct started the task of covering about all markets in the country.
If Dish and Directv had merged, then ATT would probably not even be in the picture.
Yes, I agree that it might not have been a good thing in the long run (but I am not certain that it wouldn't have been). At the time, it was implied that a merger was the only way there could be locals everywhere. It does seem like a merger would have reduced operating costs for both companies, but that does assume good management.
That could have led to there only being 1 sat company which would allow them to charge whatever they want. They wouldn’t have a competitive price/package to beat.
Yes, true, but their argument against that happening made sense at the time. The argument was that their real competition was the cable companies, not each other. Again, I don't know how true that would or wouldn't have been.
Anyway, it didn't happen and things seem to be pretty good right now. I certainly wouldn't go back in time and change it.
