A new standard in over-the-air TV broadcasting could arrive as early as this year in more than 40 U.S. cities, bringing better reception and more TV channels and features to those willing to buy a new television or converter box to watch.

ATSC 3.0 comes just a decade after full power television stations in the United States ceased analog broadcasting. The ‘upgrade’ is a significant improvement over ATSC 1.0, the digital over-the-air television standard now in use in the U.S.

At the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas, Sinclair, Fox Television Stations, Nexstar, and NBCUniversal (and a consortium group of stations owned by SpectrumCo and Pearl TV) this week announced 40 U.S. television markets would see ATSC 3.0 stations launched by the end of 2020, starting in these cities:

• Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX
• Houston, TX
• San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, CA
• Phoenix, AZ*
• Seattle-Tacoma, WA
• Detroit, MI
• Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbourne, FL
• Portland, OR
• Pittsburgh, PA
• Raleigh-Durham, NC*
• Baltimore, MD
• Nashville, TN
• Salt Lake City, UT
• San Antonio, TX
• Kansas City, KS-MO
• Columbus, OH
• West Palm Beach-Ft. Pierce, FL
• Las Vegas, NV
• Austin, TX

To help the transition, ATSC 3.0 stations in these cities will switch off their ATSC 1.0 channels and relocate programming to one or more other local stations’ digital subchannels, allowing viewers with older sets to continue watching until a 5-year transition period ends.

The second, and likely larger wave of stations to switch on ATSC 3.0 will come in these cities:

• New York, NY
• Los Angeles, CA
• Chicago, IL
• Philadelphia, PA
• Washington, DC
• Boston, MA
• Atlanta, GA
• Tampa-St.Petersburg-Sarasota, FL
• Minneapolis – St. Paul, MN
• Miami – Ft. Lauderdale, FL
• Denver, CO
• Cleveland-Akron, OH*
• Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto, CA
• St. Louis, MO
• Charlotte, NC
• Indianapolis, IN
• San Diego, CA
• Hartford-New Haven, CT
• Cincinnati, OH
• Milwaukee, WI
• Greenville-Spartanburg, SC – Asheville, NC

The third wave of stations, still expected to complete a transition to ATSC 3.0 by the end of next year, are located in:

• Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News, VA
• Oklahoma City, OK
• Albuquerque – Santa Fe, NM
• Grand Rapids – Kalamazoo, MI
• Memphis, TN
• Buffalo, NY
• Providence – New Bedford, RI
• Little Rock – Pine Bluff, AR
• Mobile, AL – Pensacola, FL
• Albany-Schenectady – Troy, NY
• Flint-Saginaw – Bay City, MI
• Omaha, NE
• Charleston – Huntington, WV
• Springfield, MO
• Rochester, NY
• Syracuse, NY
• Chattanooga, TN
• Charleston, SC
• Burlington, VT – Plattsburgh, NY
• Davenport, IA – Moline, IL
• Santa Barbara – Santa Maria – San Luis Obispo, CA

*ATSC 3.0 is already running on one or more stations in these markets.

A faster transition to ATSC 3.0 may be possible in cities where station owners like Sinclair own more than one full power local station. It will make it easier for programming on one station to be temporarily shared on another, without complicated carriage contract negotiations. There is no forced transition to ATSC 3.0, so consumers can make their own choices about whether they want to invest in new televisions or converters. Broadcasters understand that, and many are planning to launch a host of new channels and networks that could benefit cord-cutters and convince them to upgrade.

Over the air viewers will need to get in the habit of remembering how to “rescan” their local channel lineup as stations occasionally disappear as they move to different channels as a result of an unrelated ongoing channel repack or from shifting around to accommodate ATSC 3.0. Some secondary networks like Retro TV, MeTV, Comet, and others may temporarily disappear in some markets if that channel space is temporarily needed for channel-sharing arrangements.

Cable, telco-TV, streaming and satellite customers should not notice a thing because any changes will be managed by your television provider. But those watching over-the-air will need to prepare for the transition either with a forthcoming TV converter or preparing to buy new television sets with ATSC 3.0 tuners. Details on both are sketchy, but free TV viewers may want to start saving money now for new equipment spending starting either late this year or more likely early next.

ATSC 3.0 promises better, more robust reception, with error correction and the capability of downgrading video quality in marginal reception areas to preserve a stable viewing experience. It also supports 4K Ultra-HD and better sound, mobile viewing on smartphones and other devices, and local features including hyper-local weather warnings, targeted advertising and some data applications.

WHAM and WUHF are now both located at WHAM’s facilities in suburban Rochester, N.Y. WHAM now produces WUHF’s newscasts.

Ever wonder why some local television stations air newscasts produced by another competing station?

When your local ABC station’s evening news ends up on a local FOX station, it is usually because the two have signed a joint agreement to let one station represent the other in making programming decisions and selling advertising.

FCC chairman Thomas Wheeler believes this growing trend represents an end run around the agency’s rules limiting how much control a single major media company may have in any particular community. On Monday Wheeler joined two Democratic commissioners and voted to ban the practice.

Wheeler said the vote against joint agreements represented “a win for common sense,” and preserved the FCC’s intent to make sure viewers have a diverse mix of news, information and programming. In several small and medium cities, viewers were instead getting the same newscast on competing stations and just one or two media companies made all the programming decisions for local viewers.

FCC media ownership rules prevent TV station owners from owning stations reaching more than 39 percent of the national TV audience, owning more than a single top-four network station in a market and owning more than two TV stations in a market. They also prevent a local newspaper from buying a local TV station.

But station owners found they could evade those rules and save money by turning over the production of costly locally produced programming like news and community affairs to another station, and in some cases even moving operations into another station’s building, while still holding the station’s license. In some markets, one company like Sinclair or Nexstar can end up owning a local network affiliate, a CW or MyNetworkTV station, and have a joint agreement to sell advertising and program another network affiliate.

Sinclair Exploits Loophole to Build a Media Empire

Owned by Sinclair

One good example of this practice can be found in the 78th largest television market in the United States — Rochester, N.Y.

Ten years ago, WROC (CBS), WHEC (NBC), WOKR (now WHAM) (ABC), and WUHF (FOX) each maintained their own news teams and ad sales departments. The first station to drop its own news was WUHF. Station owner Sinclair fired the news staff and signed an agreement with Nexstar’s WROC to produce a newscast for the station instead. WROC’s reporters could now be seen on two different stations.

In early 2013, WHAM was acquired by Deerfield Media, which has a whisker-thin separation between itself and Sinclair. The Wall Street Journal reported that Deerfield’s owner, Stephen Mumblow, was Sinclair CEO David Smith’s former personal banker. All of its stations are operated by Sinclair, despite being licensed to Deerfield.

Operated by Sinclair

Media consolidation critics say that is a blatant end run around the FCC’s ownership rules and violates local station limits.

Rochester viewers noticed a change on Jan. 1 of this year, when WUHF dropped WROC’s newscasts and began airing WHAM news instead. WUHF is now co-located in WHAM’s offices and despite the fact WHAM is owned by Deerfield, all of WHAM’s news and sales team are Sinclair employees. Sinclair now owns or controls Rochester’s CW, ABC, and FOX affiliates. Nexstar still owns WROC and Hubbard Broadcasting owns WHEC.

Nationwide, Sinclair owns, programs, or provides sales services to 167 television stations in 77 markets. In 2011, it owned 58 stations.

Smith

Sinclair is not a “hands-off” media player either. Sinclair’s CEO David Smith has regularly forced his conservative political views into his station’s newscasts.

Smith calls himself a family values man, but his 1996 arrest and conviction in a prostitution sting suggests otherwise. Smith was arrested for picking up a prostitute who performed what police called an “unnatural and perverted sex act” on him as he drove down the highway in a company-owned Mercedes.

As part of his plea agreement, Smith had to perform court-ordered community service. Smith subcontracted that out to his Baltimore station’s newsroom employees, ordered to produce a series of reports on a local drug counseling program, which Smith used to satisfy his sentence. That did not go over well with local reporters and at least one judge.

“I really hated the way he handled our newsroom and what he expected his reporters to do after his arrest,” LuAnne Canipe, a reporter who worked on air at Sinclair’s flagship station, WBFF in Baltimore, from 1994 to 1998, told Salon. “A Baltimore judge called me up,” she recalls. “He wasn’t handling the case, but he called to tell me about the arrangement and asked me if I knew about it. The judge was outraged. He said, ‘How can employees do community service for their boss?’”

Canipe left as the work atmosphere at Sinclair rapidly deteriorated.

Hyman

“Let’s just say the arrest of the CEO was part of a sexual atmosphere that trickled down to different levels in the company,” Canipe told Salon. “There was an improper work environment. I think that because of what he did there was a feeling that everything was fair game,” says Canipe, who says she chose to leave Sinclair in 1998. She says that she once complained to management about another Sinclair employee, who had engaged in audible phone sex inside a station conference room, but that no action was taken against the employee.

How Sinclair Uses Its Stations to Push a Political Agenda

But Sinclair’s most controversial interference in local news operations came days before the 2004 presidential election, when Sinclair ordered its stations to air a highly charged documentary critics called a propaganda hit piece against Democratic candidate John Kerry.

“Stolen Honor: Wounds that Never Heal,” was the brainchild of Carlton Sherwood, a disgraced former reporter for a Washington, D.C. station that was later forced to donate $50,000 and air a lengthy retraction after Sherwood falsely claimed that the veterans responsible for creating the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall were misappropriating contributions. The charges proved baseless and at least one veteran signed a sworn statement claiming Sherwood had a political ax to grind, calling the project that “liberal memorial” and a “black gash.” Sherwood reportedly wanted the memorial to speak to the righteousness of the Vietnam War and focused most of his reporting on critics who felt the memorial looked like “a wailing wall.”

Sinclair owned/operated stations now carry news from conservative Newsmax and the Washington Times on their websites.

Sherwood’s one-sided anti-Kerry documentary created a firestorm of criticism that reached all the way to Wall Street. Sinclair faced advertiser boycotts, petitions to yank its stations’ licenses, and angry investors who wanted Sinclair to steer clear of controversy that was bad for business.

Since then, Sinclair’s conservative credentials are still apparent, although more subtle. Top-rated WHAM’s local news now features headlines from the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Washington Times and the fiercely conservative Newsmax. Many Sinclair stations are also still required to air conservative political commentaries featuring Sinclair’s Mark Hyman during their newscasts.

Sinclair’s “government is bad” philosophy is found in its franchised “Waste Watch” series, which also airs during station newscasts. Sinclair claims the feature investigates and exposes how viewers’ local tax dollars are spent. But news staff at several Sinclair stations find the series distasteful because it frames its reporting around the idea that local government is generally incompetent and wasteful. Media critics suggest that kind of framed reporting does not belong in a straightforward newscast.

Underlining Sinclair’s Waste Watch conservative bona fides is the prominent presence of conservative political groups including the CATO Institute, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), and the National Taxpayers Union (NTU) on Sinclair station websites. CAGW has historically maintained ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council and was a former member of ALEC. NTU President Duane Parde is the former executive director of ALEC, and NTU remains an ALEC member.

Wheeler

Despite the meddling from Sinclair’s headquarters, many Sinclair stations’ news teams try to maintain balance around Sinclair’s political agenda. WHAM, for example, buries Hyman’s commentaries on its extended morning news aired on WUHF instead of airing them in its primary newscast on WHAM. In Rochester, “Waste Watch” has also had some unintended consequences. WHAM has used the franchise to extensively report on various scandals surrounding county contracts involving the highest levels of Monroe County government, long dominated by the Republican party.

With more than 100 “joint agreements” in place at stations around the country — primarily in news-scarce medium and smaller television markets, the declining number of people making decisions about what is newsworthy and how it is reported has become increasingly worrisome for media consolidation critics. Television news dominates audiences as newspaper readership continues to decline. Critics suggest the impact of media consolidation can already be seen at companies like Sinclair.

FCC Gives Stations Two Years to Unwind Agreements; Republican Commissioners Upset

Under the new rules, a broadcaster that accounts for more than 15% of another station’s advertising sales would be seen by the FCC as the de-facto licensee of that station. In dozens of markets, this new rule will put companies like Sinclair and Nexstar in violation of the FCC’s ownership limits. The FCC is giving stations two years to disconnect their joint agreements or apply for a waiver if they can prove the partnership serves the public interest.

Deerfield Media is likely to be one of the hardest hit media groups, although critics contend the partnership with Sinclair was created primarily to evade the rules.

Although the rules change received support from all three Democrats, the commission’s two Republicans voiced strong opposition and claimed that the FCC was regulating a solution for a non-problem.

Commissioner Ajit Pai didn’t seem interested in the views of media consolidation critics. Instead, he looked for complaints from advertisers forced to buy ad time through the joint sales agreements. Finding none, he declared the case to end the joint agreements “embarrassingly weak.”

“This is the dog that didn’t bark,” Pai said.

Pai recommended station owners sue in federal court to overturn the FCC’s new rules. Pai is on the record opposing most ownership limits of any kind.

Over the air television in Detroit if the NAB is correct.

The National Association of Broadcasters is warning a Congressional plan proposed on behalf of the wireless industry could force every broadcast station in Detroit off the air, and drive at least one network affiliate in many northern U.S. cities along the Canadian border to “go dark” if the plan is adopted.

The FCC’s National Broadband Plan contains provisions now on Capitol Hill to recapture spectrum currently used by free over-the-air television stations and provide it to wireless providers to bolster mobile broadband and cell phone networks.  Lawmakers expect the wireless industry will pay up to $33 billion for the lucrative spectrum, to be shared with vacating broadcasters and the U.S. Treasury.

But the NAB says the FCC plan goes too far, forcing stations to vacate UHF channels 31-51 to crowd into the remaining channel space of 11 VHF channels (2-13) and 17 UHF channels (14-31).  According to a study conducted by the broadcasting lobby, there is simply not enough remaining channel space to accommodate 1,735 U.S. stations, forcing at least 210 to sign off, permanently.

Because of agreements with the Canadian government to protect American and Canadian stations from mutual interference, the results could be devastating for northern cities along the U.S.-Canadian border.  The worst impact would be in Detroit, Michigan where the NAB predicts every local station would have to leave the airwaves.

The cities of Buffalo, Seattle, Syracuse, Cleveland, Spokane, Rochester and Watertown, NY and Flint, Mich. would likely lose at least one major network affiliated-full power station each.  At least 73 stations in the top-10 largest television markets would be forced off the air, unable to find appropriate channel space in the remaining available spectrum.  Hundreds of stations would be forced to change channels and potentially reduce power and coverage areas to protect stations sharing the same channel number in adjacent cities.

“If the FCC’s National Broadband Plan to recapture 20 more TV channels is implemented, service disruption, confusion and inconvenience for local television viewers will make the 2009 DTV transition seem like child’s play,” said NAB President Gordon Smith. “NAB endorses truly voluntary spectrum auctions. Our concern is that the FCC plan will morph into involuntary, because it is impossible for the FCC to meet spectrum reclamation goals without this becoming a government mandate.”

Broadcasters are feeling a bit peeved at the federal government for repeatedly returning to sell off a dwindling number of channels for other uses.  The original UHF dial included channels 14-83, but over the years the highest channel number has dropped to 51, mostly for the benefit of the cell phone industry.  Now they’re back for more, seeking channels 31-51 for wireless broadband and mobile telephony.

The cell phone industry wants broadcasters to “voluntarily” give up their channel space and reduce transmitter power so more stations can share the same dial position in nearby cities.  But that could leave fringe reception areas in rural communities between cities without over-the-air television reception, and make free television more difficult to watch without a rooftop antenna.

The NAB called on the FCC to immediately make public its analyses of the broadband plan’s potential negative impact on viewers of free and local television.

“We’ve waited patiently for over a year for FCC data on how the Broadband Plan impacts broadcasters, and more importantly, the tens of millions of viewers who rely every day on local TV for news, entertainment, sports and lifeline emergency weather information,” said the NAB’s Smith. “Even Congress can’t get information from the FCC. All we are seeking is more transparency. We have but one chance to get this right if we are to preserve future innovation for broadcasters and our viewers.”

[flv width=”512″ height=”308″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/NAB Free TV Spot.f4v[/flv]

The National Association of Broadcasters is distributing this ad to local broadcasters to air on their stations to inform viewers about the spectrum controversy.  (1 minute)

The consumer wireless handset lobby does not deny the plan will leave Americans with fewer channel choices, but they believe that will come from corporate station owners voluntarily shutting down stations for profit.

“The study presumes an unrealistic scenario in which every single existing TV station continues to operate over-the-air. However in the event of incentive spectrum auctions, it is highly likely numerous stations will capitalize on their spectrum assets by exiting the business or sharing resources,” said Consumer Electronics Association senior vice president for government affairs Michael Petricone.

Petricone believes the number of Americans spending time with broadcast television is dwindling, and less important than the wireless industry’s spectrum woes.

“Our nation faces a crisis as demand for wireless spectrum will soon outstrip supply,” said Petricone. “Meanwhile, the number of Americans relying purely on over-the-air TV is less than 10 percent, according to both CEA and Nielsen market research. Incentive auctions would be a financial windfall for broadcasters, free up the spectrum necessary for the next generation of American innovation to move forward and bring in $33 billion to the U.S. Treasury.”

The cellular industry’s top lobbying group CTIA was more plain: it’s survival of the fittest.

“Since spectrum is a finite resource, it is vital that the U.S. government ensures the highest and best use of it,” said CTIA vice president Chris Guttman-McCabe.

[flv width=”512″ height=”308″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/NAB Explains Spectrum.flv[/flv]

The NAB explains the concept of “spectrum” — or ‘the airwaves’ to consumers and what a major reduction in UHF channel space would mean for “free television.”  (3 minutes)

(Source: JVC)

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), a trade association and lobbying group representing many of the nation’s television stations, says claims by wireless carriers of a nationwide spectrum crisis are troubling and counterfactual.  That conclusion comes in a new report issued by the NAB this morning that wants the FCC to keep its hands off UHF broadcast channel spectrum the agency wants to sell off to improve mobile broadband.

The paper, “Solving the Capacity Crunch: Options for Enhancing Data Capacity on Wireless Networks,” written by a former FCC employee, suggests claims by wireless carriers that they will “run out” of frequencies to serve America’s growing interest in wireless services are simply overblown.

Many wireless companies own spectrum they are not using, the report argues, and other licensed users are holding onto spectrum without using it either, hoping to make a killing selling it off at enormous profits in the future.  Besides, the federal government holds the largest amount of underutilized spectrum around — frequencies that could easily be allocated to wireless use without further reducing the size of the UHF broadcast TV band.

Many of the ideas in the NAB report emphasize the need for carriers to deploy innovative technology solutions to increase the efficiency of the spectrum they are already using.  Those ideas include additional cell towers to split traffic loads into smaller regional areas, and improving on network channel-bonding, caching, and intelligent network protocols.

But the NAB report has some obvious weak spots the wireless industry will likely exploit — notably their recommendations that seek a reduction in wireless traffic — ideas that would suggest there is not enough spectrum to handle every user.  Among those recommendations:

• Implementing Internet Overcharging schemes like “fair use” policies and consumption-based pricing to discourage use;
• Migrating voice traffic to Internet Protocol;
• Migrating data traffic to a prolific network of “femtocells” — mini antennas that provide 3G service inside buildings, but deliver that traffic over home or business wired broadband connections;
• Offering wider access to Wi-Fi networks in public areas;
• Encouraging the development of bandwidth sensitive devices and applications.

The National Broadband Plan’s conclusion of a spectrum shortage is based on little more than a wish list by wireless carriers, says the paper. Its author, Uzoma Onyeije, cites contradictory statements by high-ranking corporate officials to show the Plan’s calls for making 500MHz of spectrum available for broadband in ten years is a gross overestimate of the actual need.

“There is no denying that the corporate imperative of mobile wireless carriers is to obtain as much spectrum as they can,” Onyeije wrote. “However, the fact that wireless carriers cannot find a unified voice on the amount and timing of their spectrum needs suggests that this advocacy is more strategic gamesmanship than factual reality.”

The NAB has heavily lobbied Washington officials on the issue of spectrum because their members — broadcast television stations — are facing the loss of up to 120MHz of what’s left of the UHF dial, already shrinking because of earlier reallocations.  The FCC proposal would resize the UHF dial to channels 14-30 — 16 channels.  In crowded television markets like Los Angeles, up to 16 stations would be forced to sign-off the public airwaves for good, because there would be insufficient space to allow them to continue a broadcast signal.  Instead, the FCC proposes they deliver their signal over pay television providers like cable or telco-provided IPTV.  Or they could always stream over the Internet.  But that would mean the decline of free, over the air television in this country.

Considering the millions of dollars many stations are worth, it’s no surprise broadcasters are howling over the proposal.

Onyeije’s report suggests AT&T and Verizon, among others, are grabbing whatever valuable spectrum they can get their hands on.  What they don’t use, they’ll “warehouse” for claimed future use.  By locking up unused spectrum, potential competitors can’t use it.  The proof, Onyeije writes, is found when comparing claims by the wireless industry with the FCC’s own independent research:

AT&T predicts 8-10 times of data growth between 2010 and 2015 and T-Mobile forecasts that data will have 10 times of growth in 5 years. Yet, the Commission’s assessment that 275MHz of spectrum is needed to meet mobile data demand is premised on data growth of 35 times between 2009 and 2014.

The Data Tsunami Debunked

Some providers are sitting on spectrum they already own.

The NAB also takes to task the “evidence” many providers use to claim the zettabyte era is at hand, where a veritable exaflood of data will force America into a widespread data brownout if more capacity isn’t immediately made available.

[…] The [industry claims rely] on suspect data. In arriving at its conclusion, OBI Technical Paper No. 6 relies heavily on forecast data from Cisco that is both wildly optimistic about data growth and unscientific. In a blog entry entitled, Should a Sales Brochure Underlie US Spectrum Policy?, Steven Crowley states that “[t]here is overlap between the people who prepare the forecast and the people responsible for marketing Cisco’s line of core-network hardware to service providers. The forecast is used to help sell that hardware. Put simply, it’s a sales brochure.”

Onyeije takes apart the oft-repeated claim that a data explosion will be unyielding, unrelenting, and will be the wireless industry’s biggest challenge for years to come.  It also speaks to issues about broadband use in general:

In particular, the paper appears to be premised on the highly suspect assumption that the high demand curve for mobile data will not slow. While smartphone growth is significantly increasing now, it will no doubt plateau and slow. It has been widely accepted for decades that the process of technological adoption over time is typically illustrated as a classic normal distribution or “bell curve” where a phase of rapid adoption ends in slowed adoption as the product matures or new technologies emerge.

As recently reported, Cisco now projects that U.S. mobile growth will drop by more than half by 2015. As Dave Burstein, Editor of DSL Prime, explains: “The growth is clearly not exponential.”  Mr. Burstein went on to say “Every CFO and engineer has to plan carefully for the network upgrades needed, but the numbers certainly don’t suggest a ‘crisis.’” Jon Healey of the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board similarly explains that “Much of the growth in the demand for bandwidth has come from two parallel forces: a new type of smartphone (epitomized by the iPhone) encourages people to make more use of the mobile Web, and more people are switching from conventional mobile phones to these new smartphones. Once everyone has an iPhone, an Android phone or the equivalent, much of the growth goes away.” AP Technology writer Peter Svensson echoes this concern and explains “AT&T’s own figures indicate that growth is slowing down now that smartphones are already in many hands.” Thus, the assumption that data demand will continue to grow unabated is deeply flawed.

Internet Overcharging is About Rationing and Reducing Use

Although the NAB favors Internet Overcharging to drive down demand for use, Onyeije’s report inadvertently provides additional evidence to the forces that oppose data caps, meters, and speed throttles: they are designed to monetize usage while driving it down at the same time:

While unlimited data plans on mobile phones were once the standard, there is now more focus on using pricing as a network management tool. As AT&T Operations President John Stankey put it, “I don’t think you can have an unlimited model forever with a scarce resource. More people get drunk at an open bar than a cash bar.”  In the past year, AT&T and Virgin Mobile abandoned unlimited data plans. In 2010, T-Mobile announced that it would employ data throttling and slow the download speeds of customers that use more than five GB of data each month. And Bloomberg reported on March 1, 2011 that “Verizon Communications Inc. will stop offering unlimited data plans for Apple Inc.’s iPhone as soon as this summer and switch to a tiered pricing offering that can generate more revenue and hold the heaviest users in check.” Usage-based smartphone data plans substantially reduce per-user data traffic. As a result, data growth is likely to slow over time. And companies, including Cisco, are marketing products to carriers to help make tiered data plans easier to implement and help carriers “increase the monetization of their networks.”

Tomorrow is the final full day when Fox cable network programming will be available to Time Warner Cable subscribers, unless negotiations achieve a breakthrough.  Spectators watching the back and forth don’t anticipate any agreement, but suspect the companies will agree to some sort of extension over the holiday weekend to keep the viewing public reasonably happy.

Today several Fox-owned broadcast affiliates began reporting on their own potential involvement in the dispute — Time Warner Cable stands to lose the rights to carry several Fox broadcast stations in major television markets like New York, Los Angeles, and Dallas.  Stories about the dispute began appearing today on several TV news outlets.  In areas where Fox affiliates are independently owned and operated, most have tried to reassure viewers they won’t immediately lose access to the Fox station in their area, but several Fox cable networks could be impacted.

We have several reports on where things stand at the moment, including some additional background to help people get up to speed on why this battle is taking place in the first place.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CNBC Time Warner Fox Dispute 12-30-09.flv[/flv]

CNBC ran this extended piece today debating the changing business model for television programming, which explains why these carriage disputes are increasingly contentious. Brian Seltzer, New York Times media reporter and Vanity Fair columnist Michael Wolff join Julia Boorstin to discuss Time Warner Cable’s showdown with News Corporation’s Rupert Murdoch. (6 minutes)

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Bloomberg News also explores the changing business model of broadcast “free” television.  Can it survive against cable and online program distribution?  News Corporation and Time Warner Cable are pessimistic that question can be answered before the deadline expires at midnight, December 31st. (6 minutes)

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WNYW-TV, the Fox affiliate in New York, started reporting to its viewers Fox’s position on the carriage dispute, warning them an agreement by December 31st is critical if Time Warner Cable customers are to be assured of watching Fox sports coverage on New Year’s Day.  (3 minutes)

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KDFW-TV, the local Fox affiliate in Dallas, took issue with Time Warner Cable’s claim that even without an agreement the Fox station would still be shown on the local cable system. (2 minutes)

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Some Time Warner Cable customers in smaller cities have been confused by national wire service reports which, to them, suggest their local Fox station will be affected by the potential programming blackout as well.  Some Fox affiliates have devoted time on their newscasts to clear up what programming or channels will be affected in their respective areas.  WLUK-TV in Green Bay, Wisconsin was one such station.  (1 minute)

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WENY Elmira Fox Time Warner Battle 12-30-09.flv[/flv]

Another small community getting some local coverage of the story, and its potential impact on Time Warner Cable-carried Fox-owned cable channels, is Elmira, New York.  WENY-TV, which serves southwestern and south-central New York around Elmira and Corning, explained things to viewers.  (1 minute)