After the Supreme Court struck down Aereo's business model — streaming live and live-recorded broadcast TV through the Internet for a low-cost subscription — those who don't want to buy into cable or satellite TV are left with one fewer option. That's no big deal, according to Grant Whipple of Winegard, a company that makes high-tech home antennae with cord cutters in mind. Latin Post spoke with him about the Aereo case, cord cutting, and how the future of free digital TV is still bright.

Winegard isn't exactly giddy with schadenfreude over the Supreme Court's knockout blow to Aereo — which could be seen as essentially a competitor in the same broadcast TV-based industry — at least judging by my chat with Winegard's National Sales Manager, Grant Whipple.

But was it a boost for Winegard?

"In general, I think it was, just for the fact that it brought to light to the public that broadcast digital TV is available," said Whipple, "and it's a very viable solution. You know, it's not three to four channels anymore. It's the best quality high-def —better than anything else out there."

"I do think it was a boost that way," he added. Besides putting the existence of HD broadcast TV back in the public eye though, Winegard has to be happy the fight over Aereo stopped at the Supreme Court. If Aereo had won, said Whipple, the implications could have begun spilling into the marketplace. "In the short term," said Whipple on the possibility of an Aereo win, "the big thing would have been if CBS, ABC — the major content holders — would have moved their content off the free broadcasts and into a pay-only TV structure. That obviously would have hurt things."

"But without a doubt, there's momentum that we've seen anyway," regardless of Aereo's legal defeat, said Whipple, "because of the rising cost of pay TV."

Whipple was referring to the increasingly prevalent phenomenon of "cord cutting," or people finding alternatives to pay-TV services like cable and satellite, either online, on the airwaves, or both.


Cord cutting is a controversial subject, down to the fundamental question of whether it's really happening at all. Every time a cable television company reports a temporary, slight boost in numbers, someone is bound to label cord cutting a myth. Even when pay-TV subscription numbers are down, but only by a little bit, cord cutting is rejected as a made-up phenomenon: For example, BloombergView just this February.

But long-term studies by industry experts, like Craig Moffett (via AllThingsD), tell the bigger story, which is that over the last decade or so, pay-TV has indeed declined.

And don't forget the young people who never adopted pay-TV in the first place, and who therefore can't be counted in the dropping subscription rates: the so-called "cord nevers."

Winegard is hoping to appeal to these two digital-savvy groups — people who are likely to own a flatscreen TV, the latest iPhone, and maybe a couple more trendy gadgets — with their slick, modish line of incredibly thin FlatWave HDTV antennae. (We recently tested the indoor, amplified FlatWave hands-on.)

"Yeah it's definitely something we were driving for," said Whipple. "Also, by making it thin, you can put it behind a TV, in a window, you can put it flat on a table so nobody sees it or hide it underneath something."

"And compared to the old rabbit ears, obviously there's a lot we've done with the performance and there's a lot we've done with the amplifier, for digital," said Whipple. That's because when broadcasters switched to digital signals, it changed the design for high quality antennae reception. "You'd think a frequency is a frequency, and it shouldn't matter — but it does," he explained. "With that switch to digital, we put everything we could into, 'Okay, now the signal's digital, so what's going to allow our customers to get the best chance to pick up all the available signals."

The result is a "not your parent's rabbit ears" antenna that looks fitting next to a modern flatscreen and can pick up both UHF and VHF signals with high quality from about a 50-mile radius. That's a lot of free channels for the majority of Americans. "Close to 80 percent of the U.S. has one of the big four networks — ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX — only on VHF," explained Whipple. "It's pretty easy to kick out a UHF-only antenna. But to make it that small," as the FlatWave is, "to have it perform at that type of range, and have it get both UHF and VHF? That's a pretty tough feat, and we put everything in there to do that."

But for cord cutters, getting free, live HDTV from broadcast is just one part of the modern TV experience. What about recording, multi-screen streaming, and the other perks of the age of digital entertainment?

Unlike Aereo, Winegard doesn't offer any apps, comprehensive solutions, device ecosystems or service packages for cord cutters. "We're specialists on the reception, RF side of things. We'll always strive to make the best performing antenna there is," said Whipple. "You've got hardware guys, like TiVo, who are one of the innovators on that."

"But that's sort of their lane, and our lane is making the best antennas available... we've been designing, testing, and manufacturing antennas for 60 years," he added.

So for cord cutters, it's still the DIY Wild West out there, where you design your own piecemeal solution for your particular tastes.

Still, with a slightly hefty initial investment — and provided you live within 50 miles of a decent set of broadcasts — you can build a system that gets live and DVR Full HD broadcast TV with an integrated TV guide, plus streaming to all of your devices, no matter where you are ... without ever paying a penny in monthly fees. Just add a Slingbox ($125- $300) to a Channel Master DVR+ ($250), and you'll be able to replicate the Aereo experience on nearly any mobile device, computer, and set-top box, without a subscription fee.


The $70-$80 FlatWave Amped is a great choice for the antenna part of that setup.

"I'm getting all the live TV I need," said Whipple. "And if I want to watch a movie on demand, I just stream it through Netflix or Amazon Prime. For a very large portion of the market, this is a really nice solution that gives them all the TV entertainment they need for a really low cost." And, I might add, without buying into the dreaded bundle or ever having to deal with infamously bad cable company customer service.

Cord cutters: The technology is here — now you just have to put it together.