Make that 4 Milwaukee Stations that filed for a waiver!!! Ugh.

[Joseph S]

Three of which have now done so after the FCC Deadline.

What a surprise, less than a month ago WISN's Director of Broadcast Operations told me that no matter what litigation they still faced that they would begin on May 1 passing through the HD feeds. Apparently, it was a lie.

Since the FCC deadline of 3/1, UPN, WB, and WISN have now all filed for a waiver. (the other PBS station filed and was granted an extension in November)

The FCC had better not grant these and excessive fines should be enforced from 5/1 at 12AM. 5 years of advanced notice is too long for these excuses to be permitted.
 http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/pubacc/prod/app_det.pl?Application_id=598337
 http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/cdbsmenu.hts?context=25&appn=100598337&formid=337&fac_num=65680

[Matt Heebner]

I cannot believe that they completely blew-off the March 1 filing deadline. I am very suprised that WISN is filing at all. Being one of the big 4 (NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX) I would've thought they would be going by May. I can sort of understand UPN or WB, seeing as they have no HD programming, and are kind of like secondary broadcasters. But damn, ABC has HD programming!
I agree, there should be NO extenstions given at this late date. Fines should be levied! Sometimes I think that these broadcasters think this is a joke, and that these deadlines can't possibly apply to them.
It will be interesting to see how this works out.....my doubts about a May 1 deadline are increasing though.

Matt

[kjnorman]

The WISN filing is based on litigation.  Beyond that the filing does not state why.  Any ideas what kind of litigation is delaying them?

[Gregg Lengling]

The litigation they are talking about is with the City of Milwaukee.  The city has denied their request to increase the height of their tower.  They claim they need to increase the height to alleviate shadows created by the tower that 58 built next to it a few years ago.   And the battle goes on, but the city states that they should just go on the new tower that 10 and 8 are using.   We all know we like to own and not rent, even in my business.


------------------
Gregg R. Lengling
RCA P61310 61" 16x9

[Joseph S]

 

They claim they need to increase the height to alleviate shadows created by the tower that 58 built next to it a few years ago.

Yet, they stated to me that this would only be required for them to fully replicate their signal and not to pass through HD content.

I find 5 years to be more than enough time to either settle with the city, find an alternative site, or come to an agreement to lease space. There are no valid excuses at 5 years from the FCC announcement outside of the tower being knocked over like the one in North Carolina last week.

[kjnorman]

 

Originally posted by lummox:
but the city states that they should just go on the new tower that 10 and 8 are using.   We all know we like to own and not rent, even in my business.

I must say, that I am surprised that the stations do not get together to share resources and all broadcast from the same tower.  Perhaps the cost of the tower compared to the yearly operating costs is not that great, hence they prefer their own.

Regardless, I still would have thought that local towers would have been located together so that receiver only need one antenna to point on in fixed location...

Kerry

[Kevin Arnold]

I notice a pattern here.  It seems that there is a direct corelatiion between who owns a station and how they interact with the community. Or more accurately where a station is owned.  

TMJ4 is locally owned by Journal Communications. That means the corporate people live here and work here.  When they watch TV, its their station they watch. So TMJ was first locally with commercial digital, first with color, and heavily involved in the community. The station obviously takes pride in what they do here.

WMVS/PBS is a local concern, and has no outside corporate parents out of town to answer to.  Who was at the forefront of public TV digital broadcasting.

CBS 58 is owned by Weigel Broadcasting, just down the road in Chicago. They have sunk a ton of money in this market, starting with 58 (which started as an indie) and now with two LP TV stations, local sports, and finally the new digital 46. It shows that they are interested in this market and they are scrappy competitors. The decisions here seem mostly local.

Fox 6 used to be locally owned, but in '94 was bought up by Fox. One could see the flavor of the station changing since then. You could see corporate parent Fox's hand in nearly every decision since then, from tabloid style news, to the vague, low candor answers to questions about their DTV plans. They've pulled back from pre-94 days and are more of a cookie cutter Fox station.

WISN 12 is owned by Hearst-Argyle out of New York with 28 television properties. WISN is just another TV station in the portfolio.  The newspaper has many stories about staff turnover. So a legal tussel is allowed to drag on forever, delaying their digital start up.  As long as it doesn't affect the bottom line, no sweat. You can bet no Hearst-Argyle suits have ever watched channel 12.

WCGV24 & WVTV18 are now part of the Sinclair group. Sinclair has over 30 television properties and is headquartered in Philadelphia.  These stations have little local presence and pump out mostly sydicated programming.  Another case of just two more properties in the portfolio. And since Sinclair is still pouting about 8VSB they couldn't care less about whether these stations have DTV or not.  I doubt any Sinclair VP has ever watched them.  Just send in the profits, fellas. They might as well be satellite channels, for all it matters.

WVCY 30 is all religion, all the time. They wouldn't have any HD product to put on anyway, so it doesn't matter. They might be able to multicast and lease out the other 3 channels for infomercials and make a buck, though, but I think the DTV costs may tank them in the end.

The corelation here is strong, and you can predict what a station will do based on their ownership. The allowance of virtually unlimited properties for any one corporation may have some cost savings, but its a disaster for anything local. Look at whats happened to the radio market with Clear Channel owning most of the nation. Who needs satellite radio, we've got it OTA.

------------------
Kevin Arnold
38" RCA widescreen w/a Winegard on a rotor.
Damn, I need a spell checker.
[This message has been edited by kjarnold (edited 03-23-2002).]

[This message has been edited by kjarnold (edited 03-23-2002).]

[Joseph S]

 

You can bet no Hearst-Argyle suits have ever watched channel 12.

That's really what I don't understand. This station is a total mess in contrast to some of their other stations.

WCVB in Boston was one of the forerunners in DTV. They were first on in Boston, if not nation wide. The newscasts are HD and they have at least 1 HD truck I believe. The same is true for their Hawaii affiliate.

The main problem is the deadline was set and only 3 stations will likely meet it. I don't care who owns them the FCC should be going after them hard and they aren't doing a thing.