David Eduardo wrote:
"Telamon" wrote in message
news:telamon_spamshield-
It is well known that a digital mode affords the broadcaster more
control over who can decode/demodulate the transmission and also what
the receiver can do with the decoded information.


I hear a black helicopter approaching.




You need to have a conversation with Brother Mel....Before he left
for Sirius, Karmazin spoke specifically about the benefits of digital
transmission/reception to the broadcaster. The two main points of which
are 1) subscription radio/TV, and 2) Control of quality.

When he spoke of control of quality, he explained that by limiting
the audio/video quality to levels that are widely accepted by the
viewer/listener, small amounts of bandwidth could be stolen from
baseband and supplemental channels to provide additional subscription
funded programming alternatives. When specifically pressed on the issue
of HDTV, Karmazin insisted that digital transmission would be all that's
necessary to dramatically improve perception of video quality and that
resolution could be held to current NTSC standards. Absent noise and
ghosting, the public wouldn't know the difference, and would marvel at
the improvement. This single strategy would leave enough bandwidth to
permit two more programming channels per HDTV channel of equivalent
quality.

He went on to say that all baseband and supplementary channels would
be advertising supported, even those subscription funded, and that
eventually, all broadcast TV would be subscription funded.

This would be necessary to keep programming on the air, in the light
of the continuing fragmentation of the advertising base.

When asked, by a colleague at a breakfast at the 95th in Chicago,
about HD radio, Karmazin said the same strategy would apply.

Hot on the heels of Karmazin's announcements, both cable and
broadcast networks released announcments echoing Karmazin's statement.

So, what Telamon is saying is not Art Bell worthy, but comes from
some of the top executives in Broadcast.