[mythtv-users] Let's get our heads straight here on listings solutions

[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Sat, Jun 23, 2007 at 05:32:51PM -0400, Rod Smith wrote:
> On Saturday 23 June 2007 15:14, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> > According to Wikipedia, the FCC says the total number of licensed
> > TV-band transmitters in the US is 8839.
> >
> > This is one reason why a separate newsgroup for each program source is
> > probably impractical, as much as I'd prefer to do it that way.  :-)
> 
> That number could be either high or low, compared to what we need:
> 
> - Does it include cable/satellite stations (CNN, Sci-Fi, HBO, etc.)? If
>   not, the number could be low, although probably by less than 10%.
> 
> - What precisely is a "licensed TV-band transmitter"? I'm guessing
>   this definition includes more than the TV stations for which we'd want
>   to provide data. I say this because there are 210 DMAs (TV markets) in
>   the US, and 8839/210 = 42.09. There certainly aren't an average of
>   42 OTA TV stations in each DMA.
> 
> Overall, I think 8839 is a high estimate. Assuming a dozen stations per DMA 
> and 500 cable/satellite stations, that works out to 3020 stations. My guess 
> is this would be a high estimate, but I doubt if the number would be less 
> than half that.

It's not an estimate, it comes from the FCC.  But it is, indeed, not
our supplier audience:

> According to the FCC, as of December 31, 2004, there are 777 UHF
> commercial television stations, 589 VHF commercial television
> stations, 257 UHF educational television stations and 125 VHF
> educational television stations, plus 493 Class A UHF television
> stations, 110 Class A VHF television stations, 2,631 UHF television
> translators, 1,823 VHF television translators, 1,553 UHF low-power
> television stations and 481 VHF low-power television stations. A total
> of 8,839 television station in all broadcast formats. Please note that
> these lists only cover local stations and affiliates, and not cable
> networks.

The first 4 are our primary target, so 2544.  I think I guestimated
3500 somewhere, so I was a bit high.

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                   Baylink                      jra at baylink.com
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