This looks a little scary. One of the most attractive English-language features of North American free-to-air satellite TV is the plethora of PBS channels. As you can see here, a modest-sized dish can pick up a half-dozen national PBS feeds plus the statewide broadcasts from Oklahoma, Louisiana and Montana.

One of these days, perhaps not so long from now, that might all change. In advance of next week’s NAB Show, TV Technology ran an interview with Edward Caleca, former senior VP of technology for PBS and currently an “executive consultant” for the network. Caleca said “Stations have been looking for a NRT (non-real time) solution that is a pull model versus the current push model. The current system is delivered on satellite, which is very inefficient for file delivery. The future will be public or private internet.”

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard someone on satellite say that they’re going to move to much, much cheaper internet-based distribution, but the PBS cluster would arguably have the largest impact if and when it leaves. As always with FTA satellite, the key is to enjoy it while you can.