"Antenna Man" rakes WGBH over the coals

[George Allen]

Yeah, they really took the $ and ran.  And... 
they get ongoing $$ from NBC10 by renting out 
RF32 (wgbx) to NBC10 for 15-1 and 15-2.  So they 
cashed out twice at OTA viewer's 
expense.  Somehow that seems not right, even if 
legal.  Cord-cutting is rampant [I'm one of 
them], so tho maybe at one time OTA wasn't a big 
deal, it's a bigger deal now.  Why don't they 
just stream HDTV over the web?  Doesn't solve it 
for everyone but would make me happy.

I have mixed emotions about all this.  It was a 
good deal for them and raised a lot of cash.  The 
Q is: what are they going to do with all that moola?
    George


From: Richard Chonak <richard@chonak.com>
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2020 00:22:41 -0400
Subject: "Antenna Man" rakes WGBH over the coals

The "Antenna Man" of Bethlehem, PA usually 
devotes his YouTube videos to testing TV 
antennas, and rating their performance at his location in the Poconos.

Viewers all over the country ask him for advice, 
so in a video released July 14, he devoted an 
episode to explaining the FCC spectrum auction 
that led to many changes in reception.

In particular, he zeroed in on PBS stations that 
took big payouts to move to low-VHF 
frequencies.  The prime example, of course, is 
WGBH's move to RF channel 5, and the $218M 
jackpot the auction yielded for it. Lamenting the 
poorer service which the public got, he shows a 
list of a dozen or so station employees with 
salaries running up to $400,000 and beyond it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrFib1jaBP0

--RC