Embracing Technology: Past & Present

I am a believer in technology. I’m also a proponent of technology, especially digital television. Especially free over-the-air digital television.

In the past (last month for example), I ranted about how broadcasters don’t exactly promote free over-the-air DTV. I’ve also written about how DTV allowed me to watch realtime Doppler radar as hurricanes approached south Florida. But I’ve not seen a lot of promotion.

That’s changed. My local paper, The Palm Beach Post, recently published their annual hurricane guide, Storm 2006. Two items caught me eye, and I wanted to share them with you.

First, there was a full page ad from The Post’s media partner, West Palm Beach’s News 12 (WPEC), promoting its Doppler 12000 StormTrac radar. The same radar that I know I can watch in realtime on 12-2. But News 12 wanted everyone else to know. At the bottom of the ad: “Weather 24/7 on Digital channel 12-2.”

Kudos to News 12. Not only did they give their digital secondary information, they also gave their cable channel assignment. Nice way to promote DTV, the station and the public service of 24/7 radar.

Then, a few pages further, something even closer to my heart: Lost television signal? Try ‘rabbit ears’.

Kudos to The Palm Beach Post, which realized that while most of the folks get their TV signal from cable and satellite, those services can fail due to loss of power, rain fade or a damaged dish. They also realized that in addition to the homes with battery powered TVs, a lot of folks have generators that power their houses during power failures.

Here was a step-by-step guide to over-the-air TV reception.

While I might bitch a great deal about what I think the industry can do better, I’d much rather give credit where credit is due. Nice job guys.

Michael Silbergleid is the editor and associate publisher of Television Broadcast. He can be reached at msilbergleid@silverknight.com.