Thread

1. trollbridge · 1786041906 · focus · HN ↗

   Broadcast TV seems laughably irrelevant. It’s difficult to find official numbers, but under 1% of US households have no cable, satellite TV, home Internet, or a cell phone. The latter two are how people consume video and TV to a large degree today.

   In exchange, we have a great deal of spectrum tied up for terrestrial TV, much of which goes to running infomercials or else is surreptitiously leased for terrestrial data broadcasts. And the government gets to decide to regulate it so it becomes inherently politicised - like favouring certain owners.

   Realistically - this spectrum should simply be reassigned for IP based services, with perhaps some set aside for non profit / educational uses, some for commercial, etc.

   (Radio is pretty much the same boat but I can see a case to be made for keeping some analog FM radio broadcasts. The 6MHz per channel for TV is insane.)

   1. walrus01 · 1786043558 · focus · HN ↗

      > Broadcast TV seems laughably irrelevant. It’s difficult to find official numbers, but under 1% of US households have no cable,

      It's not that people are literally watching these on over the air digital TV antenna systems, but that if you have a "Broadcast TV" station in a certain market, it becomes carried by default on cable systems, direct to home satellite satellite dish systems, and regional FTTH providers' last-mile cable-tv-equivalent products.

      Look at for example how all the Seattle TV stations are carried on Comcast or Astound's networks.

      1. Animats · 1786043987 · focus · HN ↗

         Amusingly, there are streaming sites you can't watch without permission from your "television provider".

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.