It's increasingly rare to watch direct off air
Not so here...most homes have an outdoor aerial and use it. Because of the way the population density is in Australia, cable television exists only in parts of the capital cities and a couple of large country towns. Satellite pay television also exists but does not carry the free to air channels. Unless you are in a cabled area and are paying a minimum of about $40 a month, your free to air channels come from a VHF and/or UHF aerial. I believe it's similar in NZ.
As a piece of triviality, I have modified US television sets to work here; monochrome sets are not too difficult, but if you want an NTSC set to display colour it's more involved. I did do it once...didn't bother with the delay line so it effectiveley became PAL-S.
