TV Antennas May Be The Future For Local Stations

Digital TV Antenna

As consumers shift away from traditional pay TV and toward subscription streaming services, the digital antenna will emerge as a necessary component of people’s viewing habits,  EW Scripps Chief Executive Officer Adam Symson said in an interview.

CNBC reports EW Scripps plans to begin an advocacy campaign this year to explain the value of the antenna, Symson said. While he declined to say if his plan would involve giving away antennas for free or at a discounted price to consumers, Symson said he has “a large group of people” at EW Scripps working on ideas to educate Americans on how an antenna can supplement subscription streaming video.

Americans will need to find other, free ways to supplement streaming services as they max out on monthly subscription charges, Symson said. Broadcast stations, which offer local news, sports, soap operas, game show staples like “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy,” and prime time content from their national networks, will continue to air must-have content in American homes -- even after streaming services replace linear TV as the dominant form of viewing, he said.

Adam Symson

“There is no digital platform that reaches the ubiquity and availability of broadcast television,” Symson said. “Everyone is paying attention to the subscription video services. They’re all spending enormous amounts of money in very high-risk ventures, trying to create platforms. But for the average American consumer, if you sign up for all of them, I don’t think it’s economically sustainable.”

The shift to streaming is happening quickly. The average American already pays for four video streaming services, according to a Deloitte survey released this week. Nearly 7 million American households likely dropped their traditional pay-TV service in 2020, a record high.

But there’s significant risk to broadcast station groups -- companies including Sinclair Broadcast Group, Nexstar Media Group, TEGNA, EW Scripps and Gray Television -- as Americans ditch live linear TV for a mishmash of Disney+, Netflix, NBCUniversal’s Peacock, AT&T’s HBO Max, ViacomCBS’s Paramount+, and others.

The biggest existential concern for network affiliates is the hypothetical loss of billions of dollars in retransmission fees as Americans cut the cord and ditch pay TV.

For the past decade, broadcast station groups have collected fees from pay-TV operators -- Comcast, DirecTV, Dish, Charter, etc. -- for the right to carry their stations. The trend began around 2006 when station groups realized consumers wanted access to their local TV channels just as much as -- if not more than -- they wanted the most popular cable networks (such as ESPN or CNN) which had long charged carriage fees.