tfmsview:

Sat night we had guest over and started to talk about how much we paid to watch TV. I turned on the TV and one of the guest remarked, "that picture is much better than my cable". He was surprised to learn I use rabbit ears to get over the air broadcast. If you want surround sound and the best picture available for football games, local news or other broadcast shows you should hook up an antenna to your modern day televisions. Digital cable and satellite dishes cannot compete. This fact is missed by many people. Not only is the picture better since the conversion to digital broadcast there are also many more broadcast choices. For instance I pick up 5 PBS stations. The "News Hour" plays on digital station 16.1 at 6pm and it also plays on 16.2 at 7pm. Not only that but the cable company only picks up the programming from 16.1. This gives broadcast viewers many more opportunities to catch the newest Nova, Frontline or Antics Road Show episode not to mention numerous travel, home repair and cooking shows. But PBS isn't the only station that offers more channels since the digital conversion. Your CBS affiliate uses 7.1 for normal CBS programming but also uses 7.2 primarily as a weather station. Occasionally, they will occasionally broadcast a Dragons game or football game. The Fox affiliate plays normal Fox programming on 45.1 but plays older movies and TV shows on 45.2. Recently channel 22.2 showed up on my TV and it seems to be a music video channel. So there are great choices already available on Broadcast channels. There are two big wholes though, that if filled, would make cable unnecessary for 80% of all current subscribers; an all news station and an all sports station.

Last year when Time Warner threatened not to broadcast our local NBC affiliate. I made a suggestion to NBC that would have vaulted MSNBC to the number one watched all news station. But true to form NBC missed that opportunity. Tonight I turned on the football game and there is a banner that tells us Time Warner may stop transmitting Dayton's local ABC and FOX affiliates; WKEF Channel 22 and WRGT Channel 45. So I'm offering this same suggestion to these affiliates and I'm hoping you will write these stations suggesting the same idea. WKEF and WRGT should use one of the available stations say 22.3, 22.4 or 45.3, 45.4 to broadcast all news and all sports stations. ABC owns ESPN so they should be able to make this arrangement. If Fox sports decided to go this they route overtake ESPN in viewership. I'm a thinking person so I'd hate to think my suggestion would prompt "Fox News" to be shown more widely, but if they ended up being broadcast on 45.4 this may spawn CBS or some other professional news organization to enter the competition.

You see I did not mention there was a need for educational, history or family broadcast stations. That is not because I wouldn't welcome them but because there is plenty of other cheap solutions for these already. It is just a matter of time until cable companies become obsolete. I started this article telling you I turned on the TV while we had visitors over. The reason I turned on my TV the other night was not to show off the broadcast stations. I turned it on to show off Netflicks. A $7.99 a month subscription to Netflicks gets you some DVD's and we watch these. But the biggest benefit is the online viewing of other movies and shows. The selection of kids shows on Netflicks is better than the selection on cable and you get to watch them on demand. That is you have all the Barney, Ponyo, and Back Yardagan episodes you could ever want and are available on demand. My older kids have watch all the Myth Buster episodes. Movies like Up are there and I put all the Dirty Harry movies in the instant Que.

Even cheaper than Netflicks, my LG Blue Ray Player tells me I have internet TV. The LG internet TV is nice because the CBS Evening News is available to me on demand after I put the kids to bed. But I recently went over to a friends house and he has a Samsung LCD TV with the Smart TV Samsung Apps. This is great internet TV. While over there he was able to go to ABC and find all the episodes for "No Ordinary Family". We watched the pilot in a quality that was better than a digital cable signal. This was 5 weeks into the TV series and we were able to catch up through the internet and this week we what the current episode over broadcast TV. Unfortunately, there were still a lot of commercials on the internet version but there was no cable or satellite TV bill. With the current choices in broadcast and internet TV cable is almost obsolete now. Local affiliates better start advertising over the air broadcasts are still free and they better talk the networks to start broadcasting their "cable" programming or they will soon be out of business.

We need to convince our local stations to start broadcasting an all news station and an all sports station for two reasons; 1. to save our local affiliates and 2. to save you $1000 a year on television. So write:

And tell them of your desire to see them start to broadcast an all news and an all sports channel.

About the Author

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Background: tfmsview, The Online Magazine; publishes commentary and opinion by Thomas F. McMasters. Tom McMasters achieved ballot position for Ohio ’s 8^th Congressional District Republican Primary as an alternative candidate to Rep John Boehner. The congressman from the 8^th district represents the people from Allen Township, Jacksonburg, Ansonia, Ludlow Falls, Arcanum, Maria Stein, Beckett Ridge, Mayfield, Bradford, Middletown, Burkettsville, Montezuma, Butler Township, New Bremen, Camden, New Miami, Casstown, New Paris, Celina, New Weston, Chickasaw, Newberry, Coldwater, North Star, Dayton, Osgood, Eaton, Oxford, Eldorado, Piqua, Fairfield, Pleasant, Fletcher, Potsdam, Fort Laramie, Rossburg, Gasper Township, Sommerville, Gibson Township, St Henry, Gordon, St Marys State Park, Grand Lake, Staunton Township, Granville, Tipp City, Greenville, Trenton, Huber Heights, Troy, West Manchester, Union City, West Milton, Versailles, York , Wayne Lakes It covers Darke, Preble, Miami , Mercer and parts of Montgomery and Butler counties. Newspaper and television stations that serve the district include: The Middletown Journal, WCPO, The Cincinnati Enquirer, The Dayton Daily News, The Fairfield Echo, The Hamilton Journal-News, The Huber Heights Courier, The Middletown Journal, The Oxford Press, The Piqua Daily Call, The Daily Advocate, The Daily Standard, The Oxford Press, The Tipp City Herald, The Tipp News Daily, WCET, WDTN, The West Milton Record, WGRT, WHIO, WKEF, WKRC, WLWT, WPTD, and WXIX.

Tom would like to thank all the Ohio voters and absentee voters that took the time to find their voting places and precincts to cast their ballots in his bid to become a member of the US House of Representatives. American politics and Ohio politics benefits from all the new people becoming engaged in the political discussions. The registered voters that identify with The Ohio Tea Party, Coffee Parties, Constitution Party and others engaged in the political debates will help strengthen the incumbent and all challengers.

Now that the primary is over Tom has again embraced his tfm persona as a political commentator; offering insight into issues such as the budget deficit, the national debt, taxation, healthcare reform. The website is set up as a political blog but it delves into other categories concerning basic American and Ohio life. Also, contributions and comments by all readers is always welcome.

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