Reminiscent of AM stereo....which actually was a "thing".  Car makers will only add technology if there is money in it for them.   Unless Sinclair ponies up millions of dollars to car makers, this will never see the light of day.  XM and Sirius only achieved massive market share, by paying GM, Honda, et al for the inclusion of their technologies in the head units of cars, and designing chipsets that were really cheap.  In fact the car-makers extracted an ongoing "revenue share" from satellite radio companies....as their "payback" for including the chips, antennas, and software in their vehicles.  There were hundreds of millions of dollars involved.

So what's the business case that Sinclair is making, for inclusion of new chipsets and new antennas on cars capable of receiving UHF TV channels 14-36 (which is where the sinclair stations broadcast)?  ATSC-3 receiving technology - right now - is not cheap.  In fact there aren't any chipsets in the marketplace for ATSC-3  radio.  There are only 2 ASTSC boxes being marketed for over-the-air reception and they are done by boutique companies - such as HDHomerun.  Not cheap either.   

I don't think anyone at Sinclair has a clue of how to create a successful consumer product or get car makers to embrace a new technology of highly limited interest.     

BTW, other U.S. broadcast groups don't seem to have any ASTSC-3 coversion asperations.  There would need to be a massive adoption of ATSC-3 by TV set makers...but that's not the issue.  Even in the US, a small %age of viewers receive their broadcast services via ATSC-1 over-the-air.  So upgrading massive amounts of infrastructure for OTA ATSC-3, that less than 1% of viewers will have access to, (for many years) makes no sense in this pandemic business environment.   

Last point.  Proponents of ATSC-3 claim that there will be more subchannels available, and a more robust signal in urban environments.   But I wonder who, of Big Yellow Board readers watch any of the couple of dozen US subcarriers, available in S. Ontario, over the air - even once a month?   I sure haven't bothered to watch anything other than a few shows on WNED 17.2 on a regular basis.  I have no interest in comet, grit, laff, or a couple dozen other channels, most of which telecast older   4x5 versions of grainy pre-HD programs.    But that's my personal taste.   Scripps/Katz are going to move a lot of content over to WPXJ-51 (ION) in February.   WPXJ Ch. 51 (ION) barely rates in any time period in Western New York.   So their subcarriers probably will be viewed by very few people.  Even when it's free!  

Last edited by tvguy (January 29, 2021 9:48 pm)