In Japan many cell phones have antennas to pick up OTA signals

Korea, too. Probably some other countries. I remember the PSP had an optional OTA antenna.

There have been several attempts at doing the same thing in the U.S., but none of them ever worked out for various reasons. Often it was because of the expense of upgrading the tens of thousands of TV transmitters across the country.

This one died in 2011: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaFLO

In a small country with more centralized control of broadcasting and less territory to cover like Japan and Korea, it's much easier.

Yup, I remember when I thought having my Motorola RAZR was the epitome of cool, people in Seoul would flip up their seemingly dumber phones and stream crystal clear HD TV in the subway.

For South Korea it's not normal HDTV but a special broadcast for mobile devices, DMB [1]. It was only recently updated to support 720p in favor of 240p. They aren't picking up the domestic ATSC signals. The Japanese mobile video system is a similar separate broadcast.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_multimedia_broadcastin...

Just a sidenote, there is really nothing preventing that techically speaking, after cellular signals are OTA, and handheld tvs used to be a thing.

Indeed. And it's not good.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-44722812

Actors have vented their fury at two audience members who watched England's World Cup penalty shoot-out on their phones in the front row of a musical.

Titanic The Musical actor Niall Sheehy said the women "not only followed the penalty shootout on their phone, but also said 'yesss' on each goal scored".

He declared: "You are the most ignorant audience members I have ever had the misfortune to perform in front of."

You're blaming technology for social problems. For every person that interrupts a play, there are 10 people quietly watching on their train home... turning wasted time into time enjoyed.

Rude people are always going to be rude, and we shouldn't worry about the technology that enables them to do so. If they couldn't watch soccer during a musical, they'd just be coughing loudly or rummaging around in their pockets looking for a mint or having a too-loud "private" conversation with the person next to them.

Phones have changed nothing.

I’m not confident it’s actually true that “phones have changed nothing”. They’ve certainly increased the variety of distractions one can access from a theater seat, as well as the ease of accessing them. But it’s also clear that most people have enough self-control to avoid using their phones for the duration of a musical, so it’s reasonable to blame those who don’t rather than blaming the technology. (This is distinct from the longer-term phenomenon of phone addiction, where there’s more room to blame the technology’s addictive qualities…)

This is the same argument that people use about "don't blame guns, it's people that are the problem"

Seems to me that theatres (and cinemas) should be putting passive farady cages to block signals coming in, I'd pay extra for that.

Typical actors. A profession with a more entitled attitude is hard to find. You see it too in how often actors make grandiose political or social pronouncements and expect everyone to care.

They got paid to perform a play. There is no more obligation for the audience members to pay attention than there is for someone to eat all the food on their plate at a restaurant, or use a device they bought every day. If the women weren't disrupting the other audience members then the actors shouldn't have cared (and if they were, that's a problem for the house staff to sort, not them).

If actors understood that it's not the audience who is privileged to watch them act, it's them who are privileged to be paid to play make-believe on stage, the world would be a much better place.