This is a common misconception, or at least more nuanced than it appears on the surface. There’s a lot more to this than meets the eye.
One reason cable operators are pushing digital, is because many of the content providers (both satellite and off-air) are making plans to shut down their analog feeds. A fair number of them have already done so. In fact, the FCC is requiring all off-air content providers to offer digital signal by, uhh - I’m not sure exactly what the date is, but it’s just a couple short years down the road. At some point after that, there will be no more analog off-air signals (and the satellite content providers will be shortly behind that I suspect). The FCC has plans to reclaim and use that portion of the public spectrum for other purposes (although I don’t remember right now exactly what uses those are - probably cell phones, and/or WiFi metro-nets).
Interestingly however, a digital signal consumes less bandwidth than an analog signal, so the cable company can carry more channels in the same amount of spectrum without upgrading physical plant. So this is another reason, and one which provides a direct benefit to the cable company, for “pushing” digital. There’s really a three-way convergence of interests here. Even without accounting for the signal quality improvements the consumer, who using only his private little rabbit-ear antenna, will see.
Thanks, xizor. I had typed 2009 in there, and then realized I wasn’t entirely sure that was correct, so I removed it. So there ya go; three years and there won’t be any more off-air analog stations.
This wouldn’t be so bad, save for the fact that the digital service costs more (at least it does in Cablevision land). And they have the balls to charge you more rent for the box. The bean-counters/suits that run these cable companies need to listen to consumers.
Say I get X analog channels at $60 a month.
I’m hearing that they can squeeze in more channels with digital, lowering the cost per channel.
But instead of offering X digital channels at $55 a month, they’ll offer 2X channels at $100 a month. On paper it looks like a deal to the consumer, but the fact is they’re pushing another X channels on me that I don’t want and don’t want to pay for.
A “deal” is when I get the same for less money.
Charging me a reduced rate for something I don’t want is not a bargain.
You are misanalyzing the situation. Specifically, you’re neglecting the cost to the cable operator of obtaining retransmission rights. You’re saying that because digital doesn’t require as much spectrum as analog, they should be able to offer either more channels for an identical price, or an identical number of channels for a lower price. Both of these neglect several aspects of the pricing model.
Yeah, cramming more digital signals into the same spectrum has the effect of lowering the cost per channel to transport signal to your house. Kinda, where this comes apart though is, if I’m squeezing more channels in the same space, the cost of obtaining rights to that extra content, and the costs at the headend for injecting those extra signals into the network, are increased proportionally. And about 50% of your bill is the cable company’s cost of obtaining content. Those costs don’t change just because a digital signal requires less spectrum. And in actual fact, the content providers, in many cases, are charging more for the rights to carry digital programming that they are for analog. Presumably, this higher charge is to offset their own capital expenses for the digitial equipment. And the reason the cable guys get more per month for a digital-capable set-top box, is the higher unit cost; the cable guys are paying more for them, too.
Can’t see anyone here making that argument. In any case, this here’s is GQ. Your comments are subjective, and thus, not within the realm of objective fact.
What UncleBeer said, plus, although you can squeeze more channels over the same cable with digital, the electronics that are needed to do that represent a significant upgrade cost to the cable operator.
I guess cable TV is a monopoly-and the service seems to get worse while the prices rise. My big complaint:
-the junk on cable: who needs 5 shopping channels?
-the huge number of commercials on cable channels-there are more ads than on broadcast TV
-lousy movies…old stuff is rebroadcast over and over
I remember the original promise of cable …NO commercials and real choices. The History channel is mostly filler stuff, and SCI-FI gives you such gems as “TAPS”
With cable, you basically get a LOT of unwatchable garbage-its like having two of every item you DON’T want!
