I'm not sure I understand exactly what you're asking but in all or most locales here, that areas local channels broadcast their signal free and over the air. You just need an antenna and a capable tv to pick it up.

I get wonderful, uncompressed HiDef tv for $0 per month. Albeit only 5 or 6 channels but still. Oregon Public Broadcasting is great and there are some wonderful educational shows on there.

Assuming a power supply, I was going to say "yes" to your question until I remembered one thing. My mother in the Bay Area has Dish, and I don't know if DirectTV is any different, but her satellite receiver box needs to be able to dial out on a regular telephone line periodically. I assume it's mostly a way for the box to check if you've been paying your monthly fees. Anyway, without a working landline connection, she won't get satellite TV. I know, bummer, right?

It's too bad that we never have true competition between multiple cable providers in the same area (at least, I don't remember ever living anywhere where I had that choice.).

Besides broadcast TV, one other option that hasn't been mentioned is TV service from the traditional telephone providers, like AT&T's U-verse service or Verizon's TV service that is available with their fiber optic FiOS service. But that is still being rolled out in many areas, so these services may not even be available where you are.

I came to the opposite conclusion myself, but it really depends on your locale. Here in the Los Angeles/Orange County area, it is usually the local TV stations who have the resources to send people out to developing situations, while the radio stations tend to rely more on information from news wires, press releases, or even listeners calling in.

We've had a lot of really bad wildfires in the last several years, and local TV news coverage has been superior to the radio news coverage in most cases IMHO, including the luxury of actually seeing wildfires from the news helicopters. Even so, I'm not sure if the people most directly affected were getting enough details even from the TV news coverage. I suppose in any fast developing situation, it's pretty rare to cover ALL the information bases to everyone's satisfaction ALL the time.

> My mother in the Bay Area has Dish, and I don't know if DirectTV is any
> different, but her satellite receiver box needs to be able to dial out on a
> regular telephone line periodically.

I've got Dish, and I told the installer I didn't want my box to be connected to the phone line, so he didn't do it. I've had Dish for over 5 years, including upgrading the box to digital, and I've never had it connected to the phone line. I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Upgrades and maintenance come down from the heavens in the dark of the night. When I've called in for support, they've never questioned me not having a phone connection. I think the reason they want it is so the box can call in for pay on demand to bill you whatever programming they sell.

I think the reason for the lack of multiple cable providers is that municipalities charge a fee for letting cable providers have access to city sewers, er, underground cabling tunnels, and cable providers won't pony up if they have competition. Cities charge for letting people have access to the residents.

> it is usually the local TV stations who have the resources to send people out
> to developing situations, while the radio stations tend to rely more on
> information from news wires, press releases, or even listeners calling in.

That's been the case here in the San Francisco Bay Area. Most radio stations are owned by Clear Channel, and they don't even have a crew here (well, one engineer). All the talent is recorded somewhere else and the tape is mailed in. See "Clear Channel Still Haunted by Minot Toxic Spill Disaster," http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/...ll-disaster.ars

TV stations still have news crews because they're on camera and can show us all the fires. :-> It's been my experience that TV gives us better current local news than does radio, but I'm sure mileage varies.

My sat reciever is not hooked up to any phone lines. Means I can't order pay-per-view stuff or movies, etc. To upgrade my receiver, I get a plug-in chip once every year or so. I have Dish, so a phone line connection for them is not required. Fact is, DW didn't want to be able to order the stuff - we went Dish to save money over what the cable clowns were charging us.

There are basically 2 services available for Satellite broadcasts in the UK.

There is Sky TV, which is a payable satellite TV service and Freesat satellite TV service with is free to pick up with a dish.

http://packages.sky.com/digitalswitchover/new-customer-offers/?DCMP=KNC-

http://www.freesat.co.uk/index.php?page=Home

There is also terrestrial broadcasts called Freeview.

http://www.freeview.co.uk/

If the priority is just the availability of TV news stations in a wide area blackout situation such as an earthquake then the broadcast TV and radio masts could have been taken out leaving just satellite broadcast from geostationary earth orbiting satellites.

The Sky Sat TV for example broadcast their signal which is encrypted and you have to pay a subscription to decode the broadcast signal.

Most of the channels on free to view Terrestrial broadcasts (Freeview - DVB-T ) are also available on Satellite broadcast (Freesat - DVB-S).

So can all your favorite Free to Air TV channels broadcast using Terrestrial HDTV transmitters also be viewed using using a Satellite dish in the USA.

The analogue terrestrial TV signal (5 channels) in the east of Scotland gets turned of today for the Digital Switch over. This should substantially improve the current Digital TV reception (about 86 channels of TV + Radio) signal strength.

The news channels available on terrestrial Digital TV are BBC News 24, Sky News, Russia Today, Al Jezera etc

I again have DirecTV and don't have a phone connection either. I live in the desert and DirecTV's reliability is much better than the local Time Warner service. Time Warner could never get some channels to work at my house. Also, at least compared to TW, the DirecTV DVR is much much better.

Having said all that, I still have TimeWarner's Internet service. I don't have a land line and therefore DSL is not cost effective. Satellite based Internet service is nominally fast but has a lag as the signal bounces between the satellite and the ground stations.

If an earthquake does move your antenna, moving it back is certainly doable. I installed my dish myself when I first had DirecTV. The receiver often has instructions for pointing the dish based on your zipcode.

Interesting, so the phone connection isn't necessary. My mother doesn't do pay-per-view, but does get some special premium channel or two, so maybe that's what requires the box to "phone home"...

Anyway, so in that case, if a live phone connection isn't required, then I would vote for satellite as more likely to be available than cable after something like a major earthquake.

AFAIK, that type of free service is not available here. The OTA stuff I mentioned can be picked up on home made rabbit ears.

Sky is the devil.