Video Star, Unkilled

by publius

Interesting tidbit from today's Communications Daily (via Lexis) on NBC's Olympics ratings -- and one that has implications for the current "white spaces" debate. In short, the Internets was good for TV:

Providing more than 56 million video streams via Internet during the Beijing Olympics boosted rather than diminished viewing of the games on traditional TV, said Perkins Miller, NBC senior vice president of digital media. "The biggest lesson we learned is that the notion of competition between digital and broadcast is a myth," he said in an interview. . . .

"There was no evidence of cannibalization of broadcast ... I hope that what this shows is the great demand for content to be delivered on multiple devices[.]"

There's a huge debate raging right now at the FCC about whether to open the so-called "white spaces" (unused portions of spectrum licensed to broadcasters) for new uses and technologies. In most areas (particularly rural areas), large amounts of "beachfront" spectrum reserved for broadcasters sits idle and is being completely wasted. If it were opened for public use (a la Wi-Fi), the idea is that new devices and technologies would pop up, vastly improving and expanding mobile broadband use. (To put it in perspective, the amount of "white space" spectrum potentially available is several times larger than the chunk of 700 MHz spectrum recently auctioned).

I'll be returning to this issue in the weeks ahead. But long story short, broadcasters have been resisting these efforts tooth and nail -- often in shamelessly dishonest ways. But hopefully the Olympics success is a lesson. More people using better mobile devices on better spectrum can expand -- rather than cannibalize -- the TV audience. And if, god forbid, broadcasters started using their spectrum in innovative ways such as mobile TV offerings, they might actually, you know, survive.

It's all very frustrating. It's not merely that an anachronistic business model propped up by powerful DC lobbies is blocking one of the most promising technological opportunities in decades. It's that they're doing so while shooting themselves in the foot at the same time.

Comments

[Kirk]

I'll offer a parallel. For over a decade it's been conventional wisdom that the internet is the death knell for public libraries. People will get their reading material online instead of borrowing it in print. Even when libraries started adding computers for service, the expectation was that we'd see a shift in use from print to electronic.

Nope. In most of the US, public library use - and more specifically "checking out stuff" (aka circulation) - has increased pretty consistently. The online stuff is supplement, not replacement. Libraries will probably change a bit if they want to continue existing, but that's normal - and a long way from "doomed".

Just another datapoint.

[AdamC]

Totally intrigued by this whole situation. I'm pretty average in the tech department,but my father worked in the telecommunications industry for at years. This stuff would blow his mind.

Kirk, a question about the library parallel. Since I don't use the public library at all anymore, given the internet and university/law school libraries I have access to, I'm curious as to what libraries have done to supplement their material and how it has increased access and circulation.

[Skip]

Is there any internet source that we amateurs can consult which describes how other countries handle the issue of spectrum allocation?

[CarolJ(Aquariusmoon)]

What I'm hoping for is wireless broadband so that I can access my web radio anywhere instead of having to put up with the vapid content on over the air radio at work. Sure, there's satellite (for a fee), but I want to have the ability to bypass all of that for being able to tune into the infinite choices of the internet-or even my own files from home.

What I believe is holding it up is that so many of the people who are in charge of making tech policy can barely do e-mail.

[Kirk]

AdamC, to some extent it varies, but there are some basics.

At the simplest level is the libraries provide what MOST people cannot or would prefer not to get at home. There are a number of print books that are unavailable online - both fiction and non-fiction. There are also the expensive resources that are extremely useful to the public once in a while, but not worth buying. I have a favorite example here - the OED (Oxford English Dictionary), which costs a small fortune. The principles apply across the selection environment - provide what a significant proportion of the community does not have.

To a certain extent it's an example of economics (comparative advantage). Everyone will have as much of Their Interest as possible, and the library is unlikely to have more on that than they are (unless it is a specialized library.) But for their secondary and occasional interests, and if the budget is small even for a portion of Their Interest, the library's attempt to provide a balanced collection means it will have more.

Add to this the fact that libraries are not merely warehouses of books. We get taught there are four roles a library can and to some extent does perform in a community. It is a resource for entertainment, education, information and socialization. Yes, we tend to cluster those about information storage and dissemination systems (books, CDs, DVDs, microfilm, etc), but we try to do all the roles.

The specifics are going to depend on the library, which in turn depends upon the library served.

If everything becomes available over the internet, this may change. It's just it's not there yet, and most libraries are working on the long tail.