Broadcasters Looking Past Living-Room Sets to Mobile
Mobile DTV may be broadcasters’ brightest prospect because stations can provide it better than pay-TV operators, said Glenn Reitmeier, NBC Universal’s vice president of technology and ATSC’s chairman. “I'm sorry, but the big TV in the living room is kind of gone” for broadcast TV, he said Wednesday at a BIA Advisory Services conference. “It’s dominated by multichannel” pay-TV services. But developing mobile services is a great opportunity still up for grabs, he said.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
Living room TV viewing isn’t threatened, but the value that broadcasters bring to the experience is, Reitmeier said. “You've got towers and transmitters and a lot of capital expenditures that are not reflected in” in the way consumers watch the product, he said. Viewers may still be watching the local news, but they're largely not using the broadcast spectrum to do it, he said.
TV broadcasters are at the edge of a “chasm,” said Robert Raciti, a GE Capital senior vice president. It will take several years to develop a strong mobile DTV service, he said. “You need the receivers in the hands of the people,” he said. But watching as mobile DTV receivers come into the market is an exciting prospect for consumers and broadcasters, he said.
Broadcasters and all media companies need to realize that they're in the business of audience aggregation, said Mike Bloxham, the director of insight and research at the Ball State University’s Center for Integrated Media. “There are no TV companies anymore, and if you can identify one it is about to be bought or go under,” he said. -- Josh Wein
BIA Conference Notebook …
Legislation to require terrestrial radio stations to pay royalties to music performers for use of their songs may get bogged down and not pass soon, said Dick Wiley, former FCC chairman. The Senate Judiciary Committee will have a Supreme Court nominee to deal with and may not have time for the royalty bill, he said. He also doesn’t foresee many major changes in the retransmission-consent system in the Satellite Home Viewer Reauthorization Act, he said. “I am hopeful we will just see a reauthorization of SHVERA,” though compromise could take place on provisions affecting out-of-market but in-state TV stations, he said.