Heads up: If you watch Invasion, don't watch WISN tonight.

[Joseph S]

WISN for two weeks in a row has cut the ending to SD and then cut from the program altogether to bring you your losing Powerball numbers. Neither Hearst-Argyle nor WISN have provided any reassurance that this will not happen again. Given the increased odds of Powerball this garbage will likely disturb your Wed and Sat programming for months if not years to come.

If you can get another market, you're best advised to go there for your ABC programming tonight and Saturday. And be sure to call both Hearst Argyle, WISN, and their sponsors to let them know of this.

Colders
Habush, Habush, Rottier
Johnsonville
Steinhafels
are among the local sponsors noted on the programming.

[techguy1975]

don't expect much to change next week, Saturdays jackpot is up to $365 million, its a sure bet all the other stations will be carrying the numbers as well..  It wont die down till someone wins the jackpot

[Joseph S]

The problem is it's a sham and someone with half a brain can figure out what's going on. Most viewers without any knowledge of the game figured it out during the Fall when WITI missed the game winning hit in ALCS Game 2 and other plays to show the damn numbers. They lowered the odds so there are fewer winners. Common sense tells you that the jackpots will thus get bigger as MOST JACKPOTS WON'T BE WON!!!! Other markets, per Powerball and Wisconsin State Lottery directly, tape the drawing because of the fact they are drawn at 9:59 in Iowa and networks run programming until 10:00pm.

WISN is responsible for this mess and Hearst Argyle took no responsibility for their station management when I called this past week. If they don't want to hear complaints all you have to do is leave the HD on until the end. I'm sure they will show the powerball numbers on the screen for a damn long time with the bug so nobody will miss a thing. The secretary told me to contact the FCC because their boss was on vacation and I will. ABC has already heard from and will hear from me again. There's another number that I'm not sure if I'll publish, but the below ABC number allows for messages to be left. WISN programming failed to return my message, but this week they did wait until the ending of the main program. Prior weeks they 1) Switched to SD and stuck parts of the frame in a tiny box or 2) Switched to SD and cut the entire ending. This was an improvement, but it's not a solution.

Be sure to mention to the secretary for Mr. Stolz that Dean Maytag does still work for Hearst Argyle and has worked for the station since at least 2002. She was a piece of work since her boss is on "vacation" for the week. She played the "What's his name?" game for every contact I've made regarding WISN problems with management/switch issues.

It's almost four years since this other deceptive form of communication from the above Hearst-Argyle/WISN employee:

From: "Dean C Maytag"
Date: Tue Feb 19, 2002 09:18:02 AM US/Central
To: edit
Subject: HDTV

WISN intends to meet the May, 2002 deadline to replicate our analog signal on
Channel 34 with a Digital TV product. At that time we will "pass-through" to
the viewer all "high definition" (HDTV) programming available to us from the
network. It was our intention to begin transmission prior to this date;
however, WISN is trying to work out issues with the City of Milwaukee to
increase its tower height to fully replicate our analog signal as required by
the FCC. At this time, the city opposes us on the tower height issue.

As far as the logos are concerned, our intention is to keep the logos on our
analog signal because of the identification concerns in a multi-channel
environment.

Dean Maytag

Director of Broadcast Operations
WISN-TV

Source: http://www.milwaukeehdtv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10

It wasn't until 10/27/2002 that they complied with 5/1 deadline. However, when they did "comply," poor Todd had to use his pager as a contact from Milwaukee viewers because they were sick of us calling the switchboard to tell them 20 minutes into Alias that they hadn't flipped the switch!!!
Source: http://www.themilwaukeechannel.com/news/1739403/detail.html