Boston TV transmitter fails (again)

[seattlefollower]

I feel like Farnsworth has redundancies, because there are some broadcasters that aren't in the hands of the biggest of the big. Then again, some are (glances at KUTV, KTVX, KUCW).
Antenna Failure Switches Off Boston TV
In truth the cable penetration these days is so high and direct feeds to cable head ends so prevalent (in big markets especially) that it’s nowhere the disaster that it would have been in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.
Comcast Boston Apparently "the 5th highest cable penetration % in the country, at 81.6%."

Utah's Comcast market is currently standing at quite a different contrast, largely due to both the rural nature of the SLC DMA and (I personally believe) the pricing and options with satellite. "36% cable Penetration" even including Rock Springs, Wyo. and head ends in central and southern Utah.

[CAwasinNJ]

It was actually the antenna that failed, not any transmitter, which is a much bigger deal.

This market is different in a lot of ways. OTA reception has always been higher here than average, but that isn't the whole story.

www.tvb.org/Public/Research/CompetitiveMedia/CableADS/ADS,Wired-CableandBroadcastOnlyPenetrationbyDMA.aspx

I tend to believe their statistics, though it IS a trade organization of broadcast stations. take that how you will. Anyway, they have OTA reception at about 20%. That's significant enough as it is. In the SLC area last I heard Comcast was still taking their feeds directly off the air. That makes sense in a digital age where as long as you can pick up a decent signal you'll get a perfect reproduction (before Comcast starts messing with it at least.) If that's still true, that probably brings you to over 50% of households. I'm not sure what kind of penetration other wired services like Prism have or how they get their signals, so the numbers aren't all that concrete. Regardless it's absolutely critical that the broadcast facilities remain on the air, at least for now. KSL does have a licensed aux antenna. KUTV, KTVX, KSTU and KUCW do not. KSL runs the facility, so it's probably easier and cheaper for them to set that up. I think they all should have a backup, but it's a question of economics. If the long term cost of maintaining an aux that is almost never used is more than the short term loss of revenue if the main signal goes down for a little while, then it makes sense to gamble.

[amanuensis]

Does anyone know what is being talked about in the Boston article regarding expensive changes coming in a few years?


"There's a certain amount of logic to that; with the DTV repack and ATSC 3.0 conversion coming in the next few years, a facility that could cost into the millions to build will likely need expensive conversions and reconstruction very quickly."

[CAwasinNJ]

Those are two different things, so I'm not sure which you're talking about.

The DTV repack is because of the auctioning off of more TV spectrum. TV stations have the option of giving up their RF spectrum for cell phone use and being paid for it. After that happens, some of the remaining stations might have to move around.

ATSC 3.0 is a new standard for digital TV. Remember all the fun we had when the decades old NTSC system was dumped (mostly) for the new digital standard? It was so much fun that we want to do it again.