( Brief Intro )To keep this post from growing into a dense essay, I think digital multicasting is the answer. We all know terrestrial broadcasting, and their networks. One thing the HDTV conversion did was create the capacity for digital subchannels. In the analog signal days that were like so several months ago, there would be a transmitting station that created a channel 4. But now, there's channel 4.1, 4.2, and so on.
Well, the MSM doesn't have enough content to fill it. These channels might have AccuWeather, and that's it, because they don't have the supply to fill it with. Well, we've seen a similar broadcast wasteland before, AM radio. We all know what happened. If you're like me, you've read a nauseating amount of columns detailing the rise of syndicated political talk radio. So let's jump ahead to the wilderness we see now.
I'll excerpt a recent peice from TV Week:
Do you watch any of the new local digital channels?
No, neither do I.
Welcome to television’s new wasteland of local digital multicasting. Now there are seven zillion more channels and still the same complaint, “all these channels and nothing to watch.” More accurately, there’s little worth watching on these new digital channels.
In June, local stations finally made the long talked about - more like ballyhooed - transition from analog to digital. Along with the transition, stations were allocated several digital channels where they could - I emphasize could - multicast different programs using the same spectrum space it takes for one analog channel. Simply explained, a local station, say one broadcasting on Channel 4, can also program channels 4.1., 4.2., 4.3. and 4.4. Suffice it to say, whatever digital magic makes it happen, it’s pretty cool. But pretty cool to a point.
Like the current real estate crisis of our “great recession,” there’s a lot of digital real estate available, and few buyers. No one group – or local broadcaster – has figured out how to program these channels and generate revenue, draw viewers and yes, make money. One broadcast consultant put it to me, “there’s a lot of talkin’ and not much doin’ with these channels.”
I could gush with giddiness over the absurdity of this "problem." Just like with conservative news/talk at the end of the Cold War, there's one crowd dismayed that there's no content to fill a vast desert, and there's another group bummed that they don't have anyone of their own culture breaking in.
I want in on it. I've been trying to learn all I can't about first-run syndication, how barter syndication works, and that whole business. I want to be a among the colonists that pioneer the place. I want to build everything. Anyone here recall Andrew Klaven's pinning to have a whole infrastructure to ourselves? We can't just make movies, because they'll receive nothing but derision from the establishment critics, and won't be featured on the establishment talk shows, or award ceremonies, and everything else. We have to build our own critical review infrastructure and talk shows and everything else, where it will be received.
I won't plug what I'm doing, but I'm stumbling blindly through learning how to do one part. What about you? Can I get anything beyond another condescending "good luck with that." Hello? Oh, and one last thing. Would anyone be interested in a community to talk just about that?
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