Peter the K wrote:

Will there be a need for local broadcast TV in 2020?

Yup. Some people just want to relax in front of a Television after a day's hard work and not have to think much about what's there to tune into. 
Try doing some Data Entry from 9-5 ( with respectable breaks) or any work in front of a computer screen for a long period of time.
Then go home...you can't possibly tell me that you are in a mood to search through an over crowded screen filled with an insane amount of things trying to get your attention!

It's a lot better to just turn on the TV and relax. Let it tell you what you will watch.
(News might be a good example.) 
The digital box guide offers a quick glance (provided that you are sticking with the basics, and not a search through a 500 channel universe)
With the quick glance it's easy do decide there's either nothing on or something on.

Now, I understand that not everyone has a job that is placed in front of a computer, but even after heavy lifting
(ie a mover or construction worker maybe?) or some other sort of hard work, all I'd want to do is just collapse in front of the TV and turn it on! (digital box already set to the channel I'd normally come home to, perhaps)

I'm not saying that Peter the K is wrong, but I am heavily suggesting that not everyone wants to fiddle.
Whatever the future has coming outside of sports, it just might have to include "regular routine" content, whether it be news @ 6 or any other daily program...It'll be right there automatically, without much thought or channel surfing,
sort of like what TV does for us today... 

***added note: the cord cutters might still watch TV with the antenna that be, hopefully one strong enough to just sit there and give signal without having to be touched or adjusted. 
 

Last edited by Radiowiz (January 25, 2016 2:29 am)

Retransmission fees, while perhaps a fair way of compensating station group owners for their programming, can be a slippery slope. CBS, in particular, as the number one network in the U.S., has been especially good (if that’s the word) at playing this game. Most often with Dish Network, whose CEO Charlie Ergen is one of the world’s greatest cheapskates.
 
Dish customers have too often woken up to find their CBS feeds gone, replaced by a screen saying "we’re negotiating with this provider and hoping to have the signal back soon.”  And when does it happen? Always right before some huge ticket item like the Super Bowl.
 
What occurs next is completely predictable. Subscribers go insane, sure they won’t be able to see the year’s biggest TV event, threatening to cancel their service and switch to Direct TV or a local cable company competitor. Watching the bleeding, Ergen makes a last minute settlement and everything is restored before game time. But many are fed up and have already left.
 
And the rates go up to pay for it, with CBS making fistfuls of money and the remaining customers getting thoroughly hosed. And that’s in a scenario where cable companies and TV station owners are totally separate.
 
You can imagine the uproar here if Bell tried to pull the football game off Rogers, because they weren’t getting enough for CFTO. The CRTC would be besieged with complaints and because the government is tightly entrenched in regulating the media here, whoever was in power wouldn’t let it last long.
 
I’m not sure how the Commission will resolve the local TV funding issue it’s taking up this week. But rest assured there will only be a few winners. And those who pay for their TV - i.e. - most on this board - most definitely won’t be among them.