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BACKGROUND
Chapter 3
The Evolution of Broadcasting Technologies
Almost all developments in broadcasting — and the way we think about broadcasting — rely on a handful of simple scientific concepts. This chapter reviews these concepts and explains why they have been important for the development of the Canadian broadcasting system.
Waves
Electromagnetic waves permit communication across great distances. In the case of Alexander Graham Bell and Samuel Morse, electromagnetic waves were sent along a copper wire.1 In the case of Fessenden, electromagnetic waves were transmitted without wires. Since no wires were involved, people often assume that such transmissions are "over-the-air" or use "airwaves." But these terms are not entirely accurate: sound relies on air as a medium; electromagnetic waves, however, can travel through the vacuum of space.2
Much is now known about electromagnetic waves. It is known that light, television, radio, x-rays and ultraviolet radiation (the same kind that causes sunburn) are all electromagnetic waves and that these waves, which travel at the speed of light, can be put to various innovative uses if properly managed.
Humans are sensitive to those wavelengths that pass through the earth's atmosphere without being absorbed. The particles that make up visible light are called photons. The human eye will detect a source of light that is composed of as few as seven photons.3
The only difference among the various types of waves that humans use (e.g., for radio, to see, and to create x-rays) is their wavelength. Anyone who has watched a body of water or been on a boat soon realizes that all waves are not the same. Some waves are short and steep while others are long gentle swells that are hardly noticeable. All waves can be described in terms of how fast they are travelling (speed), how long they are (wavelength) and their frequency (i.e., how many times a minute the boat rises, falls and rises to the same point again).4
Electromagnetic waves (e.g., light and radio waves) travel at the speed of light; their frequency is described in cycles per second (cps).5 Since light travels approximately 300,000 kilometres a second, it takes about ten minutes for light to reach the earth from the sun. If you divide a wave's frequency by the speed of light you obtain its wavelength.
The Spectrum
Because electromagnetic waves can be described in terms of their wavelength (i.e., their frequency), they can be arranged from shortest to longest in an order called a spectrum. Anything that can be ordered in this way can be thought of as a spectrum. For example, a rainbow seen after a storm is a spectrum of visible light. If a teacher placed children in a line according to height, from shortest to tallest, this too could be described as a spectrum. In simple terms, a spectrum can be a range of heights, colours or wavelengths.
This is why scientists and engineers talk about the electromagnetic spectrum. To describe the part of the electromagnetic spectrum that people use for sight, they talk about the "visible spectrum." For similar reasons, the electromagnetic waves used for communications (e.g., television, radio, cellular telephones) are called the "radio frequency spectrum" (RFS).
The sections of the electromagnetic spectrum that are most frequently discussed in the scientific or engineering literature are (moving from the shortest waves to the longest): gamma rays; x-rays; ultraviolet; visible; infrared; microwaves; VHF (television); radio (FM — frequency modulation); shortwave; radio (AM — amplitude modulation); other radio waves.
Gamma rays are extremely short (approximately a billionth of a centimetre in length). Microwaves are about one centimetre in length. VHF (television) waves are about a meter in length (100 centimetres). Some radio waves are longer than a kilometre (e.g., those used by an AM radio station). Very, very low frequency waves (VVLF) are used to communicate with submarines and these waves can be several kilometres in length. Typically, higher frequencies are limited to line-of-sight and are useful for local radio stations. The same frequency can be used by another more distant radio station. This allows a radio station in Montréal to use the same frequency as a radio station in Toronto without either station interfering with the other.
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Over-the-Air Broadcasting
Enough about electromagnetic waves was known by the early decades of the twentieth century that over-the-air communication across short or longer distances using radio sets soon become commonplace. Some of the first uses of radio were by British and American navies for point-to-point communication between ships at sea. In addition by the early 1920s, countless thousands of radio amateurs across Europe and North America were operating as one- and two-way broadcasters, offering content of interest to themselves, playing music or waiting to be contacted by other enthusiasts so that they could measure the distances across which they could be heard.
The leap from transmitting sound to images did not take long. It was known even in the late nineteenth century that the transmission of images by converting light to energy and back to light was possible. It was not until Karl Ferdinand Braun's invention of the cathode ray tube in 1897, however, that the development of the first functional and practical television systems began in earnest.6
The First World War slowed advances in television technology, but concurrent developments in communications via wire and radio, coupled with the rapid rise and popular appeal of radio broadcasting in Europe and North America, prompted a renewed interest in television in the early 1920s. In Europe, the first crude television broadcasts were demonstrated in the mid- to late 1920s, culminating with a regular, albeit limited, schedule of television programming in Germany and Great Britain between the mid-1930s and the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. In the United States, experiments with television technology continued throughout the 1930s, with the first stations going on the air in July 1941. These stations, however, were shut down in December 1941 upon the United States' entry into the war.
While the commercial development of television was delayed because of the Second World War, television technology was extensively refined and exploited as a tool for guided missiles, long-range surveillance and reconnaissance.7 Consequently at war's end in 1945, superior broadcast standards had been developed, notably enhancing television's practicality for mass communication. Furthermore, the shortcomings of existing tube technologies for war-time communications had accelerated the invention of solid-state electronics, such as the transistor.8
After the Second World War over-the-air television re-emerged across Europe and the United States, and was officially introduced to Canadians in 1952.9
Cable
By the mid-1950s, Canadians living near the border with the United States had access to four over-the-air television networks, one Canadian (the CBC and Radio-Canada) and at least three American. Without cable, however, most Canadians living further from the border had access to just one or two television stations even into the mid-1970s. This is why Canadians so quickly adopted cable from its introduction in 1952. |
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Reginald Aubrey Fessenden: Canada's Radio Pioneer
This afternoon here at Cobb Island, intelligible speech by electromagnetic waves has for the first time in World's History been transmitted.
Reginald Fessenden, in his diary, December 1900.
On 23 December 1900, for the very first time in history, a voice was transmitted by radio waves. It said, "Is it snowing where you are, Mr. Thiessen? If so, telegraph back and let me know."
From our perspective, over a hundred years later, there are two striking things about this incident. The first is that the world's first voice radio transmission was also the first example of interactive broadcasting. And the second is that the voice belonged to a Canadian, Reginald Fessenden.
And yet, in a way it is not surprising. Canadians have always been fascinated with broadcasting. From Confederation on, we have understood that we could not build a nation without the creative use of technology to conquer distance. The railway, the telegraph, the telephone, radio, television, satellite, cable — each new development has rapidly been put to the service of allowing Canadians to connect with each other.
So it is not surprising that Fessenden also saw the human potential of his invention. On Christmas Eve, 1906, he presented the world's first radio program, for the benefit of wireless operators on ships. Fessenden played O Holy Night on his violin, and his wife and her friend sang carols.
Sadly, Fessenden was never recognized while alive for his pioneering work. While both his ideas and his achievements were ahead of the better-known Marconi, he had difficulty obtaining financial backing — even from the Canadian government — and lost control of his key patents. In the end, he created more than 500 inventions but, in the words of his wife, his fertile mind "failed to defend itself against commercial assault." In his obituary, in 1932, the New York Herald Tribune commented, "It sometimes happens, even in science, that one man can be right against the world. Professor Fessenden was that man."
Reginald Aubrey Fessenden died in his house by the sea in Bermuda on 22 July 1932. On a memorial above his vault were inscribed these words:
His mind illumined the past
And the future
And wrought greatly
For the Present
Beneath, in Egyptian hieroglyphics is written:
I am yesterday and I know tomorrow. |
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At its most basic level, cable relies on the same principles that Samuel Morse used to develop the telegraph. A television signal is translated into a set of electromagnetic waves, sent along a wire and converted into a television signal by a set top box (usually called a decoder).10 Because the cable could carry more frequencies (i.e., channels) subscribers were able to receive approximately 30 channels in the 1970s. With the development of more efficient technology (multiplexing), its capacity now exceeds 100 channels.11,12
Satellite
Canada was an early pioneer in the use of satellite technology to relay television signals. The Anik-1 satellite launched in 1972 was capable of relaying 12 television programs at once. This allowed the first marriage of cable and satellite. The broadcast signal could be sent from the cable system (e.g., in Toronto) to the satellite and from there relayed back to a cable system in another city (e.g., Winnipeg). Before this, television signals were sent by microwave (developed during the 1950s). Before that, airplanes sometimes flew filmed copies (i.e., a kinescope) of programs, since no mechanism existed to send them across the country. For example, in 1953, the CBC arranged to have a kinescope of the Queen's coronation flown to Canada for broadcast, which it later supplied to the American network, ABC. |
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Canada was also the first country to carry out a large-scale demonstration of satellite technology to send television direct to individual homes (1982). This technique is referred to as direct-to-home (DTH) or direct broadcast satellite (DBS). This early capability was not exploited until the late 1990s, however, due to uncertainty as to what satellite television distribution would mean for the economic health of the cable industry.13
The great advantage of using satellite as a delivery system to homes is the near complete coverage of the country.14 For this reason — with just a few exceptions — almost every household in the country is now able to receive a similar level of service. This was not true between 1950 and 1995 and was a major source of complaint by individuals during that 45-year period, particularly in the North.15,16
Science fiction writers Jules Verne and H.G. Wells described the potential popularization of television in the late nineteenth century. It did not become a popular source of entertainment, however, until shortly after the Second World War. Figure 3.3 shows the penetration of selected communication technologies since the earliest days of broadcasting.18,19
All waves can be described in terms of their length, the speed at which they move and how frequently they pass. Those who perfected the technology to send a signal that could be turned into sound or a picture used this knowledge. Thus, the waves that they transmitted were a model — or analog — of the actual sound or picture. This is why they were referred to as analog signals. Similarly, a vinyl record has a wavy groove that is a model (or analog) of a given sound, such as a song.
For centuries, people have known that one can represent a wave by a series of numbers organized in a certain way (i.e., graphically). The French mathematician and physicist Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier, for example, showed that waves could be represented as a sum of simple sine waves.20
People have also known since the time of Leibniz (1646-1716) that it is possible to create a number system based on zeros and ones. This knowledge did not have much practical application until the development of modern electronics when it was realized that zeros and ones could be represented by the presence or absence of an electrical charge. Figure 3.4 shows how numbers from 0 to 10 can be represented in a binary system (i.e., as 0s and 1s).21
As can be seen, it is a simple matter to represent the numbers we are most familiar with (1, 2, 3, etc.) as zeros and ones. Since a wave can be represented by a set of numbers, it became possible to describe the wave in digits using only zeros and ones (i.e., it became possible to describe the physical wave digitally).22 Until the 1970s, all radio and television signals were transmitted as electromagnetic waves that "represented" the sound or the picture (i.e., as analog signals). It was only upon the arrival of the digital revolution that people began to talk about the difference between analog and digital signals.
There are a number of advantages to transmitting signals digitally. The most obvious one to a non-scientist has to do with a cleaner signal. A digital telephone conversation, for example, will have less buzz and hum then a typical analog signal. It is also possible to increase the capacity of a network using digital signals (i.e., digital signals use less space). This allows cable companies to deliver a greater number of digital channels than analog channels using the same physical cable.23 |
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John Chapman — A Canadian Visionary
On 9 November 1972, when Anik A-1 was launched into orbit, Canada became the first country in the world with a domestic satellite communications system.
This milestone was the achievement of a team of scientists, working within programs first established by such pioneers as Frank Davies of the Defence Research Telecommunications Establishment, Donald Rose at the National Research Council, and Balfour Curry of the University of Saskatchewan.
But the visionary who, more than any other is given the credit for Canada's space communications efforts is John Chapman. Chapman led the team that designed and built Canada's first satellites, the Alouette/ISIS program. First launched in 1962, this series of satellites was among the most complex and successful space programs of its day.
With an international reputation, Chapman was invited by the government to lead a study to recommend future efforts. The "Chapman report" of 1967 effectively laid the foundation that ensured that Canada could control its own space resources for its own communications needs. New agencies were recommended: the Department of Communications was formed soon thereafter, and the public/private partnership emphasized by Chapman was seen in the creation of Spar Aerospace in 1968 and Telesat Canada in 1969.
The new infrastructure began the development of the Anik satellites, culminating in the historic launch in 1972. But even before the launch, an exciting new direction was initiated when, in 1970, a conference on satellite communications, chaired by Chapman, was held in Yellowknife. Clearly satellites were to be an important part of delivering services to the North, but what the conference revealed was that Northerners and Aboriginal groups wanted the new satellites to be an instrument for communicating with each other.
The Communications Research Centre began cooperation with NASA in the development of a new concept: a high-powered satellite to operate in higher frequencies, permitting the use of small dish receivers that could be used in individual homes. Hermes was launched in 1976. It was used for trials of direct-to-home broadcasting and all kinds of two-way communications with Aboriginal and other remote communities in the areas of health, education, and tele-conferencing. CBC demonstrated its DTH abilities to other broadcasters at the Montréal Olympics, and at the end of its life, Hermes was moved over Australia to develop space applications there.
Hermes was not only the precursor of the DBS satellites used by millions of North Americans today, but the foundation of the highly successful northern services of CBC and APTN, which have brought remote areas into contact with each other and with the south of Canada.
In 2003, Canada's space infrastructure is taken for granted: it is hard to imagine how restricted our services would be without these pioneering efforts. Chapman himself died in 1979, and was posthumously given the McNaughton Award, with the citation: "For his vision and leadership in recognizing the potential of satellites in Canada's future utilization of space."17 |
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In broadcasting, digital technology has already had notable impacts. For example, the cable industry's long-standing monopoly has recently ended and more profound changes with digital broadcasting and the Internet will likely cause further disruptions. Indeed, some of the most profound changes — which are only partly discernible in 2003 — will have to do with Internet transmission (or "streaming").
The Internet
The Internet has caused much confusion, uncertainty and even fear in some circles.24 The Internet is based on a set of standards and rules (a protocol) for sending messages between two points (e.g., sending an e-mail to a friend). This section reviews a few of the key characteristics of Internet communication that are important if one is to assess likely impacts on broadcasting and the availability of Canadian content.25
All communication depends on rules (i.e., a grammar) that tell you when communication starts, when it stops, where it is being sent and to whom. In electronic communications (e.g., telegraph messages, cellular phones) these rules are referred to as standards or protocols.
The Internet uses the existing telecommunications infrastructure to transmit information. The one addition is a computer (server) to store messages for individuals. The organization that provides the servers is called an Internet Service Provider (ISP) or host.
Electronic mail (e-mail) because of its ease, speed, extremely low price and reliability has often been described as the application that did the most to encourage the widespread use of the Internet.26 Since people have different makes and models of computers, live in different countries or may work in offices with elaborate security systems, how does a message typed on one person's keyboard reach another computer screen halfway around the world?
The short answer is that there is an agreed-upon set of protocols (rules) that govern the way various parts of the communications systems (the hardware and software) handle the message.27 Probably the best known grouping of protocols is the International Organization for Standardization's Open Systems Interconnection Reference Model. This is called the OSI Model and it is composed of seven layers.28 The OSI Model is not a piece of hardware or software; it is simply a way of thinking about a communication (e.g., an e-mail).
To understand how the OSI Model works one needs to realize that e-mail is broken down into small packages called packets. Additional information is added to each packet (and there could be thousands of packets) in a process called enveloping. For example, if your electronic mail system uses a particular compression technique, this information will be added to each packet. Each packet will also have an address so that it can reach its destination.
You might think of the layers as someone who reads the information on the envelope, decides what to do with the packet and who then hands it off, perhaps with additional information, to the next person (layer).
This information, which is analogous to the address on an envelope sent through the regular mail system, allows the various elements in the communications system (e.g., the hardware, the compression techniques, the security systems) to deal with the packet so that it reaches its intended destination. The information on the envelope also includes a technique to check for errors and a technique to decide if the entire message has arrived.
Thus, notwithstanding the way the Internet has dramatically altered the way people communicate, the availability of information and the way people use it, technically, the Internet is simply a set of rules for sending messages to a remote mailbox (i.e., the servers provided by the Internet Service Provider). There is no head office for the Internet, no fixed address, regional office or employees. No one works for the "Internet" or draws a salary from the "Internet." It is simply a set of communication rules that people agree to use, much as they agree to use a set of grammatical rules in writing. In other words, grammars are open systems; once you learn the rules, you can use the system to talk to anyone else who has learned the same rules.29
Because the Internet is a set of rules for communicating, it presents many of the same regulatory problems to governments as regulating the contents of mail sent through the postal system or a telephone conversation. There are rules (e.g., about using the mail or telephone system for criminal activity) but the vast majority of letters are mailed and telephone conversations completed without any involvement by the government (other than compliance with existing laws dealing with criminal activity or libel and slander).30
The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently had this to say about the Internet:
The chaotic nature of the Internet may be troubling to governments, which tend to value stability and certainty. However, the uncertainty of the Internet is strength, not a weakness. With decentralization comes flexibility and with flexibility comes dynamism. Order may emerge from the complex interactions of many uncoordinated entities, without the need for cumbersome and rigid centralized hierarchies.31
That said, the Internet may not be the technology that will prove the most disruptive.
Fibre Optics
Although the Internet has received the greatest attention and unleashed torrents of optimism about the future, it is only one of the so-called "disruptive technologies" that have emerged in the last few decades. Indeed, a strong case can be made that the invention and use of fibre optic technology will cause more disruption in communications and broadcasting than any other invention.32
The idea of communicating with light is an old one. During the nineteenth century a number of demonstrations of optical (i.e., light) transmissions were made. In 1878, two years after perfecting the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated a device (called the photophone) that transmitted the human voice through the air for a distance of up to 200 meters.
Modern communications with optics is usually dated from the 1950s when Narider Kapany, working at the Imperial College of Science and Technology in England, and Brian O'Brian of the American Optical Company demonstrated the use of a thin glass fibre to transmit light.33 Over the next 15 years scientists and engineers slowly improved the quality of the glass used in fibre optics so that it could transmit light over a distance of 10 kilometres.34,35
Lasers are used to send signals along a glass fibre.36 Digital signals can be sent at different frequencies (i.e., along different channels) and because we are dealing with light, the signals can be sent in different colours. This, in combination with different frequencies and several thousand different colours, allows one fibre to carry a tremendous amount of information. In 1999, researchers at Bell Laboratories demonstrated that it was possible to send 160 gigabytes per second along 300 kilometres of optical fibre using just one colour of light. They then showed that it was possible to send 1,022 different colours of light at the same time along one fibre.37 |
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The implications of this simple description of a technical demonstration can be easily misunderstood. But the implications are profound. These demonstrations prove that a fibre thinner than a human hair can transmit more than 2000 television stations at the same time.38 In effect, the potential bandwidth on a single strand of fibre is roughly equivalent to the bandwidth on the entire backbone network in the United States in the year 2000.39 As David Farber (professor of telecommunications systems in the computer and information science department at Penn Engineering and a former chief technologist at the Federal Communications Commission) has recently observed, this means that "we're in for a lot of change."40
Wireless
The cost of bringing a service to remote areas by telephone or cable has always been expensive. In the world of telephones and cable this was once referred to as "the last mile." The phrase lives on when discussing the problem of delivering broadband access to the Internet.
Satellite technology removed the technical problem of the "last mile" for remote locations wanting access to television and radio signals, but it has not removed "the last mile" for broadband access at a reasonable cost. At this time, high-speed access to the Internet by satellite is much more expensive than high-speed access by cable or telephone.
"The last mile" may also refer to the last few feet required to connect a business or a home to a communications service. At present, most homes and businesses receive broadband access to the Internet either by a cable service or a digital subscriber line (DSL). Several million households in Canada are not on a cable system and DSL only works for a subscriber who is physically located within five kilometres of a telephone exchange.41
One solution to the problems of lack of access, because of distance or regulatory hurdles, is a wireless broadband network. There are a number of different ways that a wireless network can be installed and the details are, for the purposes of this report, not important. However, it is technically feasible at the current time to connect a neighbourhood to a base station with an access point and deliver broadband access to individual houses.42
This ability to deliver broadband to individual houses will have important consequences for Canada's broadcasting system. The main improvements will have to do with the capacity of the "pipe" feeding signals to the consumer or audience. This is frequently referred to as "bandwidth" and is measured in the amount of information transferred per second. You need only a little bandwidth to send e-mail with acceptable speed but you need much more capacity if you are to send a movie (e.g., real time, pay-per-view).
There are a number of technical constraints in providing the bandwidth necessary to have true "pay-per-view" available to every household. Households that have "cable" are likely to have true "pay-per-view" available in the next year.43 The more serious constraints involve the existing technology (copper wire) that links most households (not on cable) to the telephone system. However, even for these households, existing technologies could be bundled together to make "pay-per-view" a reality.
The key technologies that will make real time, pay-per-view (unicasting) more prevalent will involve bandwidth and storage capacity. At present, it would take eight hours to download a movie with a high-speed Internet connection; via an end-to-end fibre optic line it would take less than an hour.
Storage Capacity
Storage capacity has also increased exponentially over the last 20 years. Fifteen years ago people were happy to have a hard drive with a capacity of 40 megabytes. Now relatively inexpensive computers have 40-gigabyte hard drives, which can store up to a dozen 90-minute movies. Research labs have already produced holographic storage devices that have a capacity of 125 GB with an ability to transfer data from the storage device at 40MB per second (available 2003). In 10 years, holographic storage is expected to have a capacity of a terabyte (1000 gigabytes), with an ability to transfer data at 1 GB per second.44
Given the present rate of technological progress, it will eventually be feasible to store the entire archive of the United States Library of Congress on a single disk the size of a CD. Seen in this light, it becomes clear why the combination of enhanced bandwidth and increased storage will make it easier for individuals to search out news, music, movies and programs that they want to watch or listen to at a time of their choosing. This is not to say that "broadcasting" as we currently think of it will disappear. Television did not destroy the radio, radio changed.45 In the same vein, broadcasting will not disappear but will evolve as audiences continue to fragment over the coming years.46
All these changes in broadcasting will by necessity lead to changes in access and delivery. For example, in parallel with the Internet's rapid growth and popularity in the mid-1990s, computer programmers developed sophisticated search engines (e.g., Google and Yahoo!) to help online users locate desired content. Similarly, the growing popularity of satellite television and digital cable has prompted the rapid growth and development of the "television guidance" industry.
Television guidance systems — most commonly referred to as Interactive Program Guides (IPG) — are designed to assist television viewers in locating specific programming content. The world leader in this field, Gemstar-TV Guide International, holds licencing agreements with four of the top six American cable systems and two of Canada's top three cable companies (Shaw Cablesystems and Cogeco). Gemstar's long-term vision is to make its IPG products available to television audiences worldwide. Should this ever occur, it means that the ownership of Canada's broadcasting gateway for both available content and programming information will be entirely owned and controlled by a company outside Canada.
Some idea of what the full use of a set-top technology might look like can be seen if one considers how it can be used in tandem with the personal video recorder (PVR), a device that allows a person to record a television program for viewing at a convenient time.47 While it will take some time for PVR use to grow, its widespread adoption is almost inevitable for two reasons. First, in a 200- to 300-channel universe people will turn to electronic program guides to help them find what is on. Second, once people commonly use an electronic program guide, it is a simple matter to ask the PVR to record particular shows.
Thus, the multitude of choices available to citizens has created a world of communications where the old regulatory regime (based on the reality that a telephone company had a local monopoly or that spectrum is a scarce resource) is no longer viable. As such, the range of choices offered by the digital world will make it seem — even with regulations — like an unregulated world.
In light of the above discussion it is possible to envision elements of an emerging communications environment and key issues that this report must address. In simple terms, the following events and outcomes are likely to occur over the next few years:
| • | Analog broadcasting will decline in importance and eventually disappear. |
| • | Digital systems (which are already available to almost all Canadian households) will predominate (e.g., by satellite, cable or high speed connections over standard telephone lines). |
| • | Effective bandwidth (i.e., the speed with which information can be sent to an individual household or an individual) will continue to increase. This process will depend on improvements in compression technologies, processing speeds and changes to networks. |
| • | The choices available (radio, television, newspapers, new media) will continue to increase. |
| • | Audiences will continue to fragment. |
| • | To offset audience fragmentation, companies will offer bundles of services (e.g., radio, television, Internet and communications via satellite). |
| • | The distinctions between broadcasting and telecommunications will continue to erode to the point where there is almost no point talking — from the perspective of the consumer or an audience — about the differences between the two areas. |
| • | Individuals will think in terms of subscriptions (to radio, television, newspapers and information services). |
| • | Subscriptions will continue to increase in importance. |
| • | Households will have a "seamless" communications system (i.e., they will not think about the differences between the television set and the computer monitor). |
| • | Individuals will have one or more multifunctional personal communications devices that will function as a cell phone, pager, digital assistant and be capable of receiving "streaming" media (i.e., sound and video). |
| • | Individuals will be able to choose among digital offerings (e.g., among 2,500 Internet radio stations) by creating their own menu of selections or by using a menu system developed by a third party. |
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While it is, of course, impossible to make entirely accurate predictions about the coming changes, it is possible to make some informed guesses about the likely shape of the future. This is not to say that anyone knows the exact shape of things to come (e.g., how many and what kind of channels there will be in five years time). However, it is safe to say that in the coming years, broadcasting will be driven by changes made possible because of current developments in technology and the attempt by companies to provide new or new bundles of services to audiences.
The way people use the broadcasting system has changed substantially over the last 50 years. Television became popular during the 1950s and changed the importance and use of radio. The emergence of cable systems in the 1970s significantly increased the number of channels that one could access and led to the growth of channels specializing in particular topics (history, biography, sports). In the 1980s it became possible to rent movies (in the form of videos). During the 1990s the Internet became a workable protocol for audiences to use to listen to "Internet radio," watch "streaming video" or access "electronic" newspapers that are updated several times each day.48
There are three constants involved in this process. First, new technologies have made it easier for audiences to exercise choice about how they will watch something. For example, many people may never go to a movie theatre, as they prefer to watch movies on television or on video. Second, the number of choices has increased (e.g., from 3 or 4 television channels in 1955 to more than 350 channels in 2003). Third, audiences have used these new services to "time shift" (i.e., watch or listen to what they want when it is convenient). These changes in turn have fundamentally altered our notions of what a "broadcast" is.
As this chapter has shown, audience fragmentation results from increased choice made possible by underlying technological changes in the capacity of the communications system. Technical capacity increased more in the 10 years between 1992 and 2002 than in the 100 years between Bell's first long-distance telephone call in 1878 and 1978. Increases in technical capability, however, will not necessarily come from engineers and scientists working in the area of communications. As a recent article in Scientific American pointed out:
Crucial advances in pivotal fields such as climatology, medicine, bioscience, controlled fusion, national defence, nanotechnology, advanced engineering and commerce depend on the development of machines that will operate at speeds at least 1000 times faster than today's biggest supercomputers.49
Thus, just as Fourier's work on heat, or early work on fibre optics was not carried out with the idea that it would be useful in the area of communications or broadcasting, it is equally probable that work in nanotechnology or bioscience will produce theoretical or practical results that will find an application far from their original applications. For this reason, it is likely that the ability to send programs to those who are interested and to develop whole new areas of entertainment (e.g., games and simulations) will only increase.50
Endnotes
| 1 | Continuous changes in the electromagnetic wave are used to transmit information (e.g., the dots and dashes of the Morse code). The technique of changing the characteristics of the electromagnetic wave is called "modulation." |
| 2 | Since the electromagnetic spectrum does not use the "air" to travel, the phrase "the airwaves" as in "the public owns the airwaves" is misleading. More precisely, governments regulate the use of parts of the spectrum (e.g., the use of x-rays) for human safety. Safety was the first reason that radio communications (with respect to communication with ships at sea) were regulated. |
| 3 | If the human eye could "see" waves that were absorbed by the atmosphere, there would be very little difference between day and night and our world would be visually chaotic. |
| 4 | The movement of a boat from the top of a wave to the bottom and return to the top is considered one cycle. If the boat does this only a few times an hour the boat trip will probably be a pleasant one. If the boat rises, falls and rises many times a minute the trip will probably be unpleasant. In technical terms, the more frequent the cycle the more unpleasant the boat ride. |
| 5 | Cycles per second are usually referred to as hertz when one talks about electromagnetic waves. One hertz is one cycle per second or, if we are thinking about boats, a completed event (the rise, fall and rise of the boat) per second. |
| 6 | See Appendix 6 for a timeline of advances in broadcasting (1880-2003). |
| 7 | The most well-known invention from this period is the radar, which uses electromagnetic waves. Radar is an acronym formed from the first letters of radio, detecting and ranging. |
| 8 | Tubes were always breaking and had a very short lifespan if exposed to vibration (e.g., on airplanes). The military, therefore, was interested in something more robust that used less power and occupied less space. The transistor was invented in 1947; unlike a tube, you could drop a transistor on the floor and it would keep working. A transistor is a semi-conductor and uses the same fundamental principles that early radios with a crystal used. |
| 9 | As early as July 1941 Canadians in border regions could receive over-the-air television signals from the United States. |
| 10 | The early telegraph used one strand of copper wire, the telephone used a pair of wires, then a twisted pair, and later the coaxial cable was developed. Each improvement allowed more information to be carried. Wire technology improved substantially between the invention of the telegraph and cable but the underlying principles are the same. |
| 11 | Multiplexing enables multiple devices (or channels) to share one telephone line (or one cable). Multiplexing was first developed for analog telephone lines but is a technique widely used in analog and digital transfers of information. For example a T-3 telephone line can carry 672 conversations over one line at a speed of 45 megabits per second. |
| 12 | It is important to note that Canadians living in areas not served by cable must rely on a set-top or roof-top antennae to receive broadcast signals. This type of transmission is typically called "over-the-air" or "off air." Broadcasters that use these signals are referred to as "conventional" broadcasters. The term conventional helps distinguish between the newer specialty channels (which are not broadcast) and the older over-the-air stations. That said, almost no one watching television today says: "I'm watching conventional television." |
| 13 | An accessible history of the period during the 1990s is contained in Chapter 2 of Matthew Fraser's Free for All: The Struggle for Dominance on the Digital Frontier (Toronto: Stoddart, 1999). |
| 15 | Television cannot be delivered north of 82N degrees (because of the curvature of the earth) and so some communities in the far north cannot receive satellite signals for television. |
| 16 | See chapter 5. Mr. Michael Helm, from Industry Canada told the Committee that it has been at least four or five years since he last heard a complaint concerning television reception. |
| 17 | See chapters 7 and 10 for more on Northern and Aboriginal broadcasting. |
| 18 | Statistics Canada (various years) Household facilities and equipment, Catalogue 64-202 Annual; Catalogue 64-202S (various years): Revised Estimates (1977-87); Statistics Canada (various years); Household Facilities by Income and Other Characteristics, Catalogue 13-218-XPB.; Statistics Canada (various years) Survey of Household Spending, Catalogue 62M0004XCB.; CRTC, 1976-1981 Industry Statistics and Financial Summaries, Canada, Regions-Provinces: Cable.; CRTC, 1977-1982 Industry Statistics and Financial Summaries, Canada, Regions-Provinces: Cable.; CRTC, Cable Television Statistical and Financial Summaries 1979-1984: Canada, Regions and Provinces, CCTA Annual Report 2001-2002. |
| 19 | Sources: Statistics Canada (various years) Household facilities and equipment, Catalogue 64-202 Annual; Catalogue 64-202S (various years): Revised Estimates (1977-1987); Statistics Canada (August 1947) Heating Facilities, Radios and Telephones in Canadian Homes — August 1947; Statistics Canada (October 1949) Radios and Household Electrification, October 1949. Statistics Canada (various years) Survey of Household Spending, Catalogue 62M0004XCB. |
| 20 | The ongoing utility of Fourier's discoveries is interesting. Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier (1768-1830) was a French mathematician and physicist who made a lasting contribution to our ability to use electromagnetic waves for the purposes of communication long before Samuel Morse or Alexander Graham Bell invented their communication devices. His proof that all waves could be represented as the sum of a number of sine waves is the foundation on which our use of electromagnetic waves rests. This work was done before Faraday or Maxwell's work with electromagnetic waves and shows that discoveries or knowledge in one area can have interesting applications in another. In this case Fourier's studies of heat flow, which were done without any knowledge that they would ever be applied to broadcasting, or that broadcasting would ever exist, have been of fundamental importance to our ability to develop communications systems that use electromagnetic waves. (Fourier demonstrated that any mathematical curve could be described as a sum of a number of sine waves.) |
| 21 | Other number systems exist (e.g., to the base 8 or the base 16). The hexadecimal system (base 16) is used to program computers. It has been alleged, but not proven, that some researchers think in octal (base 8). |
| 22 | Binary digits can be represented in a number of ways. Streams of binary bits (0s and 1s) can be coded into radio waves as sudden changes in strength (amplitude). This is an example of the use of modulation. They can be represented by the presence or absence of an electric charge (1, 0). Particles on a hard disk can be magnetized in one of two directions. On a compact disc they can be represented as long or short pits. |
| 23 | Changes do have to be made to the overall system but the physical cable does not have to be changed. |
| 24 | See Appendix 7 for brief history of the Internet. |
| 25 | Canadian content is discussed in considerable detail in Chapter 5. |
| 26 | E-mail is often referred to as the Internet's "killer application." |
| 27 | It is also important to remember that the system has to deal with a number of factors that can introduce errors into the message or cause delays. These factors can include sunspot activity, the presence of electric motors and fluorescent lights that are all sources of electromagnetic waves (radiation) that can cause problems. |
| 28 | The OSI Model layers are called: Interconnection, Application, Presentation, Session, Transport, Network, Data Link and Physical. |
| 29 | The Internet grammar, or Internet Protocol (IP), is a subset of another grammar called the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) or TCP/IP. The TCP/IP has five layers while the OSI Model has seven. |
| 30 | Internet regulation is discussed in Chapter 14. |
| 31 | Kevin Werbach, Digital Tornado (Washington, D.C.: Federal Communications Commission, 1997), p. ii. |
| 32 | Technically, the whole field is referred to as optoelectronics or photonics. |
| 33 | The device was used to conduct an image from a source to a destination and was used for inspections of industrial equipment and medical applications. |
| 34 | This was done without a repeater. Later developments allowed the signal to be sent 50 kilometres. |
| 35 | The glass fibre has a diameter slightly thinner than a human hair (between 50 and 65 microns). |
| 36 | Laser is an acronym for light amplification by simulated emission of radiation. |
| 37 | BBC News, 14 November 1999. |
| 38 | Single strands of fibre are combined with other strands, given a protective cladding and buried in trenches or run through pipes and duct work in cables that can have as many as 100 single fibres. While the capacity of fibre varies with the type and when it was installed, it is safe to say that relative to current demand there is virtually infinite capacity to transmit information. Indeed, it would be possible to dedicate a single strand of fibre to carriage of television signals and carry virtually every television station in the world (i.e., 2000 of them). |
| 39 | Knowledge@Wharton special to CNET News.com, 20 September 2000. |
| 41 | The spread of broadband access has also been hampered by various regulatory hurdles and disputes within the industry about who will control what and how various services will be delivered. |
| 42 | A radio base station (called a network access point — NAP) is connected to the Internet. Homes in a neighbourhood connect to the base station with their own antenna. There are a number of different ways that this can be done. One workable solution involves using a new communications standard known as 802.11. |
| 43 | A number of movie companies in the United States recently announced their intention to create a "library" of some 350 films that will be available "on demand." For a small fee ($4.00 has been suggested) a household could download a copy of a film that would be available for two days to watch much as one watches a rented video. |
| 44 | PC Magazine, 4 September 2001, p. 78. |
| 45 | Interestingly, there are some signs that radio is overtaking television partly because of new ways of listening such as via the Internet. For example, in the United Kingdom, for the second time in a year, daily hours for listening to the radio have beaten those for watching television with an average of 3.48 compared with 3.46 (The Independent, 3 August 2001). |
| 46 | For example, popular television shows in the 1960s might have had as much as 75% of the audience. This era has passed. Today, a popular television show such as Survivor is a serious success with 30% of the audience. Sporting events such as the Super Bowl or the World Series rarely have more than 50% of the audience. These percentages are likely to decline in the future as the audience continues to fragment. |
| 47 | Current PVRs can store between 30 and 280 hours of programming. Moreover, it is now possible to buy computers that will record more than 300 hours of programming. |
| 48 | Streaming video and audio can be defined as a means of starting to play a message while the rest of it is being copied. Streaming uses compression to make voice, video and data smaller so that it can be transmitted in less time. Streaming video and audio are used in broadcasting video and audio over the Internet. |
| 49 | Thomas Sterling, "How to Build a Hyper Computer," Scientific American, July 2001, p. 39. |
| 50 | It is quite remarkable that the field of computer games (e.g., the Nintendo Game Cube, the Xbox, and others) is an industry larger than the movie industry yet it only emerged over the last 25 years. In fact, as J. Patel of the Deutsche Banc recently noted: "We believe that the interactive entertainment market is increasingly taking on the properties of the traditional media/ entertainment industries, as well as capturing a disproportionate share of consumer consumption of in-home entertainment in terms of time and dollars." www.gignews.com/2002andbeyond.htm. |
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