Ch. 18 Shutting down analog on 2/17

[techguy1975]

According to tomorrows Tim Cuprisin Article WVTV, Ch. 18 intends to shut off its analog signal on 2/17

[GBK]

as it should be.  :-) kudos to 18 for not wasting money in order to satisfy the idiotic delay

[John L]

as it should be.  :-) kudos to 18 for not wasting money in order to satisfy the idiotic delay

I agree. Channels 4 and 12 fear that they would loose viewers as a result. Its my understanding that only 5.4% of its vieweing audience receives analog only OTA. So what do they have to lose?  As a result they are going to spend more $$$ just keeping feeding the analog transmitter.  Ch. 6 and 58 decide to go till 6/12 to keep up with their competitors.  


I wonder, should something major happen to their analog transmitter before 6/12, are they gonna spend the extra $$$ just to get it back on the air?

-John L.

[techguy1975]

I agree. Channels 4 and 12 fear that they would loose viewers as a result. Its my understanding that only 5.4% of its vieweing audience receives analog only OTA. So what do they have to lose?  As a result they are going to spend more $$$ just keeping feeding the analog transmitter.  Ch. 6 and 58 decide to go till 6/12 to keep up with their competitors.  


I wonder, should something major happen to their analog transmitter before 6/12, are they gonna spend the extra $$$ just to get it back on the air?

-John L.

Hopefully some common sense will still apply if this were to happen.    It would be very foolish if they did this, especially if a major part fails.  Since they have the option to shut down early, I would imagine they'd just shut down if the analog xmitter died

[GBK]

...


I wonder, should something major happen to their analog transmitter before 6/12, are they gonna spend the extra $$$ just to get it back on the air?

-John L.

They should just say it's broken and save the money.  Turn off the analog and quit pandering to people that couldn't care less about tv service to begin with.. seriously how much can they be watching if they didn't care to do anything about it up till now.

[ArgMeMatey]

quit pandering to people that couldn't care less about tv service to begin with.. seriously how much can they be watching if they didn't care to do anything about it up till now.

Good question; anybody know how Nielsen and Arbitron (or whoever is doing ratings these days) is treating the delay?

You can bet the stations know exactly how much a rating point is worth in terms of ad dollars, and I would guess for most of them the cost of keeping that old analog transmitter running is chump change compared to what a rating decline would cost.

[John L]

Hopefully some common sense will still apply if this were to happen.    It would be very foolish if they did this, especially if a major part fails.  Since they have the option to shut down early, I would imagine they'd just shut down if the analog xmitter died

FCC probably will deny them to stop analog because of transmitter failure, so I guess that station would be forced to spend the extra $$$ to get the analog back on.

-John L.

[Talos4]

I have no idea what happened!! :blush:

[/IMG]

[WPXE ION]

FCC probably will deny them to stop analog because of transmitter failure, so I guess that station would be forced to spend the extra $$$ to get the analog back on.

-John L.

"Equipment Failure" is one of the few reasons a station could terminate service. It's buried in the public notice in the middle of where the FCC is talking about 30 days notice to terminate analog service. Page 8 of the notice dated Feb. 8, 2009.

[John L]

"Equipment Failure" is one of the few reasons a station could terminate service. It's buried in the public notice in the middle of where the FCC is talking about 30 days notice to terminate analog service. Page 8 of the notice dated Feb. 8, 2009.

However should a "equipment failure" take place, there will be no advanced warning. Therefore the only way viewers will be told, who still watch analog will be informed thru radio or newspaper or a competing TV station that, (lets say analog WPXE-TV) "had a failure in their analog transmitter and have optioned not to return it to the air. Get a Digital TV or a DTV Converter Box to get WPXE". It is not possible to warn people in advance "Attention Viewers, this TV station's analog transmitter is going to blow up unexpectedly next week, therefore switch to digital..."

-John L.