Thanks, as usual a pithy and complete summary.
That Berlin pic is one hell of an approximation to the broadcasting satellite (orbiting, natch) dreamed up for the Dr. Who "End of Terra" episode!! ('05 series)
It's hard to argue against the rationale for the emgcy service consolidation.
As to the simple replacement of analog signals with digitally-encoded [packets with crcs?], never mind HD -- some homework needed here, re the atmospheric propagation; I note too, that Ch 54 is amidst the freq.band slated for fershure implementation of cut-off.
I guess it's back to Maxwell, for trying to guesstimate the comparative fringe reception and noise figures for latest ICs - presuming that Ch 54 even continues on-air xmission - (in this area, one PBS sta, 43 is cable-only. A trend or an exception?)
And for all this bitchin competent technical plannning, I've heard no evidence of any serious attention being paid to Individual Selection of desired IQ-level, topics and interests - necessarily coincident with some nationwide Bill of Customer Rights. Technically, programming could be shunted via fibre Anywhere.. it's all about the Paying. And about whose lobbying prevails -- with NO strong entry on behalf of us 300M pigeons, in our local terrain. (Every Repo will pick corporate convenience over consumer, as will too-many Demo neutrality seekers.)
Clearly $$ advantage accrues to the simplicity of LCD (not that one - homogenization) and the still- tacit presumption that some local 'package'.. is the closest you'll ever get to an actual Choice. Fibre negates all such arguments about 'cost effectiveness', as I see it.
Imagine.. if just a quarter of congress critters had the foggiest idea about (the Possibilities amidst most of the techno they are legislating about - \ufffd l\ufffd a Dilbert CIEIO.) I must suppose that, the end is always re profits and the subtlest/darkest? political agendas. It would be typically Murican that many will see it to be in their Power-interest to keep about as much %mind-numbing-pap as, to date. It is, after all - all we've ever known, since well before the great amalgamations began.
We really could fix a lot of the 'wasteland' - if an organized few-% had the ear of a few key congress types, presented an agenda appealing to 'pol career-building': at least equivalent to all those Donations.
'Course too, with perpetual-war -- all of the above is a tiny noise among the truss ads. Thanks again for the \ufffd-levelGoogling virtuosity.
