FCC: 14 Percent of Viewers Depend on Off-Air TV Signals

The FCC adopted the 13th Annual Report to Congress on Video Competition and Notice of Inquiry for the 14th Annual Report Tuesday.

As of Thursday night the text of the Report had not been released. A news release revealed some of the findings in the report—for example, that the number of TV households increased slightly from June 2005 to June 2006, from 109.6 million to 110.2 million.

Also, the number of households using a multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) increased to 95.9 million compared with 94.2 million in June 2005. Cable TV subscribers represented 68.2 percent of the MVPD subscribers.

Using data from the Nielsen Co., the report estimates that as of Jan. 2007, 15.5 million households (about 14 percent) rely solely on off-air TV broadcasts for video programming.

The Report acknowledged that many households subscribing to an MVPD also relied on off-air signals for some of the television sets in those homes.

It indicated that the number of commercial and noncommercial TV stations had increased slightly during the period from June 30, 2005 to June 30, 2006—from 1,747 to 1,753.

According to the report, there were approximately 1,600 DTV stations on the air as of Jan. 2007.

The number of “wireless cable” subscribers stabilized at about 100,000 as of June 2006, a significant drop from the peak of 1.2 million subscribers in 1996.

The full report should be available soon on the FCC Media Bureau web page.

Doug Lung

Doug Lung is one of America's foremost authorities on broadcast RF technology. As vice president of Broadcast Technology for NBCUniversal Local, H. Douglas Lung leads NBC and Telemundo-owned stations’ RF and transmission affairs, including microwave, radars, satellite uplinks, and FCC technical filings. Beginning his career in 1976 at KSCI in Los Angeles, Lung has nearly 50 years of experience in broadcast television engineering. Beginning in 1985, he led the engineering department for what was to become the Telemundo network and station group, assisting in the design, construction and installation of the company’s broadcast and cable facilities. Other projects include work on the launch of Hawaii’s first UHF TV station, the rollout and testing of the ATSC mobile-handheld standard, and software development related to the incentive auction TV spectrum repack.
A longtime columnist for TV Technology, Doug is also a regular contributor to IEEE Broadcast Technology. He is the recipient of the 2023 NAB Television Engineering Award. He also received a Tech Leadership Award from TV Tech publisher Future plc in 2021 and is a member of the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society and the Society of Broadcast Engineers.