SO MANY CHANNELS, SO FEW EYEBALLS

摘要

For years local broadcast stations looked forward to digital TV as a potential business panacea. The technology would allow them to create so-called subchannels alongside their existing ones that would beam niche programming-from local weather to high school football games-over the air to viewers' sets, theoretically attracting more advertising and helping the local guys compete with cable.rnAfter several false starts, the analog era ended and digital television went live on June 12. And those dreamed-of subchannels? Most of the country's 1,700 TV stations have created them. But only the 10% of U.S. households that receive digital TV over the air can watch the new programming because the cable, phone, and satellite companies so far are disinclined to carry it. "These are worthy experiments," says media consultant Peter Kreisky. "But the question remains whether [stations] can lay a trail of bread crumbs so people can find these channels." Already, local broadcasters are casting around for other ways to get their new channels in front of viewers, including a bid to beam shows to cell phones and laptops.