The blog here has been pretty quiet, and that was true even before Covid. Yet some of you keep coming by, or at least your robots visit. Sorry that I haven’t been around here much for you.

Ku-band free-to-air satellite TV seems to have stabilized. About a decade ago, a report I criticized claimed that FTA was mostly religious channels and foreign-language programming. Today, the report would be more right than wrong.

On the other hand, the opportunities to watch free TV over the internet have exploded. Pluto TV, Peacock, Stirr, Tubi, Redbox, Fitzy TV, Airy TV, SPB TV, and so many other services together provide thousands of movies, TV shows, and live streams. Heck, even Sling offers a few free channels. (I also know a few tricks to stream out-of-market broadcasters.) Add in the gazillions hours of content available on YouTube and the Internet Archive.

So I just haven’t been prowling the FTA satellites as much as I used to. I still check and update the channels on FTAList periodically. On special occasions, I sniff around for some wild news or sports feeds. And every December 31, I enjoying ringing in the new year one time zone at a time from the Middle East, across Europe, then across the US.

I still follow industry news. A couple of weeks ago Channel Master announced it was hooking up with TiVo, and I read between the lines that it’s not a good sign for CM’s Stream+, a solid Android TV receiver with a built-in over-the-air tuner. When I find news like that, the kind you wouldn’t read elsewhere, I’ll really try to find time to let you know. If you see something fun that you’d like to share, feel free to drop me a line. I’m still around; I’m usually just busy with something else.