San Francisco Residents Excited to Gain Access to Free Local Broadcast TV

On Friday, July 3, TVfreedom, Antennas Direct, the National Association of Broadcasters, KTSF-TV and KRON-TV joined forces to distribute over 300 antennas for free to residents in San Francisco’s Chinatown. The people receiving the antennas were excited to gain immediate access to up to 70 local broadcast TV channels in the San Francisco Bay Area at no charge to them, including digital broadcast streams in their native language. The giveaway, timed with last week’s 2015 OCA National Convention in San Francisco, represents the latest stop in the Coalition’s nationwide “TV Liberation Tour,” which began in Washington, DC in 2014 and will include multiple tour stops in cities across America in 2015.

With skyrocketing monthly prices preventing many low-income residents from subscribing to cable or satellite TV, the digital broadcast TV antenna is a way to help ensure that they can stay connected to their communities, enjoy popular network entertainment programming, access local news coverage and programming, and receive real-time emergency alerts and warnings when disaster strikes. The digital television transition created the opportunity for local TV stations to send multiple broadcast streams to viewers, including diverse programming tailored to niche audiences in languages other than English. This has made a tremendous difference in the lives of Asian and Pacific Island Americans in San Francisco’s Chinatown and other communities throughout the U.S. who value broadcast localism to help them stay informed.

– See KRON-TV coverage the San Francisco tour stop here.

– See KPOP-TV coverage of the San Francisco tour stop here.

– See pre-event, in-studio interview with NAB’s Dennis Wharton and Antennas Direct Richard Schneider here.
(Complements of KRON-TV)