TV Fool

Ready or not, the FCC has set February 17, 2009 as the deadline for all major broadcast television stations to decommission their analog transmitters and finalize their conversion to the new digital standard. Most people get their television programming via cable, satellite, or fiber optic sources rather than over-the-air (OTA), so most people will be unaffected when the analog transmitters go dark next year. However, according to FCC estimates, about 14% of all U.S. households rely on OTA broadcasts as their only source of programming. For these consumers, this change means everything. If they do not upgrade their equipment to receive digital broadcasts, they may be left with little or nothing to watch after next year.

This country has enjoyed free broadcast television for so long that many people feel like free TV is just a way of life. Some even feel as if they've been slighted by the government because their current television equipment is being forced into obsolescence. While there's nothing surprising about newer technologies superseding older technologies, analog TV seems to have a special place in our hearts because it has remained with us virtually unchanged for more than 50 years. With a change as extensive and swift as the upcoming analog shutdown, there are bound to be some frustrated consumers out there either because they have not been properly informed of their options or because they are unable/unwilling to spend the money to upgrade.

To make matters worse, some early adopters have been reporting a reduction in the total number of digital channels available to them when compared to their previous analog line-up. For those already reluctant to make the switch, this seems to add insult to injury because now they must also face the possiblity of receiving fewer channels than before. This is not the outcome one would expect because the FCC, broadcasters, and the consumer electronics industry have worked hard to make sure the new digital network is on par with the old analog network. However, with a change of this magnitude, it's possible that certain areas have been overlooked in the new plan. The question is, do these coverage reductions represent a few isolated cases or is this indicative of a more widespread phenomenon.

With the propagation modeling and coverage analysis tools available at TV Fool, we thought it would be interesting to take a peek into the future and see just how good or bad things will get after the transition. Since the FCC has already announced the final DTV plans for most of the major broadcasters, we can take a closer look at what the OTA environment looks like today and compare it with how things might look after the transition deadline. Are people really losing channels? We hope our anaysis will shed some light on the issue and also reveal some interesting facts about how OTA television is going to change approximately one year from now.

How We Set Up the Comparison

Every city has its own unique mix of open space, mountains, valleys, transmitter locations, and neighboring markets. This makes it dangerous to pick just a handful of test points and generalize their results for the whole country. OTA environments simply have have too many combinations of variables to consider. To give this study a solid statistical foundation, we decided to look at a lot of test points, examining as many locations as we could, representing every possible OTA environment. We wanted to put together the most comprehensive analysis possible to peer into the future of OTA television.

To get the data we want, we decided to simulate before-and-after scenarios for 206,960 individual test locations, representing the residences of over 99% of the total U.S. population. By using a giant database of locations and population counts extracted from the U.S. Census Bureau, we should have a pretty good representation of all possible OTA environments, and we can tally the number of people affected by each change. All of the U.S. was used in the analysis except for Alaska and Hawaii, which account for approximately 0.6% of the total population. As far as we know, this is the most comprehensive analysis of television coverage that has ever been released to the public.

An important criteria for our comparison is that we are assuming no change to the antenna before and after the transition. If someone is receiving satisfactory analog OTA television with an existing antenna setup, we want to see how well the digital broadcasts perform on the exact same setup. Naturally, people have the option of upgrading their antenna system to pull in a greater number of digital channels, but that's not the point of this comparison. We are particularly interested in the relative performance of the old and new broadcast infrastructures, given equal metrics for comparison to the extent possible.

Our analysis also ignores digital "sub-channels". It is common practice these days for digital signals to carry multiple programming streams simultaneously. These additional programming streams are often used to carry some extra standard-definition (SD) programming, news, audio-only streams, and weather alerts. Some would argue that these "extra" channels don't count for much because most of the transmitter's bandwidth is devoted to the main high definition programming stream and because most of these secondary streams carry far less substantive content. For the purposes of our analysis, one digital transmitter counts as one digital channel. If you want to give partial credit to some of the sub-channel offerings out there, you could multiply our results by some scaling factor (e.g., x1.2 "channels" per digital transmitter).

It is also worth mentioning that simulations are never perfect. Simulations cannot take into account every possible effect that occurs in the real world, and there's always the possibility of flaws or errors in the simulation's input data. There's always a long list of caveats with any simulated analysis, however, we believe that any up-side or down-side bias that might exist in the simulation results would affect both current and future results equally. Therefore, even if the simulations are not an exact reflection of reality, the relative performance trends are probably still quite informative. TV Fool tries to maintain the most up-to-date and detailed simulations possible, but absolute accuracy is not guaranteed.

The Way Things Look Today

We actually have a very unique OTA situation right now because many broadcasters are operating both an analog and a digital transmitter simultaneously. This means a lot of people have almost double the number of channels reaching them now compared to just a few years ago. Anyone with equipment capable of receiving both analog and digital signals have access to more OTA channels today than ever before and probably ever again.

To most people, this doesn't mean much since many of the channels are exact duplicates of each other. However, this is an opportunity for people to perform direct comparisons between the analog and digital technologies. By flipping back and forth between channels, it's easy to observe the differences in picture quality, sound quality, and signal behavior. After the analog shutdown is complete, all broadcasters will revert back to just a single transmitter and this opportunity will go away.

This abundance of channels also means that our current TV spectrum is very crowded. This has forced some digital channels to reduce their broadcast power, move to different transmitting facilities, or otherwise alter their digital signal to something less optimal than their normal full-power configuration. The overall interference levels caused by same-channel and adjacent-channel signals is also higher than usual. There is a strong demand for channels right now and the transmitters have to be packed pretty close to each other in order to accomodate everyone's needs. Despite the spectrum planning difficulties, we are essentially running two parallel broadcast networks today.

When we look at present-day channel availability, one of the first things that jumps out at us is the sheer number of channels that are available to most people. It's quite common to receive at least one channel from each of the major affiliate broadcasters (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS), but we are also starting to see other groups filling the airwaves (CW, MyNetwork, ION, independents, foreign language stations, etc.). Anyone that's been away from OTA television for a while might be pleasantly surprised to find that their channel selection has grown somewhat over the decades. You still won't find OTA editions of ESPN, HBO, and other subscription-only programming feeds, but it's not bad considering that there is some good content available and that it's free.

The people who get the greatest number of channels are typically situated between major markets and get their choice of channels from two or sometimes three neighboring cities. There is some duplication of programming here, especially among affiliate broadcasters, but there's probably still enough news, sports, and other localized programming to make it worth checking out each of the channels from time-to-time.

It is also interesting to see the combined analog+digital channel counts. Most people don't really care about having so many duplicate channels, but it is amazing to see how fully packed our television spectrum has become. In the past, any given city would only use a small fraction of the available channels. The limited number of channels (2-69) had to be re-used over-and-over again throughout the country, so the FCC made sure each city only sparsely filled the available channels. This provided enough vacant slots so that neighboring cities would have their share of channels without broadcasting on top of each other. The same channels would not be reused again until there was enough distance between transmitters to avoid interference (usually 2 or 3 metros away). With our current dual-network configuration, a lot of people are covered by almost double the normal number of channels. In the most extreme cases, some people might find a usable analog or digital signal on over 70% of the channels, which is an unprecedented level of spectrum utilization.

Another point that everyone is sure to notice is that digital channels reach fewer people than analog channels. However, before we jump to any hasty conclusions, let's keep in mind that there are a few explanations for this, and, in some areas, this channel shortage is expected. Some of the main reasons for this discrepancy are

We will hold off making any conclusions until we take a closer look at how things look after the analog shutdown. In the meantime, we came up with some interesting stats about the OTA landscape we have right now.

It would be simple to look at these numbers and say that there is an average loss of about 2.5 channels going from analog-only to digital-only, but the details are far more interesting if you look at the next graph. It's true that the average household will lose channels, but that's an generalization that does not apply to everyone. The truth is that about 14% of the population will see exactly the same number of digital channels as analog. About 16% of the population will actually see an increase in the number of channels today, with the most extreme cases seeing 11 more digital channels than analog. And this is happening even with some of the digital transmitters either offline or operating at reduced power.

That still leaves about 70% of the population seeing a decrease in the number of channels. The bulk of the population will lose a handful of channels, and in some extreme cases will lose more than a dozen channels. A closer look at some of those extreme cases reveal that they are at locations in-between markets that are within range of 20 to 30 analog channels. It would seem that they are at the fringe of reception for many analog signals, but are slightly out of reach of the equivalent digital channels. One partial explanation for this is that current DTV broadcasts are more heavily biased toward high UHF channels whereas analog channels have a more balanced distribution on VHF and UHF channels. Users in the fringe reception areas behind 1 and 2 edge obstructions will usually get less signal from UHF channels because of the differences in the way VHF and UHF radio waves bend over objects. We'll see if this gets any better with the post-transition analysis where many of the DTV transmitters will relocate to lower channel numbers.

Losing a few channels is probably not a big deal right now because all the analog broadcasts are still there as a backup. However, it looks like if you limit yourself to only digital channels in today's OTA environment, the average household will see a slight decrease in the number of available channels. A few people will see a dramatic increase or decrease in the number of available channels, but for most of us, there will only be a decline of about 2-3 channels and the average household will end up with about 12-13 digital channels. If you live in a city's television sweet spot, chances are that you'll see very little loss of channels. If you live in a fringe reception area, you're more likely to see a significant decline in channels. We expect things to get a little better after the analog shutdown, but it's hard to say if those improvements will be enough to get us back to a break-even point. We'll examine that more closely later in the analysis.

How Things Look Post-Transition

In the post- February 17, 2009 simulations, we see all the trends that we were expecting to see. The number of analog channels drops significantly and the number of digital channels increases slightly. The duplication of channels no longer exists, so the combined analog plus digital channel count is back down to a level that seems more "normal".

We also notice that there are still a large number of analog broadcasts lingering in some pockets. Surprisingly, a few people will still be receiving over a dozen analog stations (the very long tail at the bottom of the analog curve). This turns out to be caused by the large number of smaller transmitters that are not being included in this round of transmitter conversions.

There is a small percentage of the population that get all their OTA television with the help of translator and booster stations. These communities are usually in sheltered valleys or corridors that would get no signal at all without the help of these extra transmitters. Since none of these transmitters have been included in the FCC's list of digital conversions scheduled for next year, they all continue to show up as analog transmitters after the deadline.

The FCC has not taken a stance on whether or not these transmitters will be required to make the switch to digital or when, but it would seem natural for all of them to make the switch, eventually. Translator and booster stations are designed to take broadcasts from the big cities and relay them into their respective niche markets. You would expect them to do exactly the same thing when it comes to digital broadcasts. Unfortunately for us, there aren't enough details about "if", "when", or "how" these changes might take place. For now, all we can do is analyze the analog records on file and hope that most of them will get a one-for-one digital replacement someday.

We'll take a look at before-and-after comparisons next, but first, here are some stats from the post-transition analysis.

As expected, the analog channel availability has plummeted. The few remaining analog broadcasts are mostly Class A and low-power operators such as local educational institutions (e.g., high school or college), religious, political, local communities, and other similar entities. To a lesser degree, some translator and booster stations are also included in this statistic as per the comments above.

The digital market reach has only climbed slightly and the average number of available channels has only increased by about 1 channel. This does not seem like the dramatic increase we were hoping for, but we'll take a closer look at this a little later.

As a side note, there are some stories floating around suggesting that millions of people who rely on OTA might be left "in the dark" after the analog shutdown. From what we can tell, there is some truth this claim, but the number of people being affected is probably much smaller than initially reported. If we look at our current OTA availability, roughly 2.7 million people (about 1%) do not receive any analog channels. If we compare that to the 4.5 million people (about 1.6%) that do not receive any digital channels after the analog shutdown, we see a definite rise in the number of people left without OTA service. However, these numbers include all of the population regardless of whether they use cable, satellite, fiber, or OTA. If we assume that the FCC estimates are correct, only about 14% of the population relies exlusively on OTA television. As a very rough approximation, we could scale the 4.5 million or 2.5 million numbers by 0.14 to estimate the number of people who really need OTA, but can't get it. By these calculations, it would seem the actual number of people being left "in the dark" is closer to something in the 350k to 630k range. Some people are "in the dark" already with analog OTA, so the number of additional people being left "in the dark" by digital OTA does not seem to be that high.

Analog Today vs. Post-Transition

Now that we have both current and future analyses in hand, it's time to look at how the new digital world will stack up against our departing analog system.

When compared side-by-side, the current analog availability still edges out over the post-transitional digital availability. The digital channels gained a little ground with the analog shutdown, but they don't quite match the number of analog channels we enjoy right now...or do they?

Many people have been led to believe that the digital coversion will be complete on February 17, 2009, when in fact it is only the first big milestone in the process. Next year's conversion deadline affects 1,811 of the most influential broadcast operators, but it specifically excludes all Class A, low-power, and other transmitters. This distinction was probably made on purpose so that all of the attention would be focused on getting the major transmitters converted first. The other transmitters could be dealt with later. This decision was probably also influenced by economics because many of the smaller operators do not have the money or staff to upgrade all of their equipment at the same pace as the bigger players.

What this means is that when comparing pre-transition analog channels with post-transition digital channels, we should not simply ignore the analog transmissions that are still operating after the deadline. At least some of them are probably scheduled for digital conversion right after the dust settles from this first wave of conversions. Others may remain analog for quite some time, but should still be accessible by most receiving equipment. Conversion plans for the next group of transmitters have not been finalized yet, so the only thing we can do for now is assume that some of the remaining analog signals will continue to be usable as-is, and some will eventually be replaced with digital equivalents. Since we're not sure what percentage of the remaining analog elements will persist into the future, we can only speculate that the final digital environment will probably end up somewhere in-between the digital-only and digital+analog post-transition picture that we see today.

When we look at how many channels people will gain or lose, we see that the post-transition picture looks better than our current dual-network situation, but the differences are small. The center of the bell curve is a bit closer to the break-even point, but still slightly on the losing side. This time, the analysis now shows that about 15% of the population will break-even, 26% will see an increase in channels, and 59% will see a decrease in channels. It's a little disappointing to see that the analog shutdown only improved digital availability by about one channel, but at the same time, it's encouraging to see that the bulk of the population is not that far from the break-even point.

If we look at the combined digital and analog post-transition channels, this gives us an optimistic estimate of things to come, assuming that the majority of remaining analog signals will also convert to digital. When both signal types are considered in the post-transition case, we get a more upbeat picture. In this case, about 12% of the population will be at the break-even point, 81% will see an increase in channels, and only 7% will see a decrease in channels.

It will take a while before we can see how things finally settle down, but if we are going to end up somewhere between these two predictions, it looks like were in a good range to see an overall improvement in OTA service. We'll know more once the remaining analog transmitters finalize their digital conversion plans.

Conclusions

There is a lot of truth in the circulating rumors that people are seeing fewer digital channels over-the-air than they used to get with analog. Our analysis does show that the average person switching to a digital-only setup will see fewer channels than they had with analog. For most of us, this change will be small. However, in any system-wide change like the one we are witnessing now, there will undoubtedly be statistical outliers where small groups of people will see huge differences in their available channel count (some positive, and some negative). You'll need to check your specific OTA environment to see what kinds of gains or losses to expect, but statistically speaking, 72% of the population will end up within 3 channels of where they were before.

This first major digital conversion milestone only includes the top 1,811 transmitters, so there will be a fair number of analog transmitters still running after February 17, 2009. This includes many educational institutions, religious, and other local content providers. If we count some of these residual analog channels in addition to the available digital channels, then the average user will probably see an overall increase in the total number of OTA choices available to them. Since it's not known how quickly the remaining analog transmitters will get converted to digital, most of us should plan on operating in a mixed mode for a while even after next year's deadline. Fortunately, most digital television receivers still include analog reception capabilities, so this shouldn't pose too much of a problem for most people.

It's also worth noting that many digital broadcasts include multiple programming streams on virtual sub-channels. A lot of these extra "channels" are filled with weather, news, and audio feeds that don't offer a lot of compelling content, but there are some cases where the extra channels carry substantive material that is worth watching. If someone feels that the digital sub-channels offer additional meaningful viewing options, then they might say that each digital transmitter should be counted as more than just one "channel". The quality of the sub-channels vary from broadcaster-to-broadcaster, so everyone will need to judge this for themselves, but it's another potential point to consider in favor of digital signals.

The bottom line is that there doesn't appear to be any gaping holes in the DTV transition plans. It is absolutely true that some people will be severely affected in a negative way because they happen to be one of the few unlucky folks in a statistically bad region. They have every reason and right to criticize the digital transition. On the flip side, some people will be dramatically affected in a positive way, but you probably won't hear them complaining about it. Most people will end up with something very similar to what they have today, which is exactly what the FCC was hoping for.