07 March 2009
Who Should Pay for TV Conversion?
Do advertisers want digital television? We’ll see how indifferent they are when five million households lose their TV signal in June. That doesn’t even count the antennaed 2nd and 3rd TVs in the homes of cable and satellite subscribers. Two possible answers to this question:
1) Advertisers pay broadcasters to maintain a parallel analog signal; but this would require postponing the expansion of radio signal use to serve other public interests.
2) Advertisers pay the cost of converting all homes to digital. This strategy would also create new jobs and help relieve the unemployment pressures of the current recession.
Who, after all, gains the benefit from digital TV conversion that is most readily quantifiable in this time of financial stress? The commercial model of public communications in the U.S. mandates that an innovation that makes them more efficient and entertaining be paid for by those who thereby reach and profit from a wider and more committed viewing audience.
Do advertisers want digital television? We’ll see how indifferent they are when five million households lose their TV signal in June. That doesn’t even count the antennaed 2nd and 3rd TVs in the homes of cable and satellite subscribers. Two possible answers to this question:
1) Advertisers pay broadcasters to maintain a parallel analog signal; but this would require postponing the expansion of radio signal use to serve other public interests.
2) Advertisers pay the cost of converting all homes to digital. This strategy would also create new jobs and help relieve the unemployment pressures of the current recession.
Who, after all, gains the benefit from digital TV conversion that is most readily quantifiable in this time of financial stress? The commercial model of public communications in the U.S. mandates that an innovation that makes them more efficient and entertaining be paid for by those who thereby reach and profit from a wider and more committed viewing audience.
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