Will dtv make more stations available to me vs my old broadcast reception?

Battlecat recently posted a question on our forums:

Will dtv make more stations available to me vs my old broadcast reception?

Hey Battlecat,
Yes, more programming will be available with Digital Television. It depends on your area/state that you live in with DTV programming and channels available….but….here in Phoenix (Metro Area), Arizona, we get approximately 20 DTV channels compared to 12 analog regular channels.

A lot of the stations including NBC, ABC, and PBS carry two (three channels for PBS) of programming due to the nature of DTV using less “bandwidth” broadcasting waves.

Here’s a quote from consumerreports.org on DTV
“More channels, better quality. Digital over-the-air broadcasts can provide very high-quality picture and sound—including high-definition programming and surround sound—free of charge. You might even get more channels than you did with analog broadcasts, because many networks broadcast several subchannels with different programming than the main station. (You won’t pull in cable- and satellite-only stations such as ESPN and CNN.)”

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June 6, 2008 | Filed Under Reader Questions