FLO TV to add 39 markets following DTV transition

If we're using availability across AT&T's and Verizon's lineups as a benchmark, we'd venture to guess that FLO isn't doing terribly well -- but be that as it may, the Qualcomm subsidiary is rearing to expand its coverage just as soon as the remainder of the nation's analog television stations go dark on June 12. In fact, they're really, really serious about it: 15 new markets will go live the moment the analog signals turn off, adding Boston, Houston, Miami, and others, while another 24 will tack on by the end of the year. Existing live markets like Chicago and New York will enjoy expanded coverage, too, but the question remains -- where's FLO's meal ticket? More hardware helps, but it might ultimately take a transition to free services before mobile TV takes off.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 10th 2009 8:58PM]

mobiletv better be free because 1seg in japan is free and i don't want to be paying for something that should basically be free.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 11th 2009 7:54AM]

There is a add-on to ATSC designed for mobile use called MPH that's being actively rolled out in a number of areas:

http://www.switched.com/2009/04/20/washington-d-c-first-to-get-free-mobile-tv/

FloTV, as I understand it, is an attempt to provide some "premium channels" behind a paywall like CNN. How useful it is is open to question. In the short term, ATSC is poorly oriented towards mobile devices.

In the medium and longer term, I expect ATSC receiver technology to improve, and it to become easier and easier to make low power HD MPEG2 decoders, eliminating the need to have a "special" version of ATSC. At the same time, license holders will make more use of their digital subchannel capabilities which means a greater choice of free TV options. Right now, in my area, before the switch, I have:

- The major networks, plus ION and MyNetworkTV
- The CW (Lifetime/WE wannabe)
- PBS's Knowledge and Create channels
- Qubo (Nickelodeon wannabe)
- RTN (reruns of old TV shows)
- Two news and weather stations from NBC and ABC.
- Two spanish language entertainment stations
(Plus six billion religious channels, but let's ignore those for now.)

Missing right now? A national news station (though we'd expect anything big to be on the NBC/ABC news and weather stations), a classic movies channel, and a home shopping channel. We did have the latter at one point but it's been off air for a while. As for the others, the current news and weather stations strike me as prime candidates to be turned into national stations, and RTN suggests a classic movies station wouldn't be unlikely to happen. And, hey, as it's DTV and there's no good reason not to be, maybe it could be widescreen.

I think Qualcomm will milk FloTV for a few years, but it's not got long, and the future is free.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 10th 2009 10:49PM]

ah ajc you make me laugh.