DTV on standard NTSC TVs

[colorfixer]

OTA television just may eventually disappear on its own, without the need to mandate its extinction.

Up here in the pacific northwest, a very historic television pioneer, KVOS is just such case. This was the first station that served the Vancouver BC market. It was a CBS affiliate (and at one time Dumont in 1953), that once it lost CBS (it was considered a Seattle market station, which had a CBS affiliate) it was all downhill from there. It just sold for 2.2 million to an investment firm owned by Michael Dell. The previous sale a number of years back was 28 million, so someone got a bargain.

In Vancouver BC, the market penetration of cable is so complete that most stations did not bother to go with transmit ERP's to equate their analog signals, and the "public" broadcaster (CBC) even discontinued a number of translators and fill transmitters across Canada.

Those who run the big 3 networks in Seattle made getting locals on satellite so difficult that when Directv first offered them, we had to file waivers to each affiliate to get ABC, CBS, and NBC. The ABC affiliate insisted to Directv that we should be able to get their signal (CH4) off air, even though where I live in Blaine, WA is well outside their grade B contour (we're >100 miles from Seattle, through typical northwest mountains and forest). Come ATSC, and even off my 50' amateur radio tower and with a "super deep fringe" UHF amplified antenna, I can't even begin to see their signals on a spectrum analyzer.