Stephen Colbert is being cancelled

[Axel Slingerland]

I don't either. I watch Colbert's Trump jokes in his monologue on YouTube, but I don't waste money on cable TV anymore. And broadcast TV hasn't worked worth beans since the feds forced Digital broadcasting on us.

Edit: Typos

 

[Jacob Petersheim]

I don't waste money on cable TV anymore. And broadcast TV hasn't worked worth beans since the feds forced Digital broadcasting on us.

Cable TV prices skyrocketed over time and while they provided more and more with time an awful lot of that was crap. I could have lived with maybe 10 of those channels, at least 3 of them the old TV networks' local affiliates. Of course the "sports" mafia and ESPN were the main cost drivers, and even those not into pap sports were forced to subsidize the rest.

ATSC 1.0 was a disaster for those far out from broadcast antennas, and even worse for those here among tall trees. ATSC 3.0 being pushed now is even worse, is often using problematic encryption that most converter boxes can't support, and much of it requires an Internet connection as well to support paid-TV over the air. Both boondoggles did the "owners" of the airwaves (us) great disservice. Of course much of it was driven by bandwidth clawback in order to free up spectrum to be sold off to the cellular industry.

Oligarchy has won far too many battles in the last half century.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

We have not had anything except antenna television for quite a few years now. Cable always started with a good del, and then raised the prices once the deal was over. When we tried satellite, they did the same thing.
Bobby ordered a nice little antenna for around $35 from Amazon, put it up, and we can get our local channels with that.

We usually only turn on the television if we have bad storm warnings, so the local channels is what we want to be seeing then, anyway. If we need the Weather Channel, we can get that on the iPad.
I seldom watch movies, but Netflix comes along with out T-Mobile cell package, and we have amazon prime, so we have the movies with that, too. I think that Bobby also has a paid subscription to YouTube, but I just have the regular free one.

 

[Axel Slingerland]

With no highly over-priced Cable TV service, and no highly over-priced pay streaming services, free YouTube and Tubi is good enough for me. I paid an average of $100 a month for 24 years, so Cindy and the kids could get TV in Eureka, where "over the air" broadcast TV is not available. That adds up to $28,800. My son and I both agree, we don't need that anymore... My son has a computer, he never even set it up. I bought him a new laptop for Christmas, he never uses it. He's one of those people with a cell phone growing out of his hand.

 

[Don Alaska]

We can get some of thee more powerful local channels over the air. The less powerful Old People Channels are hit and miss. We have 4 "business" channels over the air, QVC clones, as well. I don't watch network news or late night stuff, but my wife watches the local news once in a while.

We rely on Amazon for most of our evening entertainment, especially in the winter when it is too cold to sit on the deck and patio. We bought a little "campfire" powered by propane which will extend our deck-sitting time, as we cannot have a wood fire on our covered deck.

 

[Axel Slingerland]

In Eureka, when I first moved back there in 1998, there were five networks, ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, PBS. All but one of them, NBC Newschannel 3, had weak transmitters. But the hills in Eureka make it even worse. The first house we had on the north west side of town, the only channel we could get was NBC, and then only in the mid afternoon. And if you ask any parent, they will tell you, there's nothing like arguing kids to set your mood. So to keep the peace in the house, I had cable installed. The war was won with the Cartoon Network and five TVs... We lived in that house for almost 15 years.

After we moved to the south east side of town, by which time digital broadcasting had come along. What we did get from the analog signal was the good ol' TV snow. And the later digital signal was a pixelated mess. So I transferred the cable when I wanted to disconnect it. We live in that house for almost 10 years. Combine the time we lived in both houses, and it adds up to 24 years and seven months. (Before the skiten träffade fläkten and my son and I ended up in Edison.)

My point is two-fold. One, without Cable, we got next to nothing. And two, Don, up in Alaska, has better broadcast TV than we did in Eureka. Here's to you and your Missus, Don, Doin' the Old Folks Boogie on your deck.

Cheers!

Edit: Take a guess...

 

[Jacob Petersheim]

The old analog VHF signals were not perfect, but one thing they did have was range. Particularly low-VHF spectrum (old TV channels 2 through 6), but high=VHF wasn't bad either (7 though 13).

These are less line-of-sight than higher UHF channels and propagate further, being attenuated far less by intervening rolling hills, trees, leaves, even wood-framed building walls.

Simple set-top or built-in "rabbit ears" could be used to obtain adequate audio and usually acceptable video, even color. We used to get WKZO TV 3 from 50 miles away with a solid picture on rabbit ears, for example. Those with a simple roof-top antenna did far better, out to 75 miles.

This reached rural communities and farm families, where the residue left in the wake of ATSC 1.0 (original Obama "digital") serves few but big city dwellers to an adequate degree. ATSC 3.0 serves an even narrower segment of society, so much so that it is having a rough road to significant adoption. Simple set-top converters aren't really adequate this time around and new TVs are all but required.

 

[Axel Slingerland]

That was partially my point. Those signals carried a long way. But in Eureka, they would be blocked by the hills. If you happened to live in the area close to downtown, you would get great signal strength. But that is because it's somewhat flat. Anywhere in the hills, you needed Cable if you wanted TV. At least until high speed Internet and streaming services came along...

But calling it Obama "digital" is a misnomer, like the Obama Phone. I find this to be the best description of that...

A Short history of the Obamaphone

As far back as the 1930s, public policy established the need for universal phone service. During the Reagan administration, the FCC established the Universal Service Fund. A tax on everyone’s phone bill fed the fund, which enabled people to receive subsidies for basic telephone service. To qualify, a person or household must be receiving one or more of several federal assistance benefits. By the logic that established the term “Obamaphone,” you’d have to call a 1980s rotary phone installed via the Universal Service Fund a Reaganphone.

By the same token, the concept of digital television (DTV) transmission emerged in the mid-1980s, and was developed by the FCC and several tech companies during the Administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. So perhaps a more accurate nickname might be FCC "digital"...

I have always said that if a POTUS does something bad, the previous POTUS will get blamed for it, and if a POTUS does something good, the next POTUS will get credit for it. But in this case, it seems Obama is getting credit for something developed during several previous presidential administrations, two Republican and one Democrat. But if you account for distribution during the Obama administration, I suppose you could say it was two and two. You could include Biden and Trump as well, for the same reasons. There is a lot more to it than just that, but it gives you a ball park concept of the idea...

In general, that is what I refer to as working together to get things done, as opposed to the way Congress is quite often now, where American Tax Payers are paying six figure salaries to Members of Congress and all they do is argue. They should find ways to get along and work together again. But that's another story...

 

[Axel Slingerland]

What I forgot to say was how broadcast TV signals react to hill. With old school analog signals, signals begin to degrade when they hit something like a hill or a mountain. This is why we would get TV Snow. With the modern digital signals, they are essentially dependent on line of sight between transmitters and antennas. If the signal hits a hill, it changes direction and that could quite possibly even be strait up, and the signal goes to the limit of what is referred to as the "digital cliff effect." Which means it will fall off and you'll get pixelated artwork, a blank screen or image freezes. If you get a signal at all.

I was totally jazzed when I heard there would be over 30 networks they you could pick up with a good digital antenna. What they did not say was you world need tower so tall it would need an aircraft warning light before it would work properly...

 

[Mary Stetler]

What I forgot to say was how broadcast TV signals react to hill. With old school analog signals, signals begin to degrade when they hit something like a hill or a mountain. This is why we would get TV Snow. With the modern digital signals, they are essentially dependent on line of sight between transmitters and antennas. If the signal hits a hill, it changes direction and that could quite possibly even be strait up, and the signal goes to the limit of what is referred to as the "digital cliff effect." Which means it will fall off and you'll get pixelated artwork, a blank screen or image freezes. If you get a signal at all.

I was totally jazzed when I heard there would be over 30 networks they you could pick up with a good digital antenna. What they did not say was you world need tower so tall it would need an aircraft warning light before it would work properly...

My router is frozen with age. We wrenched it around once but I am too old to go up and do it again. So we only get programs from one direction.

 

[Jacob Petersheim]

It seems that Jay Leno has weighed in on this cancellation. His advice is that taking a strong one-sided political position risks loss of significant audience share. If the winds shift, you have a history and an image that no longer sells the soap. If you flip-flop your entire audience may turn away.