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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC Studios in SoHo. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. Hey, we want to remind you about the All Of It fifth-anniversary initiative. We wanted to help you help other New Yorkers by giving back, so we are hosting a blood drive here at WNYC with the help of the New York Blood Center. New York's blood supply is critically low right now. In a work and a time where it seems so hard to know how to help or do some small thing to make the world a better place, this is your chance.

It is happening on Monday, October 30th, from 12:00 to 4:30 PM in The Greene Space. That's our performance space located on the street level of WNYC's offices in Lower Manhattan. To donate, you can sign up for a slot at wnyc.org/giveblood. That's on Monday, October 30th, from 12:00 to 4:30 in The Greene Space, wnyc.org/giveblood. I've heard a rumor. If you sign up, you could get an All Of It tote bag. I'm going to make that rumor true. Put it out there. You can do a bloody good deed this month. That is October 30th. Come on down and give some blood and say hi. That is in the future. Let's get this hour started right now with a conversation about cutting the cord.

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Alison Stewart: To help us navigate all of the crazy ups and downs of cutting the cord is James Willcox. James is the senior electronics editor at Consumer Reports. He covers the intersection of technology and society and, lately, his wife's frustration finding the next Yankees game. Yes, that factors into this conversation. We are talking about cutting the cord this hour, going from cable to just streaming. Hi, Jim.

Jim Willcox: Hey, Alison, thanks for having me.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, we want to hear from you. Have you cut the cord? What has been your experience? What do you wish you'd known before? Have you cut the cord and then changed your mind and gone back? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 is our number. You can hit us up on social media as well @allofitwnyc, or maybe you want to ask Jim a question.

He'll try to do his best to give you an answer if he knows it. Give us a call, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. If you've cut the cord or you're thinking about it, join us on air, or you can text to us at that number as well. Let's say you're somebody who's thinking about it. A lot of my friends would think, "We're thinking about cutting the cord. We're thinking about cutting the cord." Who might be a good candidate for cord-cutting?

Jim Willcox: I think most people are probably good candidates for it just because of the high cost of regular cable or satellite TV service. I think I read that the average price now is close to $120 a month, so anyone who's really looking to save some money. The thing that's really changed though, the calculus of cord-cutting has changed a lot over the last, say, 12 to 18 months, as all the streaming services are now more expensive than they were then. Everyone is paying more. It's really going to be how much more you're going to pay depending on whether you stick with cable or switch to a streaming service.

Alison Stewart: Who would not be a good candidate for cord-cutting? Somebody who'd be really upset after they did it.

Jim Willcox: The thing that traditional pay TV cable services give you is the convenience of everything. You just have one package. You pay one bill each month. You don't have to go to multiple services to try to cobble together a package that's going to work for you. It's really the ease and convenience. We've also seen some cable companies recently start to be a little bit more aggressive in terms of working deals. One of the things we've never liked about cable is that they require a contract.

We've seen some of them shorten the contracts to maybe a year so that if you're unhappy, it's not like you're locked into a long-term contract. I think people who are just really used to cable, there's a convenience factor, and they know how it works. They don't need to go to a streaming player and learn that remote. They may not have two or three remotes on their coffee table. I think it's really convenience and ease of use for them.

Alison Stewart: Does the region you live in impact your decision to cut the cord or could it?

Jim Willcox: It definitely does. In most markets, consumers only have a choice. One of the things you have to realize is that when you do cut the cable, you're now becoming way more dependent on broadband internet service. That's one thing that you have to have is a good internet service because you're offloading all of this entertainment onto your internet. It has to be able to support it. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't have a choice of providers. They only have one or two choices, so it's more limited than with TV service. That's probably the biggest obstacle for some people. Is your internet service going to be good enough? Then if I do cut the cord, do I have to spend more to get a better, faster broadband?

Alison Stewart: I have heard stories about people spending hours on the phone with a cable company trying to get this done. Is that urban legend or is there some truth to that, that you need to allot some time to get it done?

Jim Willcox: I think there's a lot of truth to it. One of the things that people have always hated about cable companies is customer service. That hasn't really changed. Certainly, they're losing millions of customers every year. In the last five years, they've lost 25 million customers. They're not going to make it super easy for you to cut the cord. One of the things that we suggest is you try to get to a customer retention specialist because, one, they have the authority to do deals. If you're just trying to play cable against streaming, that's really where you need to start because, a lot of times, the first person you get on the phone doesn't have the authority to give you the deal you might want.

Alison Stewart: That leads me actually to my next question. I think you answered it. Customer-retention person. There are some times you can say certain words that'll get you to the right place. Is that one of them?

Jim Willcox: Yes, "I'm thinking of quitting," "It's too expensive." They're definitely trigger words that will get you, but you should specifically ask to speak to a customer-retention specialist because those are the people that they've been given the authority to do a little bit of wheeling and dealing to see if they can keep you as a customer. One of the other things that I should have mentioned before is that, typically, most people get their internet service from their cable company. It's the same company that you're dealing with. One of the things also to look out for is that if you decouple your TV service to the internet service, the cost of that service may go up because it's out of a bundle.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Susan in Manhattan, who is considering cutting the cord. Hi, Susan, thanks for calling in.

Susan: Hi, thanks for taking my call. You hit upon it, the bundle. First, I'm over 50, one of the only people probably in New York who still has a landline. I have cable, phone, and internet. I'm most afraid of getting rid of that landline, but I'm ready to do it. How do I get a best deal and not pay more for only having one service?

Jim Willcox: The question is, are you trying to get rid of cable entirely or are you just trying to cut back on the bundle?

Susan: I would get rid of cable and I would just go with streaming, so I would just need the internet service.

Jim Willcox: The question that most people have to ask right away is, can you get your local channels using an antenna? Because if you can, it gives you a lot of flexibility about the other services. Because if you can't, that means you're going to have to go to one of the streaming services that try to replicate what you get with cable. Those are the YouTube TVs, Hulu + Live TV, FuboTV. The problem is those started out at $35 a month. Most of them are now $73, $75 a month.

A lot of people imagine these cost-cutting savings that they're not actually able to realize. I would say that the first thing you should think about is, can you get your local broadcast using an antenna? In the city, sometimes you can. There are issues with multi-paths sometimes with an indoor antenna. If you're an apartment, sometimes you can't put one on the roof, so you'd need an indoor antenna, but that would be the place that I'd start.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to John calling in from Livingston. John, thanks for calling in.

John: Oh, yes, you're welcome. Great to call in. I just wanted to let you know that we cut the cord. We originally, for years, had Verizon Fios package, cable, internet, and landline. Although it was sentimental value at this point to get rid of the landline, we were paying upwards around $260 a month. I knew that we really needed to cut the costs.

What we did was we went with a straight internet at a moderate speed and we streamed everything. Then I think it puts the onus on us, my wife and I, to select the channels that we really want to watch rather than having 300 channels. We chose PBS. My wife likes BritBox, so we did that. Overall, we dramatically cut our costs. That was the main goal. Frankly, no service at all, disruption or lessening. We cut the cord and we're happy we did. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: John, thanks for calling in. He's very happy. Did you hear that laugh?

Jim Willcox: I was just going to ask you how he's getting his local channels because that's a big issue for people. What he's doing makes sense to a lot of people. If you want to watch local news, sometimes local sports, that's the thing that brings people back to more of a traditional pay-TV package.

Alison Stewart: I was going to ask you about that next. First of all, let me reintroduce you. Jim Willcox is a senior electronics editor at Consumer Reports. We're talking about cutting the cord, what to know. FCC rules require cable and satellite companies to negotiate with local broadcasters to carry local stations. Is there anyone pushing to have streamers having to carry local news in any way, considering we're coming up on election? That's a big issue.

Jim Willcox: It is. Certainly, the issues that we've recently seen with companies like Charter and DirecTV and Dish, where they have blackouts because they couldn't reach these retransmission consent degrees. There are right now two different groups that are battling. It gets a little complicated, but the local affiliates are the ones who negotiate with each of the cable companies in the area when they come in.

What happened with streaming is they're not covered by the same regulations and so a streaming service only has to negotiate with the national broadcaster. Those two groups, the smaller affiliates, there are about 600 of them, are fighting with the larger broadcasters and streamers because they say it's unfair for them to have to negotiate in a market-by-market basis when a streaming service can come in and negotiate for every territory. There's nothing that's happening right now. There was legislation that was introduced.

There are petitions before the FCC, but I think it's a battle that's going to happen. I think this morning, the FCC said that they want to, now, mandate rebates for people who are caught in those blackouts because, typically, the consumers are caught between these fights between relatively large companies. It means they can't watch any TV programs on those networks. This morning, the FCC said that they're going to impose rules that provides rebates for consumers who are caught in those blackout situations.

Alison Stewart: Someone has texted, "Cutting the cord. I'm a news junkie. How do I get live news without cable?"

Jim Willcox: Antenna, number one, because it's free. Then two, the other thing is that if you want live news, you're going to have to go to one of the streaming services that provide your local channels. Not all of them do in every market, but most of the bigger ones now have national coverage. Those are the ones that we're talking about. We mentioned YouTube TV, FuboTV, DirecTV Stream, Hulu + Live TV. The problem is that they've gotten expensive. It's used typically in the $65 to $75 range. A lot of times, that comes close to what you might pay for a basic TV plan. The thing about traditional TV plans that we have an issue with is the add-on fees. I don't know if that's something that you were going to address later or not.

Alison Stewart: No, please. Go for it.

Jim Willcox: One of the things that happens is you'll see an advertised price, $80 a month for 200 channels. Great, but then you get your bill and there's a $23 broadcast TV fee that's added on. There's a regional sports network fee of $12 or $15. There are equipment rental fees. One of the things that we just really have never liked about cable and satellite TV packages is that they're not really upfront about what the total cost is going to be. That's something that you need to find out because you're usually paying more than the advertised price.

Alison Stewart: Can I circle back to antenna? Someone wants to know. How do you use an antenna, especially in New York City apartments?

Jim Willcox: Again, you should try one. They cost anywhere from $10 to-- You can spend $100 on them, but most of them are a lower price. You would just connect the antenna directly to the TV. If you go into the menu system, there's a scan for channels in the menu that you would look for, and that'll tell you. If you go to dTV.gov, there's also a website that the FCC puts together.

That will give you an idea of how many channels you should be receiving in your area. The good thing about cities is that, usually, you're located pretty close to a broadcast tower. The two things that affect reception are proximity to a broadcast tower and then with geography. If you live in a mountainous area or an area with lots of trees or other things that are going to block the signal, you could have problems.

The cities deal with things called multi-path and that signals bouncing off of buildings, but it's definitely worth trying one and seeing if you can get it because it really does give you a lot of flexibility about all of the other things that we're talking about trying to put together streaming packages that give you everything you need for a lot less money than what you would get with the traditional TV package.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Jeffrey from Long Beach on line 5. Hi, Jeffrey. Thanks for calling in.

Jeffrey: Well, hi. Thank you for taking my call. Yes, I literally unplugged last evening. I disconnected the router. I unplugged and disconnected all my cable boxes, went with a different broadband provider. I expect I'm going to save a fair amount of money. I was paying about $270 a month to serve my cable, plus I already had about half a dozen streaming services I was paying for. I don't watch any sports, so I don't know why I had the cable. I don't need a landline anymore.

I am going to buy an antenna for local broadcasting. I don't think it's going to be all that difficult and I'm looking forward to the savings. The only drawback is I won't be able-- Well, I'm sure I'll find some news stations when I add an antenna, but I'm probably going to miss MSNBC more than anything else. It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make and I'll just watch that the next day or something because it's more editorial than real news. I can always catch up with that the next day.

Alison Stewart: Jeffrey from Long Beach--

Jim Willcox: There's a streaming service called Philo. It's only about $20 a month and they provide a lot of the cable channels that you would get. They have no locals, but you're almost a perfect cord-cutter in terms of what you're telling me if you can use an antenna and then just jump onto a couple of the streaming services. One of the other things we wanted to mention about streaming is there are no contracts. What we're seeing is more and more people jumping from service to service.

You sign up for Apple TV+ for a month. You binge-watch The Morning Show and Ted Lasso or whatever else you want to see, and then you just quit that service and jump to another one and binge-watch the shows that you want on that. That's really changed the economics of how much you have to spend each month because you're not paying this recurring monthly bill. You can just jump in and out of these services. Now, services don't like that because it's called churn. You see that a lot in the cell phone industry.

They have a hard time figuring out a business model for consumers who aren't going to stay with them. It's one of the things that's actually driving up costs because they have to create original programming because that's the reason that people would stay with them. It's probably one of the big reasons that we just see all of the services, whether it's pay TV or whether it's streaming services. Prices keep going up because the cost of content, either exclusive or original, keeps going up.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Jim Willcox, senior electronics editor at Consumer Reports. We are talking about cutting the cord, what to know. Phone lines are full. We'll take more of your calls and we'll talk about sports after the break.

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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest is Jim Willcox, senior electronics editor at Consumer Reports. He's helping us know what we need to know about cutting the cord if you are considering it. Andy is calling in from Armonk. Hi, Andy. Thanks for calling All Of It. You're on the air.

Andy: Great. I have a question. I'm a Verizon Fios subscriber at my home in Westchester. We have a place in Vermont where I thought I was being very smart, where I can cut the cord there, just have internet service, and get just about all of the content that I want by authenticating myself using my Verizon credentials. The problem that I'm running into is with sports where I might want to watch the Giants game like last Sunday. It was on CBS. I would use the CBS Sports app, but it would only show me the Kansas City game instead of the Giants game. Why am I being blocked out and is there a way I can fix that?

Jim Willcox: That's an interesting question. I'm not sure I really have the right answer. My guess is that your TV service that you have in Westchester is being authenticated, but it's outside the region that you're actually watching it. They're imposing these blackouts short of subscribing to a service that allows you to watch out-of-market games. You may be out of luck. One thing you could try though is the NFL+ mobile app and see if you can-- It's certainly not a 65-inch TV and you can actually cast it to your TV, but you could probably watch the game using the NFL+ mobile app.

Alison Stewart: Good luck, Andy. You've written, Jim, about your wife's challenges trying to follow the Yankees this year. What's been going on?

Jim Willcox: True confession. Despite covering cord-cutting, I still have DirecTV. One of the big reasons is, up until this year, we were not able to get the YES Network on any of the streaming services, except for the DirecTV Stream service, which was really no cheaper than what we were already paying. The thing that happened this year is that the games now are spread across multiple services. It used to be you pretty much, get everything on YES Network, but Apple TV had Friday night games. Some of the games were being on Peacock. For her, it was absolutely maddening. Of course, because I covered this stuff, it's like, "Why can't you do something about this?"

Alison Stewart: [laughs]

Jim Willcox: For her, she had to actually keep a list of where the games were going to be played. I sent her up to the MLB website and downloaded the schedule, but it's just becoming increasing-- The same thing that's happening with football right now because Amazon now has the Thursday night games. ESPN has Monday night games. Increasingly, what we're seeing is these sports and programs that we always watched on either one or two networks being spread across multiple networks and streaming services. As I said, it created a lot of issues in our household.

It's funny because we downloaded the app and she just doesn't really like using the app. She's just very familiar with it. The other thing that happened and something I hadn't thought of is that you change announcers when you go to a different service. She's really used to the YES announcers and she likes them. Then, all of a sudden, she's like, "These people aren't as good," the Southern network. For her, it's both confusing, inconvenient, and the lack of familiarity with the broadcasters that typically will announce the game, so she's not happy.

Alison Stewart: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Let's talk to Carolyn from Tarrytown on line 1. Hi, Carolyn. Thanks for calling in.

Carolyn: [chuckles] Thank you. I'm happy to call in and talk about this. I did cut the cord. I am shocked by the lack of quality in the picture on streaming versus beautiful broadcast. I'm just so reminiscent of the golden age of broadband cable coming right into our homes and living rooms. I have four televisions. I can only use one. I use a second television on RabbitEars. That's where I get my local news. I'm just amazed that from January till now, there were no local news shows on streaming via Roku in January.

Now, all I can watch like San Diego local news if I want, not that I want to. All the New York television stations that do local news are on streaming now and the big winners are the shopping channels. QVC and HSN have perfect picture quality. They are complete with QR codes for shopping by using your phone. It's amazing. In ABC, WABC New York does not have a picture that matches the audio with the broadcasters' lips and it is so frustrating. Oh, my God, I can't find the Yankees anywhere.

Alison Stewart: [chuckles] Thank you for calling in. We really appreciate it. We have Sal calling in from Yonkers. Sal has some intel. Sal, you're on the air.

Sal: Hi, how are you?

Alison Stewart: Good. What's up, Sal?

Sal: Good, good. I'm an insider, so I probably will give them a very, very good view for the customers to understand how these things work. A lot of people, we are human of habit. Nobody likes to change in general, but you should let the companies compete for you basically at the end of the time. If your price is rising up, why are you still sitting down with the company? If the other company's waving for you, "Come here. I'll give it to you cheaper," why do you stick with the first company? Nobody likes to change. It's a human being nature.

Local channels, you can have them on your antenna, but that had a lot to do with the side of the island town if you can get a clearer picture or not. That's convenient, but it's not really very convenient. You know what I mean? Every month, there's almost at least an average, 300,000 people call both companies, Verizon and Optimum, threat they're going to cancel the service. Only 2% do. 98%, they keep complaining, but they pay the bill at the end of the month. That's the reason why the companies don't listen to them.

Alison Stewart: It's Sal. Thanks for the intel. That's very interesting. Wow. We've been getting a lot of antenna responses. I'll read one of them. "I live in Gowanus and was fine with an antenna for local channels until all the new development went up. Now, I really only get cozy. I know what I'm doing with an antenna and have tried so many options, but unless I can get one on my roof, I'm SOL when it comes to antenna broadcast." Sadly, antenna for local news isn't a viable option for most city dwellers, whereas a lot of our friends, people who are texting in and calling in from the suburbs are having a really good luck with it. That's interesting.

Jim Willcox: You mentioned before, the two things that affect reception is your distance from the broadcast towers, and then the other is if there are any obstructions. If you have big buildings being constructed around you, it's going to make it much tougher unless you can put that antenna on the roof. Sometimes, depending on the situation that you're in, the building may allow antennas to be put on the roof. I know sometimes there were issues where they didn't allow satellite dishes, but you should talk to the building management and talk to other people there who used to get reception and see if you can form a little committee to lobby them to allow you to put a rooftop antenna on.

Alison Stewart: We talked about the streaming services becoming more and more expensive. I'm wondering, is it the influx of legacy media companies coming in? Because for a while, it was Hulu and Netflix. Now, you have Disney+ and HBO. No, just Max. I'm wondering what the impact of legacy media is on the price.

Jim Willcox: The thing that happened and in terms of the price, it used to be people would get Netflix in addition to whatever they got with TV just because it had so much stuff. As you had these big media companies start to launch their own services, they start to pull back all of the content that they used to license. That means that you can't watch certain shows on Netflix that you used to. All the Disney content used to be on Netflix. Now, it's on Disney+. Some of the NBC stuff used to be on either an Amazon, Prime, or a Netflix.

Now, it's on Peacock. That's one of the reasons is that the media companies now are reserving their best contact for their own services because they need you to subscribe to it. The other was something we mentioned before, and that's the creation of original content or exclusive licensing because all of these companies are competing for eyeballs and wallets. You have to have a reason that you would want to subscribe to one service versus another.

The only way they do that is by creating a piece of content you can't get elsewhere and are willing to pay for it. The one thing that I didn't mention before when I talked about the escalating cost of streaming is that the good news is that almost all of the bigger services are now offering ad-supported, less expensive versions of their services. That's an option for people who are on budgets. Also, the fastest-growing segment in the streaming business right now are the free ad-supported services. Those are Tubi TV, The Roku Channel, Pluto TV.

They typically don't have the most up-to-date content, but they have legacy TV shows. Increasingly, some of the companies now are starting to look at those services and are being willing to license newer content to them. It's a fast-growing part of the business because consumers are hitting a ceiling in terms of how much they're able or willing to pay each month for streaming. They never envisioned two years ago that the cost of streaming would equal the cost of pay TV as they used to know it.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Paula calling in from Manhattan. Hi, Paula. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Paula: Hi, thank you so much. I'm so glad to be on your show, which I love. I just wanted to share with everybody a really great, low-cost solution that I cobbled together. I had cable. Of course, between a course of two years, it went from a little over $100 to $189. I cut the cord. Then beyond that, I was paying to the Netflix and all the other streaming services. What I did was I got this company called Starry.

They came into my building and tried to get us to sign up for their service. It's only $15 a month for internet, which was amazing, I thought in the beginning. Since then, there's some sort of a government program where if you're certain, I don't know what it is, age or income, you can also get that knocked down to $0 a month. Then they also have a companion program with another company called Ooma.

If you still want to keep your landline besides your cell phone, which I do, you can get that for $7 a month. Then I also got an antenna and it worked somewhat. It had a little bit of cut-out problems in Midtown. What I did is I figured, I don't really watch much regular TV or network TV. I wanted to get regular news, so I subscribed to Paramount+, which was, I think, $10 a month. I get CBS News and I get 60 Minutes. My total bill now is $10 for Paramount, the $0 for Starry, and the $7 for Ooma. That's what? $17 from $189.

Alison Stewart: Wow, Paula, thank you for calling in. Are you familiar with what Paula was discussing?

Jim Willcox: Yes, Starry is what they call fixed wireless. There's a base station that then beams the internet to you. T-Mobile has a service like that as well. Some of it runs over 5G. There are newer entries, both fixed wireless and satellite-based. Elon Musk has a company that is trying to do it. Amazon's about to get into that business. The thing that's really happened is, for years, you had no choice of either TV or internet providers.

TV's exploded. There are numerous choices. Now, internet has lagged behind that. Over the next year or two, I think you'll start seeing more of these fixed-wireless options and more of the satellite services. Satellite traditionally has been just really horrible. It's expensive and not very fast, but it's been getting better. The newer ones, they call them low-orbiting satellites, so they don't have the latency that you have with the traditional satellite services. They should be better and cheaper.

Alison Stewart: Let's take a call. David is calling in from Monmouth County, New Jersey. Hi, David, thanks for calling All Of It.

David: Hi, how are you? Can you hear me all right?

Alison Stewart: You sound great.

David: Okay, great. Anyway, I have a terrible time with cable TV. My bill was $390 a month. I had four boxes. I tried to cut it down to one, but basically two. It's still over $200 like $245 a month. My brother-in-law, he talked me into the Amazon stick, Fire Stick. I'm telling you, I get everything. I do get Netflix, but only a certain amount of movies. If I want a new movie or something, that I do have to pay for. I get the regular channels. I get everything. I get movie channels, Cozi, Pluto, Freevee, right? Yes, I do. I would, for my grandchildren and kids, I do have to pay for Disney+. I get Disney, but I have to pay for Disney+.

Alison Stewart: Well, you're a good grandpa. I appreciate that. Fire Stick. Can you explain how this works for people who don't understand what a Fire Stick is?

Jim Willcox: Excuse me. Yes, Fire TV Stick is actually a device that plugs into the back of your TV that then gives you access to all those streaming services that the caller mentioned. It's the same thing. Roku makes one. Apple TV makes one. Google makes one called Chromecast. These are devices. If you don't have a smart TV that you can access these services directly from, you get one of these streaming boxes.

They're low-cost anywhere from $25 typically to $50 or $60. There are some that are more expensive and it just provides you with access to all of these different services. There are apps that you can load onto the device and that's how you would get all of the services that we've been discussing. It's a piece of hardware that connects to the TV.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Jimmy from Woodside. Hi, Jimmy. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Jimmy: Live in Woodside, got an antenna on the roof. I'm old enough to remember when cable first started in the early '70s and they promised no commercials, never subscribed. I read Takeout. However, I'm reading rumors about HDTV over the air. Do you have any gaps in knowledge you can fill in for me?

Jim Willcox: You're already getting HD over the air. There's a new form, over-the-air format called ATSC 3.0. It's also more generically called NextGen TV. What it is, is it's a new over-the-air standard. You would have to have a different tuner in your TV to get it. Some of the newer TVs actually have it and it promises a more robust delivery system. The quality should be better.

You could get 4K over the air, which you can't get right now. High dynamic range, HDR. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that, but it's brighter and more colorful pictures. The other thing is they can send it to mobile devices. Right now, it's rolled out in about 60% of the US, but only one or two channels. It's not really fully rolled out. Yes, we think that in two years, it's going to be something that's important.

It promises more robust signals and higher quality TV along with higher quality audio. We're looking for New York to get it. They're saying that we may get our first station in the next month or so. It promises to be a better format. Although as I mentioned, you're going to need to get a new tuner in your TV to be able to receive those broadcasts, but you can use your existing antenna.

Alison Stewart: Thanks to everybody who called in. Thanks to Jim Willcox, senior electronics editor at Consumer Reports. Thank you for all the great information and sharing your reporting.

Jim Willcox: Hey, this was fun. Thanks for having me.

 

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