Tired of Paying for Cable?

[formercia]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070428/ap_en_tv/rabbit_ear_revival

Antennas find new life in HDTV age

By JOE MILICIA, Associated Press Writer 42 minutes ago

CLEVELAND - Buying an antenna for a high-definition television seems as out of place as using a rotary phone to make a call.

But some consumers are spending thousands of dollars on LCD or plasma TVs and hooking them up to $50 antennas that don't look much different from what grandpa had on top of his black-and-white picture tube.

They're not doing it for the nostalgia.

Local TV channels, broadcast in HD over-the-air, offer superior picture quality over the often-compressed signals sent by cable and satellite TV companies.

And the best part? Over-the-air HD is free.

[Duer 157099]

1. That's nice to know, but... no HBO?

For many, cable choice has to do with selection rather than signal quality...

[Selatius]

2. That's because the airwaves are publicly owned. They are a public good.

If the corporatists had their way, they would've privatized it decades ago.

[Swamp Rat]

4. ... as well as the air we breathe.

Just look at what they are doing to our water supply.

[valerief]

6. The airways are controlled by the persons who can afford them and

those persons are corporate persons.

[Selatius]

7. Yes and no.

All you have to do is purchase an antenna to gain access to the radiowaves and a TV set to decipher the signals. With cable, you have to pay a fee just to decipher the signal. The same is true with satellite. Broadcast companies like ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX are privately owned; that's true, but anybody with a broadcast license from the FCC can go on air, which explains the existence of local public access television. It's just companies like ABC have really high production values because of corporate sponsorship.

In the past, these corporations had to abide by the Fairness Doctrine because there was the idea that if you used the public radio spectrum, you had to use it only to promote the general welfare of the public and to inform the citizenry. You could not use it to benefit yourself at the expense of everybody else. With the Fairness Doctrine gone, that idea died with it. These corporations hated to report on the news as mandated by the Doctrine. Instead of the mandatory 6:00 news the Doctrine ordered them to perform, they wanted to replace that with their their programs because reporting the news was not as profitable as their television programs. Yeah, they still report the news in many cases, but there is no longer a requirement for balance anymore, and that's hurt the public in terms of informing them.

[valerief]

9. I was talking about the producers not the consumers. Whoever can

can buy the signal can deliver their content. That's corporations, not "the public." "The public" doesn't even own its own elections. Diebold does.

[Thirtieschild]

3. And sometimes even cable isn't available

We have no choice but sattelite. Chose Dish, not Direct.

[gatorboy]

5. Our LCD TV did a digital search on it's own for HD channels.

They're gorgeous! And we didn't have to pay for the box that our cable service provides for a fee.

[elocs]

8. I've had OTA HD for nearly 2 years now and have saved $60/month on cable or satellite.

Sure, I only get about 10 channels, but the HD is good and I got tired of the 57 channels and nothing's on that I got with cable. Then, I was constantly channel surfing, always looking for something better to watch. It never seemed like I ever watched an entire show. Now that I only have 10 channels to watch there always seems to be something on. Plus in the last couple of years I have saved over $1400.

[NotGivingUp]

10. cable programming absolutely sucks anyway...i'm going for the antenna. nt