An ad in the Syracuse Post-Standard announces a new invention -- a variation on the bow tie antenna design originally designed in the 1950s.

Last Thursday, Syracuse newspaper readers were treated to news of an impressive breakthrough that promises to deliver salvation from high cable and satellite TV bills forever.

Clear Cast, a “razor thin” indoor digital HDTV antenna lets you watch television… for free.

The product is shown being packaged up for shipping while an impatient-looking FedEx driver tries to coordinate the apparent extraordinary demand for a downright revolutionary development in television engineering.

Local residents called the newspaper and other local news outlets to try and learn more about the curious new device.

Stop the Cap! can now report the revolution can be postponed.

In fact, the published account  about the “new invention” was actually a paid advertisement-designed-to-look-like-a-news-story.  Clear Cast is effectively a variation on the traditional indoor UHF bow tie antenna your local Radio Shack used to sell for $1.49.  The major difference is that it is designed to be attached to a window with accompanying suction cups.  That is a valid approach to improving reception, but whether it is worth the asking price of $38 is another matter.

As consumers seek alternatives to higher cable and satellite TV bills, overhyped ad copy promising freedom from high bills cannot be far behind.  Repackaging basic antennas that were part of our lives from the 1950s-on can go too far when leaving some residents with the impression they are getting more than a basic television antenna.

In fact, over-the-air viewing can be easily accomplished in strong signal areas with the cheapest antenna, as long as it is designed for both VHF and UHF reception.  Many VHF stations with channel numbers from 2-13 quietly relocated to the UHF dial, but still advertise their original channel numbers.  If your television is not equipped with a UHF antenna, reception may be difficult.

For the benefit of those under the age of 40: most televisions used to come equipped with both antenna designs — two elongated antenna rods some used to call “rabbit ears” and an accompanying round loop antenna, or often a bow tie design that clipped to one of the two longer aerials.  The long straight antennas are designed for VHF signals, the bow tie or loop design accommodated improved UHF reception.

Over the last decade, marketing has attempted to revolutionize what remains basic, sober, antenna design — with an accompanying “revolutionary” price tag.  When satellite television was first introduced, some manufacturers redesigned set top aerials to look like a satellite dish and then pitched them as “saving you the high price of satellite TV because it is not satellite!”  In today’s HD-ready era, marketers have done it again.

Will Clear Cast work?  Undoubtedly, but probably not much better than any other traditional bow tie design that costs $35 less.

If you are cutting cable’s cord and want to rely on over-the-air television, our best advice is to start with something inexpensive and upgrade only when necessary.  In urban and suburban areas, an effective indoor antenna can cost less than $5.  Try repositioning it until you find the best spot to receive the most channels with the least signal reception errors.  Directional indoor antennas can offer mild signal improvement, especially in areas where adjacent signals from nearby cities create reception problems.  Because the American digital broadcast standard is frankly less robust than the European counterpart, those in more distant suburbs or rural areas will really need to invest in a rooftop antenna to enjoy consistent reception.  A potential compromise would be to mount an outdoor antenna in the attic.

Avoid “futuristic” designs and powered indoor antennas and read consumer reviews carefully.  We’ve found most indoor antennas priced above $35 to be more hype than performance-per-dollar.  If you need an outdoor antenna, check your local Yellow Pages for antenna specialists who understand local reception conditions and can recommend high quality, long lasting antennas that will work for the stations you want to receive.

[flv width=”480″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WSYR Syracuse Newspaper ad for free TV The Real Deal 12-15-11.mp4[/flv]

WSYR in Syracuse investigates the ‘revolutionary’ new indoor TV antenna that is so popular, only residents in certain zip codes can order it.  (2 minutes)

Time Warner’s new Android app

Time Warner Cable has introduced a new free app that will eventually allow subscribers with an authenticated cable television package to stream dozens of channels over their Android-powered portable phones and tablets like that graphic drawing tablet with screen.

The TWC TV™ App for Android lets your Android device change the channel on your TV from anywhere in your home and manage your DVR inside or outside of your home.

Other features include:
– Interactive program guide – view program listings for up to 7 days and change channels on compatible set-top boxes
– View a filtered guide showing favorite channels or HD channels only
– Search for programming by title or episode
– Schedule and manage upcoming DVR recordings on compatible DVRs
– Adjust recording start/end times and change save time

Requirements
– Compatible Android smartphone or tablet (see below)
– Time Warner Cable video package at the Standard (Expanded Basic) level or higher
– Compatible set-top box or DVR (Motorola iGuide equipment is currently unsupported)
– Internet connection (WiFi or 3G)
– Time Warner Cable user name and password

Compatibility
– TWC TV supports most smartphones running Android 2.1 (Éclair) and higher
– TWC TV for tablets supports the Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Sony Tablet S running Android 3.x. Other Honeycomb 3.x tablets with 1280×800 resolution should also work.

Those hoping to stream Time Warner Cable’s video lineup will have to wait.

“Once manufacturers and cellular carriers begin to upgrade their phones to Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), we will release an update to offer in-home live TV on these devices,” Jeff Simmermon, Time Warner Cable’s director of digital communications wrote on the company’s blog. “We expect to see those upgrades early next year.”

A brief test of the new app at Stop the Cap! HQ ended quickly because Time Warner Cable’s My Services authentication portal has been down this morning.  That causes the app to generate an error message stating it cannot find a compatible DVR or set top box.  This is one of the problems customers face from online authentication systems.  If they go down, your access to “TV Everywhere” content goes with it.

Simmermon adds that Apple iPhone owners will be able to obtain the app sometime in January.  For now, only Apple iPad owners can view streamed video content.

Verizon Communications has held no talks with Netflix about a possible acquisition, despite frenzied media reports to the contrary.

Deal Reporter, a trade publication, was the source of the original rumor, but Bloomberg News reports the story is premature after talking with two sources who should know.

The rumored takeover did wonders for Netflix stock, which jumped more than six percent on the news.  That’s a boost the streaming and DVD-rental service needed after a year of public relations missteps and subscriber losses.

Verizon’s recent move towards launching its own streaming entertainment service outside of its FiOS fiber-to-the-home service areas made the rumor more credible, but other analysts think Verizon’s interest is on different company that shares Netflix’s love of the color red.

“Verizon’s not interested in Netflix, they see Redbox as a much better fit,” Sam Greenholtz, an analyst with Telecom Pragmatics in Westminster, Maryland, who has consulted for Verizon and was briefed by its employees about its plan, told Bloomberg.

It’s not the ubiquitous network of Redbox kiosks Verizon is after, it is the content distribution deals the company has with Hollywood studios.  Those deals are becoming quite lucrative for production companies — so lucrative in fact Time Warner’s chief entertainment mogul has cut back on his personal bashing of Netflix.  With Amazon, Time Warner’s own HBO Go, and Verizon entering the online video fray, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings declared there is now an “arms race” among the behemoths to dominate online viewing, and jack up licensing fees.

Hastings sees only the deepest-pocketed players as having a chance to make a stand in the online streaming marketplace, because content costs are increasing dramatically.  Hastings says Verizon and Amazon are bit players because they don’t offer a deep catalog of content and their offerings are more difficult to view on the family television set.

“The competitor we fear most is HBO Go,” Hastings said. “HBO is becoming more Netflix-like and we’re becoming more HBO-like. The two of us will compete for a very long time.”

HBO Go is part of the cable industry’s TV Everywhere project, delivering online video services to authenticated cable-TV subscribers.  Although HBO Go is typically included for free with an HBO subscription, the premium movie channel’s price has increased dramatically in the last three years.  In many areas, a monthly subscription for HBO now runs just shy of $15 a month.

CNN Money pondered whether Netflix can ultimately stay independent in a country where vertically and horizontally integrated super-sized entertainment companies control programming, distribution, and the Internet providers consumers use to access the content.  Netflix may still be an acquisition target:

Verizon. On the one hand, Verizon appears to be showing stronger interest in Redbox, which is planning to launch a streaming-video service in May 2012. On the other hand, Redbox is likely to face the same onerous licensing costs that plague Netflix, and Verizon might be better off buying a company experienced in licensing streaming rights. And besides, by hinting of a Redbox deal, Verizon can push down Netflix’ price – making a deal that much cheaper.

But if a Verizon deal makes sense on the face of it, it could become problematic over time. The two companies’ cultures are incompatible. Netflix takes risks that often (but not always) pay off, and builds its products around the customer’s experience. Verizon is risk-averse and builds its strategies on wringing fees from customers. If Netflix members staged a revolt over of the subscription fiasco, imagine how they’d react if Verizon raised fees further or demanded Netflix users sign up with its Internet service.

Microsoft. Netflix could give Microsoft the popular online service it’s never been able to build on its own. The Xbox has gone from gaming console to a well-received smart TV device, and integrating Netflix’ streaming-video service could put it ahead of Apple and Google. Plus, Reed Hastings could bring Microsoft a seasoned executive who instinctively understands where digital content is going.

Google. If the search giant can buy a phone maker, why not a video service? At $42.6 billion Google’s cash stockpile is 116 times the size of Netflix’s. Google already owns the only other digital-video property that has been embraced by the masses: YouTube. Combining the best features of both could lead to the only site you’d need to visit to get your video fix. Google’s recent comments on a controversial anti-piracy bill, however, could strain relations with studios that Netflix must license from.

Apple. As with Google, Apple’s $45 billion in cash will not only buy Netflix but sign many content deals and still leave tens of billions in the coffers. Thanks to iTunes, Apple has longstanding relationships with TV and movie studios, which could secure better terms for Netflix. And like iTunes, Netflix could spur enough sales of Apple devices that Apple doesn’t need to worry about making the profit that Netflix investors expect today.

Amazon. For as long as Netflix has been around, someone has been suggesting a merger with Amazon. Consumers have been buying DVDs from Amazon for years, and with IMDB, the best single film database on the planet, finding and researching movies to watch would be a cinch. The catch has been that owning Netflix’s mailing facilities would open it up to taxes in many states. But that may change now that Netflix seems ready to sell off its shrinking DVD-rental business.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Bloomberg Bibb on Verizons Possible Bid for Netflix 12-12-11.flv[/flv]

Porter Bibb, managing partner at Mediatech Capital Partners LLC, talks about Verizon Communications Inc.’s possible offer for Neflix Inc. and the outlook for the streaming video industry. He was widely cited as one of the primary sources of the Verizon acquisition rumor.  He speaks with Jon Erlichman on Bloomberg Television’s “Bloomberg West.”  (5 minutes)

A-la-carte cable: Still not on Rogers' menu

Carol Jameson simply can’t afford to spend $70 a month for cable television any longer.  Although Canada’s economy is doing better than some, Jameson’s husband recently had to endure a pay cut, and the costs of raising their two teenage children are not getting any lower.  The London, Ont. Rogers Cable customer ran several kitchen table meetings to discuss what expenses could be cut from the family budget.  Her teenage son and daughter targeted the family’s landline telephone — an archaic curiosity of the past for today’s cell-phone-obsessed youth, and cable-TV, which they saw as increasingly irrelevant.

“Just don’t touch the Internet connection,” Carol was advised.

Despite concerns from her sports-addicted husband, Jameson decided to start shopping around, and definitely decided the days of their landline was over.  In her neighborhood, “shopping around” meant choosing from Rogers Cable or a satellite TV provider.  Bell’s Fibe — fiber to the neighborhood — service was not up and running in her part of London.

“I had settled on a basic satellite package and keeping Rogers’ broadband and called the cable company to share the bad news,” Carol tells Stop the Cap! “But when I tried to cancel, I was transferred to someone who said I could stay and pick and choose only the channels I wanted to watch and pay for.”

Carol was shocked Rogers had a solution for her high cable bill that it never bothered to share until she tried to cancel.

“You can’t find a thing about this deal online or even on the phone with Rogers’ customer service, and who would think to ask after years of getting dozens of channels we never watch,” Jameson says.

Carol was being pitched Rogers’ new “Pick and Pay” service, currently undergoing a five month trial in the London area.

“I was offered the service until March 2012, after which I was advised to call Rogers back and discuss my options after the trial ends, if it ends,” Jameson tells us.

Rogers’ “Pick and Pay” is a modified a-la-carte suite of offerings.  It does not allow customers to pick and choose only the channels they wish.  It instead asks customers to sign up for a $20 basic cable package containing local broadcasters and certain other channels Canadian telecommunications regulators want all Canadians to have access to, and several channels Rogers wants their customers to have (home shopping, The Fireplace, Aquarium, and Sunset Channels, etc.)  Beyond that, customers can choose from mini-packages of Canadian superstations, U.S. broadcast stations, and digital music.  Customers then select 15, 20, or 30 channels of their choosing ranging in price from $26.38-$33.48 per month.

“It’s better than $70 a month, but not by too much,” Carol says.

Carol and her husband decided to consider the offer, but found an exact list of channels hard to come by.

“That’s not a problem limited to me,” Carol reports. “The Globe & Mail featured Rogers’ new cable package and the customer in that case had to obtain a photocopied list of channel choices because Rogers didn’t have one online.”

Carol ended up with the 20 channel add-on package and the U.S. network station suite, which runs $28.41 and $3, respectively.  That means her cable TV bill dropped to $52 a month, just over $22 a month less.

Rogers' scarce photocopied channel listing for their "Pick and Pay" package, obviously removed from an employee's three-ring binder.

“But here is where Rogers gets you by your pocketbook,” Carol warns. “You have to take Rogers’ phone service with the deal, so now the landline is back, although they charge less than Bell.”

Jameson also notes these prices do not include mandatory extras:

• $4.49 – Digital terminal rental (per TV)
• $2.99 – Digital service fee
• $0.70 – Local Programming Improvement Fund Fee
• + G.S.T. (taxes)

“So much for the savings,” Carol says.

The Globe & Mail speculates the Rogers’ trial is rigged to convince Canadian regulators there is little interest in a-la-carte cable, at least the way Rogers has packaged it (and kept it hidden from public view):

In September, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission said that it had received complaints from consumers about being forced to pay for too many channels they do not watch, and that it expects cable and satellite companies to change that. The CRTC ordered all TV providers to report back by April on what actions they have taken to give subscribers more choice.

But cable and satellite executives have told the CRTC in hearings that there is no consumer demand for cheaper, “skinny basic” packages that offer fewer channels at lower cost than today’s basic TV packages. And some think that Rogers will use the London example to tell the CRTC that there isn’t much demand for the product.

Customers like the Jameson family might end up unwittingly proving Rogers’ point.

“After all of the extras, we rejected the plan and were all ready to switch to satellite and keep the broadband, but at the last minute Rogers offered us new customer pricing on their standard package for a year if we agreed to stay, and we did,” Carol tells us.  “A-la-carte cable is exactly what we need, but this isn’t it.  Maybe that is why Rogers keeps it a secret.”

Regular Stop the Cap! reader Alex dropped us a note sharing the bad news: Bell Canada is hiking rates for virtually everything effective Jan. 1.  Except Bell doesn’t call them rate increases.  To the phone giant, they are “price updates.”  They are also considerable, with sweeping rate increases for phone, Internet, and television.  They are even hiking rates for individual phone calling features like three-way calling.

Bell reserves rate increases for its long-standing customers. Potential new customers served by Bell in eastern Canada, where the company is rolling out its fiber-to-the-neighborhood service Fibe (similar to AT&T U-verse), report offers as low as $19.95 a month for selected services during the first year.  But prices increase dramatically when the promotion expires.  By how much is detailed below:

Prices listed are for customers in Ontario.

But Bell saves the worst for a footnote at the bottom of their Internet “price update.”  They are tinkering with the company’s notorious Internet Overcharging scheme, raising the bar on their overlimit penalty.  Customers who used to exceed their monthly broadband allowance originally faced a maximum penalty of $30.  But Bell has been revisiting that “maximum overlimit fee” regularly.  In 2010 the company raised the penalty cap to $60.  On Jan. 1, Bell is raising the maximum by an additional $20 — to $80 a month.  In our view, it is only a matter of time before the ceiling on overlimit fees is eliminated altogether, setting customers up for sky high bills.

Bell Fibe 25 customers with 25Mbps service will now pay $78.95 a month for Internet alone, and that plan comes with only 125GB of usage per month.  Want to use more?  You will have to buy Bell’s Usage Insurance in advance:

• $5/month for an extra 40GB
• $10/month for an extra 80GB
• $15/month for an extra 120GB

But that may not help you avoid at least one month of overlimit fees.  Bell pro-rates customers adding Usage Insurance to their accounts, which means the first month’s extra allowance is limited by the number of days before your next billing cycle.

Bell’s prices for new customers are much lower, with Fibe 25 priced as low as $34.48 a month during the first year.  The real bite arrives when the promotion expires, when the price more than doubles.