OP-ED piece from NAB about free OTA TV.

[NECRAT]

http://missouri-news.org/opinion/whats-the-best-use-of-broadcast-airwaves/6720#.Th80oLv7Kxg.twitter

By Gordon Smith (President of NAB)

As the debate rages in Washington, DC over auctioning free and local broadcast television airwaves for fee-based wireless broadband applications, one of the questions being pondered is, “What’s the highest and best use of this valuable resource?”

The answer is: “It depends whom you ask.”

If you queried the residents of Joplin, many would respond: “For emergency weather warnings, because it was local TV weather forecasters who saved our lives.”

[Deep Thought]

BUT NO! We need to repurpose 500 MHz of television spectrum so self-absorbed twentysomethings can update their Facebook status and Tweet at us continuously from their iPads from anywhere and everywhere!

If we let OTA be thrown under the bus it'll be the last nail in the coffin for any kind of free video media. The pay TV folks have been trying to kill broadcast television since the '70s when cable reps would come to town and talk about the blight of OTA antennas they would miraculously make disappear and lobbied hard for zoning and planning ordinances which prohibited them in exchange for All Things Golden from cable TV. Since then they've used the boiling frog business plan where if you slowly take away everything you've promised nobody really notices they're being screwed.

[K9EZ]

We need a +1 button now!

BUT NO! We need to repurpose 500 MHz of television spectrum so self-absorbed twentysomethings can update their Facebook status and Tweet at us continuously from their iPads from anywhere and everywhere!

If we let OTA be thrown under the bus it'll be the last nail in the coffin for any kind of free video media. The pay TV folks have been trying to kill broadcast television since the '70s when cable reps would come to town and talk about the blight of OTA antennas they would miraculously make disappear and lobbied hard for zoning and planning ordinances which prohibited them in exchange for All Things Golden from cable TV. Since then they've used the boiling frog business plan where if you slowly take away everything you've promised nobody really notices they're being screwed.

[BroadcastDoc]

Agreed. Great post.