Re: [Swprograms] BBC Newscast Shifts Lineup on U.S. Public TV Stations

["Rob de Santos" <rdesantos@xxxxxxxxx>]

To follow up on this, Comcast released these figures yesterday for the most
recent quarter:

Basic subscribers:  24.406 million   down 147,000
Digital subscribers:  16.8 million   up 417,000    (69% of customers)
Advanced subscribers: 10.6 million   up 300,000    (43.5% of customers)
(advanced means they have HD or DVR service, too.)

At the present pace, they will have no significant analog customers remaining by
the 2nd half of 2011 even if they do nothing further to force the changeover.
While the pace will probably slow as they will begin to have only the "die-hard
won't change" customers left on analog, the reality is that those numbers will
be so small they may not care if they lose them. 

--
-Rob de Santos

-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Buch [mailto:josephbuch@xxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 11:57 AM
To: SW Programs
Subject: Re: [Swprograms] BBC Newscast Shifts Lineup on U.S. Public TV Stations

Rob is correct.

FCC rules require cable companies to convert digital signals to analog for any
full power stations within a certain radius from the company's head end.  (I
think it is 38 miles.)  They are required to do so as long as they have any
analog channels left on their system including shopping channels, "gospel
huxters", etc.  

Another FCC rule prevents cable companies from encrypting the must-carry OTA
digital signals.  That means that if you buy a TV with a QAM digital tuner you
will be able to watch these channels without renting a cable box.  If the
station is broadcasting in HD format you will see the program in HD if your set
is also capable of displaying HD pictures.  You do not have to rent a separate
cable HD box or pay for HD service to see these channels in HD.  (You may have
to subscribe to more than basic cable to do this as legacy systems typically
insert traps to chop off any signals above channel 23 or so including those that
carry the digital off-air signals.)

Cable systems are allowed to reduce the data rate of digital signals but not to
the point where the picture becomes perceptably degraded.  "Perceptable
degradation" is not defined by the FCC so it is in the eye of the beholder.  (If
you can get your local stations over the air, you may get a sharper picture if
the cable guy's perception of degradation is less critical than yours.)

These rules are to be revisited in 2011 and if not amended or extended will
sunset in 2012.  After that you will need a cable box to see anything.

Joe Buch

--- On Thu, 10/23/08, Rob de Santos <rdesantos@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> From: Rob de Santos <rdesantos@xxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: [Swprograms] BBC Newscast Shifts Lineup on U.S. Public TV
Stations
> To: "'Shortwave programming discussion'" <swprograms@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Thursday, October 23, 2008, 3:29 PM
> Side note:  all of the major cable companies are already
> phasing out "analog"
> cable.  Because of the high bandwidth it requires and the
> demands for adding
> more channels, they are eliminating their analog cable
> offerings in favor of
> expanding digital cable.  In addition, most cable and
> satellite channels do not
> offer analog satellite feeds to them, so the cable systems
> have to do a
> conversion to even offer the channel via analog.  Within 2
> to 3 years, very few
> cable operators will be offering anything via analog cable.
>  
> 
> --
> -Rob de Santos

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