WISC-TV to finally deliver HD news in Madison, Wisconsin

[HDefinicktion]

I saw this story come across RSS this morning and makes me wonder yet again how some of the Milwaukee affiliates weren't first.  I love the title of this article..."finally."

http://hdtv.biz-news.com/news/en_US/2008/10/21/0007

[js6751]

Wow...this is sad. When will we get HD local news :confused: ?

[mhz40]

Wow...this is sad. When will we get HD local news :confused: ?

Shortly after the news choppers are grounded.

[Tom Snyder]

Generally reported is Q1 2009 for 58, 12 and 4. 6 Hasn't said.

[troyriley]

It's frustrating that a market the size of Milwaukee is lagging so far behind in developing local HD newscasts. I'm kind of searching around for other markets that have local news in HD. Maybe size doesn't matter in HD news, but you kind of wonder how these smaller cities (and presumably smaller budgets) can have news in HD, but we don't. Besides Madison, here's a small sample of smaller cities that have or will soon have local news in HD:

Wichita, KS
Greenville, SC
Pensacola, FL
Charleston, SC
Huntsville, AL
Columbia, MO
El Paso, TX
Montgomery, AL
Lexington, KY

In today's column by Tim Cuprisin, he mentions WISC going HD with their newscasts, and briefly discusses Milwaukee's status. He reminds us that there's little economic advantage to being the first to go HD, other than bragging rights. However, I'm thinking ratings would go up for whichever station is first. Right now, if one of the stations flipped to HD, I would watch that over the SD newscasts. That would seem to give that station an economic advantage, at least until the other stations went HD. Then I could see things evening out a bit, and there not being much of an advantage.

[Tom Snyder]

Right now, if one of the stations flipped to HD, I would watch that over the SD newscasts.

I think that might be the standard response from a lot of people here.

Might the delay be attributable to the inferiority complex Milwaukee seems to have on so many things that actually IS a much smaller town than its population or market rank would indicate?

[foxeng]

It has to do with the economics of the area. Here in NC, my market is the only one NOT doing HD news and none of the stations seem to be in a big hurry to spend the money. Of course, we have had a big drop in advertising here due to the many layoffs in the manufacturing sector. And now with the economy in the toliet nationwide, unless it is already in the pipeline, I wouldn't expect to see too many stations nationwide going HD until this mess is cleaned up or at least there is some light at the end of the tunnel. It is a purely economic decision right now.

[TAS]

Yakima KNDO NBC Local HD News.     Yakima, WA (metro pop 229,094)

Charlottesville's NBC29 WVIR HD Local News and syndicated HD (jeopardy, oprah, dr phil, wheel).    Charlottesville, Va (metro pop 190,278)


Fox 4 Anchorage KTBY news @ 9 in HD...  they didn't even have a website 4 years ago!  (metro pop 359,180)

[WITI6fan]

Fox 4 Anchorage KTBY news @ 9 in HD...  they didn't even have a website 4 years ago!  (metro pop 359,180)

They didn't even have a newscast until a few weeks ago, either. KTVA produced their newscasts.