So yeah, the receivers are still shipped, just ~nobody tunes into their ranges anymore.
1) Everyone got fiber tv so the old communitary antenna has been taken down from the roof
2) My building is surrounded by taller ones blocking the signal for a tiny 40DB indoors antenna
As the availability of Internet, Devices capable of receiving online courses has been taken for granted, many who are not privileged not only missed education for several months now but also lost communication with their schools.
I've been thinking about inexpensive compute capable device capable of receiving analog TV via SDR and also communication through LoRAWAN[1] to address this. Now I'll also explore ESP8266's ability to receive analog TV signals.
[1]https://needgap.com/problems/149-remote-education-for-underp... (Disclaimer: it's my problem validation platform).
There may only be a few OTA broadcasters left on analog in the US, but I don't know how far the digital transition went in developing markets. I'd bet there's some rural cable systems still running analog as well.