Note to Public Relations types – something isn’t a “trend” until the media experiences for themselves.  So with that in mind, here’s my trend story for the day.

This morning I did something that I hadn’t done since 1989.  I watched TV over the air.  As in I plugged an antenna into the TV and watched a broadcast the way God (and Philo T. Farnsworth) intended – via a signal beamed off of the top of the Sears Tower.  No middlemen at the Cable Company or Satellite Provider.

I am now a member of a growing group of TV consumers – the cord cutters.  The number of people who have ditched their pay-TV subscription in favor of streaming video and over the air broadcasting.

When analog TV broadcasting ended for good in 2009, the conventional wisdom was that the changeover to digital shouldn’t be that big of a deal.  Most people had cable, so they weren’t going to experience any change in their TV service.  Those who didn’t were able to get a set-top box that would allow their analog TV to receive the digital signals.  It was assumed that the people who needed the converters were either too poor, too old, or too cantankerous to keep up with the times.

All analog broadcasting ended for good in late June, 2009:

Digital broadcasting also opened up a new world of programming for local stations. In addition to the main signal, OTA broadcasters were now responsible for two or three digital side channels.  Some stations experimented with local programming, but the “dot twos and dot threes” quickly become the dumping ground for ancient reruns.  That’s not to say there isn’t any entertainment value in “The FBI.” (“A Quinn Martin Production starring Efram Zimbalist, Jr!”), but these old shows are seeing the light of day because they are practically free. The producers and stars became ineligible for residuals decades ago.

A quick scan of the digital TV landscape would lead you to believe that you fell into a time warp and emerged in 1977.  I could have watched “Bonanza,” “Gunsmoke,” “Marcus Welby,” and “Cannon” before noon, with plenty of time to watch “Dennis the Menace.”

The Nostalgia Channels seemed like a perfect fit when they first started to hit the air in 2009 and 2010.  Cheap programming for the relative handful of people who didn’t have cable or satellite.  But now the number of people watching OTA TV is growing for the first time since the 1980s.  More eyeballs are available to watch digital TV side channels than ever before.

A TV station’s newsroom is staffed from 2:00 AM to 11:00 PM each weekday.  That’s a conservative estimate.  There’s three to six hours of programming in the morning (depending on if your station carries “Today” or “Good Morning America”).  There’s an hour at noon and there’s two hours in the late afternoon before the late news at 10.

There’s a set, cameras, and a production staff available to run….MORE LOCAL PROGRAMMING during the hours when the news shows are dark.  Why not run talk shows, interview shows, cooking shows, or local travel shows during that time.  It’s unique, it would stand out, and it could be branded as forward-thinking content.

“We’re doing original programming for the growing number of future-minded people who are ditching cable.”

You can even do a show for cord-cutters.  We’re all in this together, right?

It’s a chance for TV stations to jump back into the local programming game outside of news and sports.

This is an opportunity that didn’t present itself until very recently, but it is also an opportunity for local TV to find a new way to remain relevant in the 21st Century.

And if it doesn’t work?  I hear reruns of “House Calls” are cheaper than ever.