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Comment by macNchz | Hacker News Reader

I have Time Warner internet-only service in NYC and they are constantly trying to sell me cable as a $10/month addon to my $35 50mbit internet package. I imagine it's a pretty limited set of channels, but they're very much already using that sales tactic.

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Same thing with Charter for me. They constantly try to sell me a $7/month addon that will give access to over-the-air channels through cable. I got that with a >$10 HD antenna, so I'm not sure what the value would be. (and I've barely used that...)

I've been trying to (unsuccessfully) research why OTA broadcasts of channels exist in the first place. Why do/would these networks provide their service for free? I thought transmissions were to be encrypted.

Am I missing something?

Ads.

from what i understand OTA channels are free because the public airwaves are a public utility and they are funded by the ads they sell. cable just took this model and decided to reverse the costs from the ad generators to the consumers.

My gut thought is to look at it like radio. Radio won't go away because it only has 1 channel (AM) because it is a broadcast service. No infrastructure between the signal and you. Emergency services for example. More than that though TV and radio OTA broadcasts are something that should continue, there is 0 config, you just tune into the frequency and you get the message.

In the UK we have several free OTA channels. The commercial ones are funded mainly by advertising and by being available to all they can offer potentially more eyeballs to advertisers.

They are not free, they still make money from commercials. Same as radio. In some countries, there are public broadcast channels that don't display commercials, those you pay through tax.

With cable and satellite they often put their own commercials on top of the channel's so public broadcasting channels make less money that way.

They're still ad supported, and their infrastructure costs are much smaller than cable. (Eg, no plant of copper and fibre run across cities. Just some leased tower space, etc)

So they can charge you another $8/month for a cable box! (Not kidding, that's what Cox did to me)

Right, and now you'll need a special box just to receive antenna TV over normal analog channel range which they'll rent to you for a fee (and they are notorious for providing slow boxes that take 3-5 seconds to flip to the next channel or pause for long seconds to display a menu, or need to be rebooted constantly). I had the $10 a month TV, but once I found out they were requiring the box, I just cancelled it, I was basically paying them to avoid using an antenna, but now I'll just get an antenna.

Comcast even offered me 100+ channels, HBO and Showtime for free for a year just to get me hooked on the boob tube.

Luckily CenturyLink installed FTTH in my complex. That was the best phone call I've ever had with Comcast :).

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