OTA antenna sales skyrocket, cable subscribers jump ship
By Darren Murph 
posted Dec 5th 2007 9:43PM
posted Dec 5th 2007 9:43PM
One could certainly argue the actual link between OTA antenna sales going through the roof while some one million cable subscribers decided to ditch their service this year, but nevertheless, that's exactly what has happened. Richard Schneider, President of Antennas Direct, saw his Terrestrial Digital brand of antenna sales "triple" during the same time period in which the cable industry lost two-percent of its market share, and while there's a very real possibility some of those folks opted for fiber or satellite-based alternatives, we've no doubt that some just decided to make do with the crystal clear, uncompressed HD locals; furthermore, new satellite subscribers in areas without HD locals would be awfully tempted to pick up an OTA antenna to complement their service. Of course, teaching the HD illiterate how to install and use one is a whole 'nother matter.
Wish I could jump on this, too many hills and bluffs where I live. Cable company had us bent over..at least satellite is an option here ..
2% loss to cable subs is roughly 2.4 Million Households.
A 3x increase if Antennas Direct now ships 1000 antennas a week means it went from 17,000 last year to 51,000 this year.
2,400,000 - 51,000 = a difference of roughly 2.35 Million Households, according to my 3rd grade teacher.
I don't think that the post in any way implied that Antennas Direct sold an antenna to each and every customer that defected from cable. The idea was that the increase in their sales is indicative of a trend among all antenna manufacturers and the industry in general.
Also, I love Engadget, but I hate it when people like you decide that they're just going to nitpick and subject us all to posts like yours that are just full of condescending garbage.
ok its not exactly on topic, but can someone please answer a question for me.
If I get Sat.(i.e. DishNetwork) which doesn't offer my local HDs, can I plug my OTA directly into the Dishnetwork HD reciever and get my local HDs through the reciever Box without have to switch inputs. Also this would allow me to dvr the locals. Is this possible or am I just stuck swithing inputs all day.
MCS, the answer to all your satellite questions can be found at www.dbstalk.com. Just go to the Discussion Forums link on the left and then to the Dish Network section after that.
I've been LOVING my Antenna's Direct DB4 ever since it arrived...beautiful quality HD material and the antenna was fifty bucks. The programming = free.
Just awesome.
mcss1985: YES, the current Dish Network receivers being installed have an antenna input, the HD locals that you get over the antenna will be displayed in the guide, and you can set your DVR to record the locals. How much guide data you get varies by market. For instance, in my market, the local Ion Television affiliate and its subchannels are listed in the guide, but with no program info (it just says "Digital Service"). You can still DVR those channels... You'll just have to set a manual timer, which is easy enough. When you order service, you might want to confirm with Dish that they're giving you a receiver with an over-the-air antenna input.
I've been doing OTA HD for 5 years. The only monthly service I pay for is for my Tivo Series 3 and TivoHD. There's just not much on Cable or Satellite that I want to see so much that I can't eventually rent off of Netflix (sometimes even on Blu-ray or HD DVD).
Yup that's what I did.
I didn't want to pay for cable TV or satellite service so I bought a nice $110 TV at Wal-Mart which receives both digital and analog OTR signals using a $30 UHF/VHF rabbit ear antenna rig.
So for less than $150 I'm set!
Yeah it's not wide screen HD but I think I'll live.
Terry Thomas
Atlanta, Georgia
http://TerryThomasPhotos.GooglePages.com
I recently downgraded my cable subscription to the most basic level now that Daily Show and Colbert are off the air. I have a functioning mythtv setup that works great for recording, but I'm not quite ready to switch over completely to OTA. (I've had an antenna mounted outside for several months, but it just started to get flaky when the snow fell this week - so I'm not totally ready to abandon cable.)
Sidenote: When kindly requesting the downgrade in cable service, the rep told me that I wouldn't be able to get an HD programming through my 1+ year rented tuner. When I told him that seems to violate must carry legislation, he said that he was really only talking about HD stations like ESPN-HD. Unfortunately, it was much harder for me to convince Comcast to not block VoIP traffic when I plugged in my own cable box the next week.
Check me off in the category. I use MythTV as well to record shows. There so much content I like to watch on the networks I cant keep up with it. When i record everything i have a good 5 hours of programming sitting in my unwatched category.
With all the garbage on cable plus not being able to record all HD stations with Myth over firewire I said screw this I am not paying you $60 a month for junk.
Mitchell
As a broadcaster from way back (since the 70s) it shows how
lousy broadcasters are at marketing. Sure, they can run fancy
promos on their own air about news and prime time shows,
but the minute they need to promote themselves outside the
box, they lose their way. How could an opportunity been
presently more with with a ribbon on top of it, than cable TV
charging $100 a month for crap, and over the air reception,
after putting in an antenna, is free to all. The only thing they
needed to do was explain it to the public..... you know,
a report, a story, 5 minutes a few times a day per station.
Ever watch anything on HGTV? That cable TV network can show
millions of viewers how to update a living room for under a
grand in just a weekend, but broadcast television can't show
people how to put up an outside antenna for $150 and one day
of their life? This, versus $100 a month all year, three years,
and $6000 in five years?
It is funny but sad at the same time what has happened to
free, over the air television stations. Everyone will end up paying for everything they watch in the next few years. The era of advertising supported television, free over the air is over.
Dan
I did it ... Comcast was cramming $200 a month phone bills down my throat, so I cut the cord. The only thing I do now is OTA!!! It works really well when it works, which is most of the time -- but not all of the time.
"..crystal clear, uncompressed HD locals"
All ATSC transmission is compressed. OTA signals are in the clear (not encrypted) but they are compressed, most likely using the same exact bitstream that is being sent to the cable headend.
True, though the cable & satellite feeds are likely recompressed, suffering from double concatenation and a lower bitrate.
I get 7 SD digital and 1 HD channel (PBS). I'd like more, but I use my PS3 & Netflix to satisfy my HD lust.
I just wanted to say good work on the picture.
That's the antenna with the longest range pickup in the UHF spectrum.
I have one of those 80" combo UHF/VHF deals, but good work here with the true 4 bay terrestrial digital antenna.
Those set top antennas stink, and people should know the difference.
Count me as one of those jumpers. I'm OTA only now and couldn't be happier. I took a look at all my season passes and realized that the only thing I was watching beyond the broadcast networks was ESPN. I couldn't justify paying Time Warner essentially $1000/year for just ESPN so I jumped ship. Put up the antenna, bought a TiVoHD with my "profits" and haven't looked back. The best part is that now I get HD locals from two cities (Cincinnati and Dayton) which often have a different combination of NFL games, so I get to see most of the good games rather than being limited to what cable offered.
Chris, for the Dayton/Cincinnati setup do you need two antennas aimed as needed?
Seriously, "a whole 'nother?" Come one, ever my grammar isn't that bad. You took the time to put the apostrophe in, which means you know you said, "a whole another."
I think this confirms my belief that there is a broader trend back to over the air. There is a compelling argument in favor of OTA digital as either a supplement or replacement of pay TV.
I have had great success with the DB4 and have noticed a dramatic improvement in HD picture quality over my satellite HD locals.
AJ and DStroyer, thanks a lot for the info. The dbstalk.com site is great and very informative. appreciate the tip