A lot of stations are jumping on this ATSC 3.0 bandwagon. But what if consumers aren't willing to buy the new sets required to see the signals? I'm not exactly in the mood to replace both of my big screen televisions for this, although if it's one day the only way to receive anything OTA I might not have a choice. (Similar to what happened during the HDTV transition.) 

But what about people who strictly watch off cable or satellite? Or those whose sole TV watching is now limited to streaming? The industry is spending a small fortune on the so-called "Next Gen TV" system. But what happens if the "Next Gen" of viewers don't buy into it? I have no problem with incorporating web capabilities with broadcast signals, but is this worth the gamble? Or will it end up being another Canadian DAB-like disaster that local radio experienced a few years ago? 

(ATSC 3.0 is currently on the air in Buffalo, with several stations taking the for now experimental plunge. All of the Channel 49 signals are night lights from other broadcasters, while that station has gone fulltime 3.0 - not that anyone can really see it.)

Are you willing to buy a new set (or sets) to take part in this grand vision of the future of broadcasting?

RadioActive wrote:

I'm not exactly in the mood to replace both of my big screen televisions for this

I am sure you will be able to buy an ATSC 3.0 tuner, with HDMI output, and connect to your existing "TV"

RadioActive wrote:

But what about people who strictly watch off cable or satellite? Or those whose sole TV watching is now limited to streaming?l

No effect what so ever.  This is an OTA move only.

 

In Phase wrote:

This is an OTA move only. 

Which is part of my point. With so few watching TV OTA these days, why go to all this trouble and expense? How much are they really gaining? Or do they think this will spur more interest in antenna-based TV, which surely Rogers and Bell have no interest in.

Which brings up one other question: so far, this appears to be only in the U.S. Is Canada doing this, too? (Or will we be dragged kicking and screaming into it five years after the U.S., like we did with colour TV, stereo sound and HD?)

The article says that the Next Generation TV may not be fully implemented for another 15 years. So like HD, colour, stereo television etc. it will be tested and phased in over time.  I don't recall broadcasting in Canada being dragged kicking and screaming into anything RA.  What exactly are you talking about?  Some things like stereo TV, and colour may have been standard here a year or two later than the US, and who cares?  Why does everything need to be identical to what is done in the US and in the same timeframe? 

 

RadioActive wrote:

In Phase wrote:

This is an OTA move only. 

Which is part of my point. With so few watching TV OTA these days, why go to all this trouble and expense? How much are they really gaining? Or do they think this will spur more interest in antenna-based TV, which surely Rogers and Bell have no interest in.

Because network operators in the US, like Sinclair, believe they can have a business providing "TV" and internet data to mobile devices.  I guess they haven't heard of 5G.

In Canada, why would Rogers or Bell want to deploy ATSC 3.0 and potentially cut into their other vertically integrated businesses?

RadioActive wrote:

Which brings up one other question: so far, this appears to be only in the U.S. Is Canada doing this, too? (Or will we be dragged kicking and screaming into it five years after the U.S., like we did with colour TV, stereo sound and HD?)

Other than DAB, Canada has typically and purposefully, deployed new broadcast technologies after the US.  We might be dragged kicking and screaming into ATSC 3.0, but such was not the case with colour TV, stereo, and HD, given that there was great demand for those attributes.

 

Sure NBC had and experimented with colour in 1953, again who cares?  And there was some sporadic colour programming on all three networks into the early 60's but it was far from the norm.   The percent of colour TV sets in US homes as recent as 1964/65 was still in the single digits, well under 10%.   ABC and CBS were still broadcasting primarily in black and white until the 1965/66 season, and even then still had programs in B&W.  Prior to 65/66 almost all of their programming was B&W. In the early 60's it was NBC that moved to mostly colour programming but not all.  The biggest news event of the century, death of JFK and funeral were  broadcast in B&W by all networks. 

When Canada did go with a lot of colour programming in September 1966 was more or less the same time that CBS and ABC also moved to broadcast mostly colour television, especially in prime time. Canadian network domestic programming also was mostly in colour at the same time, full colour came later.  In 1966 a little over 1% of Canadian homes had a colour TV. Canada was the third country in the world to offer colour programming.  The US and Japan were first. 

Last edited by paterson1 (September 13, 2021 9:59 pm)

I read somewhere that NBC would only produce a series like Hazel or Bonanza in colour if the sponsor picked up the expense of the added costs of colour programming, which was 30% higher.  This is why even though NBC being the "Color Network" didn't really have many regular shows in colour until the early 60's. Colour had been reserved more for the odd special or something like the Rose Bowl Parade.  When  NBC finally increased colour programming in the early 60's, it was to help sell colour TV sets for parent company RCA.  Through the 50's and early 60's sales of the sets had been slow.  Electrohome in Kitchener was the first to manufacture and design colour TV's in Canada in 1965.

CTV was further ahead for colour broadcasts than CBC.  The crown corporation  had fewer colour shows in the fall of 1966, and had fewer studios and equipment for colour productions than the private network.  CTV's schedule was 70% colour by January 1, 1967, which was the official launch of colour TV programming in Canada in celebration of the centennial.  But broadcasting in colour in prime time began on CTV on September 1966.
 
CTV really established itself as a serious news broadcaster during the Conservative leadership convention in Ottawa in 1967.  They broadcast the whole convention live and in colour. They also had a few mini hand held cameras on the convention floor.  CBC's broadcast was in B&W and no mini cameras.  CTV scooped the CBC various times partially because of the portable cameras, which were able to get into party scrums at floor level for the bargaining between candidates.  CTV also had a fantastic helicopter video of parliament hill when coming back from commercials.  Likely one of the first colour aerial video shots on television using the new portable cameras.  But it was on tape, and not live.  

Peter the K wrote:

The whole comparison between ATSC 3.0 and colour broadcasting is missing an important point.

In North America, color broadcasting was often referred to as "compatible color" because black and white TV sets could still show the signal -- just not in color.  NTSC (which some refer to as Never Twice the Same Color) basically broadcast a black and white signal with color information piggy-backed onto it.  This standard was backed by NBC.  CBS had a different standard proposed which would require everyone to buy a new TV.  This is essentially what happened in the UK where black and white broadcasting continued until 1985.

The main advantage is people didn't have to replace their sets to at least watch the programming.  I remember sports commentators often using the phrase "for those watching in black and white" before describing the colors the players were wearing.  It also let the broadcasters (especially NBC) remind people of how wonderful this particular show is to watch "in living color".

Correct. The story behind how color TV came to the U.S. (it's American so I'm leaving out the "u" in colour) is fascinating. CBS and NBC (aka RCA) were in a huge battle to get their standards accepted and if memory serves, CBS' "color wheel" actually won. But David Sarnoff wasn't going to let that happen on his watch and did everything he could to stop it, including law suits and delaying tactics. Eventually the RCA "electronic color guns" system prevailed.

And as Peter The K notes, it didn't require anyone to buy a new TV set. That, in the end, was its main appeal, or we may have had a very different system than the one we all grew up with. It's one of the few times the FCC was asked to intervene on a technical question like that and while there were some who argued the CBS system was better, I think they made the right decision. (You can see a test of what it looked like in the video below.)

Going over some past TV Guides in my collection, I will concede paterson1's obvious point that there weren't many colour shows in the late 50s. But by the early 60s, an increasing number of shows were being presented in colour. Not many at first, but as the years went by, more and more appeared. By 1965/66, more shows than ever before had the tint and hues.

I guess my big problem is that by the time colour TV officially arrived in Canada, it had been in the U.S. in one form or another for over a decade. My real complaint would be, given that the question of which system to use had long been settled, why in God's name did the CRTC have any say in this at all? What were they waiting for all those years? What is it with our federal government constantly needing to interfere with almost every aspect of TV broadcasting?

This was not a content issue, like CanCon. It certainly wasn't a debate about which system to adopt. Canadians would have gone crazy if they'd picked something incompatible with the U.S., which most of us here watched out of Buffalo. It also wasn't anything to do with interference, like licensing, channel allocations or power. 

The colour TV standard had long been established. Why did we have to wait for some bureaucrats in Ottawa to say we could finally move out of the black and white era? Why not let stations who wanted to just adopt the colour option that was the standard in North America?

This should have been organic, like it was down south. If you build it, they will eventually buy the sets. But no, the government had to stick its nose into everything TV.

And it appears not much has changed all these years later!

Yes channel 11 does have good taste when choosing their retro programming.  They manage to keep it fresh and will give shows a good rest if they are planning to repeat a series.  They did this with Mary Tyler Moore. 

Now RA, the point of contention was your comment about Canada being dragged kicking and screaming after the fact with colour, hd, stereo TV etc. which is not really true. You tend to lump the regulations and your feelings of government interference together and try to make a case that this is why you think Canadian broadcasting is inferior, or technologically backward.  Which again in my opinion is not accurate.

As others have posted, in terms of technology we usually purposely wait a year or two after what is happening in the US. This is reasonable and makes sense and also helps to gauge demand.  Also as always the economics and the large difference in size of the US and Canadian markets need to be considered. 

In terms of colour, yes the technology was around since 1953, but colour, like FM radio wasn't popular for a long time in the US.  In this respect both CTV and CBC, even most local stations caught up to the US networks and local stations  quickly with colour broadcasts after the fall of 1966.  The fact that there was some limited US programming in colour prior to the mid sixties is not really a big issue.  It couldn't have been an issue for ABC and CBS either since they stuck with black and white productions and obviously didn't see colour initially as a threat or necessary until much later. CBS was the most popular network even with all of their B&W shows!

It was the BBG (Board of Broadcast Governors) that was involved with colour broadcasting here, the CRTC hadn't been invented yet.  The FCC and US government also sticks their nose into many aspects of broadcasting.

Look at HD and the conversion in the US which just wrapped up on July 13, 2021.  This was the final date that the FCC had given all low power stations and transmitters to convert to HD.   For years, the FCC had mandated earlier dates and schedules for larger stations and broadcasters for the HD conversion.  The technology for HD had been around for years, but the FCC still saw the need to mandate or force stations to convert to this new format.  This was done so it was organized, sort of like the introduction of colour in Canada, even though the BBG didn't give stations a drop dead date when they had to be broadcasting in colour as far as I am aware.  As we know, the FCC also has a big stick with the threat of fines for broadcaster non compliance, which the CRTC does not have. 

Last edited by paterson1 (September 14, 2021 5:21 pm)

Media Observer wrote:

Speaking of Bonanza,  Season 1/ Episode 1 premiers tomorrow at 1:00 pm on CHCH Channel 11.  This station continues to acquire and air some great oldies.
 

My Bell Fibe guide shows Bonanza at 12 noon (EST) on CHCH  ??
 

it would be cooler if it was wearing a leather jacket.

In Phase wrote:

Media Observer wrote:

Speaking of Bonanza,  Season 1/ Episode 1 premiers tomorrow at 1:00 pm on CHCH Channel 11.  This station continues to acquire and air some great oldies.
 

My Bell Fibe guide shows Bonanza at 12 noon (EST) on CHCH  ??
 

My bad...typing!   Should read 12:00.  Missed the "2".