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Out of town stations that you used to see on cable

Started by ftballfan, December 16, 2017, 10:41:59 PM

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bandit957

Our cable system did have WGN and WTBS, but those don't really count since those were "superstations." We had WWOR too, but it was dropped not too long after we got cable.

I remember WGN had ads for Chicago businesses, but WTBS didn't have ads for Atlanta businesses.
Might as well face it, pooing is cool


slorydn1

When I first moved to eastern NC in 1991 I watched the news on WGN out of Chicago just about every day that first year or so just to keep up with the goings on in my old town. WOR and WTBS were still a big deal back then, too. Yes, WTBS was channel 17 on pur cable package here too (back then it was Cablevision, which became Cox, and now Suddenlink).

Another wierd thing was that the over the air channel numbers and the cable channel numbers for our local channels never matched when I had cable in the analog days. WCTI-TV (ABC) channel 12 was 13 on cable, WFXI-TV (FOX) channel 8 was 9 on cable, WNCT-TV (CBS) channel 9 was 8 on cable, and WITN-TV (NBC) channel 7 was 6 on cable. It never made any sense to me. I don't know if its still like that, I have had DirecTv for 10 years this month.
Please Note: All posts represent my personal opinions and do not represent those of any governmental agency, non-governmental agency, quasi-governmental agency or wanna be governmental agency

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LM117

Quote from: slorydn1 on December 19, 2017, 02:13:25 AMAnother wierd thing was that the over the air channel numbers and the cable channel numbers for our local channels never matched when I had cable in the analog days. WCTI-TV (ABC) channel 12 was 13 on cable, WFXI-TV (FOX) channel 8 was 9 on cable, WNCT-TV (CBS) channel 9 was 8 on cable, and WITN-TV (NBC) channel 7 was 6 on cable. It never made any sense to me. I don't know if its still like that, I have had DirecTv for 10 years this month.

Yep, it's still like that. We had Time Warner Cable when we lived just outside of Goldsboro and some of our local channels didn't match, either. For example, WNCN in Raleigh (NBC CBS ch. 17) was on cable channel 13. I was in Goldsboro a week ago visiting a friend who still has Time Warner Spectrum and it was still the same.

I had DirecTV from 2010-2014 and one of the best things I liked about it was the satellite channels matched the over-the-air numbers. Less confusing. I'd still have DirecTV, but things got a little tight and we had to make some cuts. That was one of them.
“I don’t know whether to wind my ass or scratch my watch!” - Jim Cornette

jp the roadgeek

In Hartford/New Haven area, we used to get these stations. I put approximate year it was dropped

Springfield
      WWLP (NBC).  1987 (dropped in system expansion w/ WABC)
      WGGB (ABC).  Early 90's
      WGBY (PBS).   Still get it to this day

  Boston
       WSBK (IND). Around 1998 (when they lost the Red Sox package)
       WLVI (IND).  By 1983 (when we got cable at my house)

     New York
          WCBS.  Late 1990's
          WNBC.  2003 or so (watched the 9/11 events on it)
          WNYW (FOX).  Late 1990's (soon after WCBS)
          WABC 1987 (dropped in expansion of system w/ WWLP)
          WWOR (IND). Always the local feed, not EMI. Early 2000's
          WPIX (IND). About 2009 (last remaining NYC station on our system. Channel 23, it's spot, is blank to this day)
          WNET (PBS). Pre-1983 (same as WLVI)

           WTBS- Atlanta Superstation (not until 1995).  Still get TBS
            WGN- Chicago Superstation (but not until around 2000).  Still get WGN America
Interstates I've clinched: 97, 290 (MA), 291 (CT), 291 (MA), 293, 295 (DE-NJ-PA), 295 (RI-MA), 384, 391, 395 (CT-MA), 395 (MD), 495 (DE), 610 (LA), 684, 691, 695 (MD), 695 (NY), 795 (MD)

froggie

Growing up in Minneapolis, which was already a major market, we didn't get any out-of-market stations except for the aforementioned "superstations" of TBS and WGN.

US71

KTUL-TV Tulsa
KOTV-TV Tulsa
KOAM-TV Pittsburg, KS
KODE-TV Joplin
Like Alice I Try To Believe Three Impossible Things Before Breakfast

1995hoo

I have not had cable TV since 2001, when I dropped it in favor of DirecTV. I recall the cable system in Fairfax County (originally Media General Cable, later Cox) carrying the ubiquitous WTBS, WGN, and WOR, and I believe for a while they carried at least two or three Baltimore stations (I believe Channels 2, 13, and 45, which were NBC, ABC, and independent, respectively, and I don't recall their station letters because we don't normally use station letters around here).

DirecTV carries both the DC and Maryland PBS affiliates, but not their subchannels. I don't think the Maryland one (Channel 22) is generally considered out-of-town, though, even though it's headquartered northwest of Baltimore in Owings Mills. I recall when I was a kid in the years prior to cable TV it was rather hard to pull in Channel 22, but it's been a fixture on all the local cable systems and DirecTV. The Baltimore network affiliates (NBC, ABC, CBS) have generally been viewed as out-of-market, however–in large part because you often got different NFL games on those channels even after the Colts left for Indianapolis.

Our TVs upstairs in the bedroom and the guestroom are not connected to DirecTV and we just use rabbit ears. Those get a bunch of stations we don't get via DirecTV, although we watch very few of them (my wife sometimes watches the DC PBS affiliate's "UK" subchannel). I don't know where those stations originate.
"You know, you never have a guaranteed spot until you have a spot guaranteed."
—Olaf Kolzig, as quoted in the Washington Times on March 28, 2003,
commenting on the Capitals clinching a playoff spot.

"That sounded stupid, didn't it?"
—Kolzig, to the same reporter a few seconds later.

hbelkins

I may have been confused and/or in error about Bob Braun. I actually think one of the Lexington stations had picked up his show and was carrying it. I think I was familiar with Braun before I went to college.


Government would be tolerable if not for politicians and bureaucrats.

briantroutman

My hometown of Williamsport, PA is part of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre TV market (which I always felt was an odd and forced fit). 

In addition to carrying NEPA's network affiliates, Williamsport's cable system of the '80s and '90s also carried Penn State's public TV station WPSX (now WPSU–officially registered to Clearfield), Philadelphia independent WPHL, New York's WPIX and (W)WOR, and Chicago's WGN. (I won't count TBS as an "out of town"  station.)

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but unlike our feed of TBS, which was thoroughly de-Atlanta-ized by the late '80s, I seem to recall that our feed of WGN (at least at the time) was basically local. The station identified as WGN 9, and programming included local Chicago newscasts and commercials for Chicago businesses. I recall our feeds of WPIX and WWOR being similarly local, and WPHL was absolutely in its original, local form.

LM117

Quote from: 1995hoo on December 19, 2017, 11:18:21 AMDirecTV carries both the DC and Maryland PBS affiliates, but not their subchannels.

I never understood why DirecTV doesn't carry subchannels. Cable companies can do it with no problem, so I don't see why DirecTV can't.
“I don’t know whether to wind my ass or scratch my watch!” - Jim Cornette

jp the roadgeek

The only thing about the digital subchannels on my cable system is that they are only available in SD.  Granted some stations like Antenna TV's programming is 99% reruns of shows shot in SD, but some stations like Laff have newer shows.  Once you get used to HD, SD hurts the eyes a bit.
Interstates I've clinched: 97, 290 (MA), 291 (CT), 291 (MA), 293, 295 (DE-NJ-PA), 295 (RI-MA), 384, 391, 395 (CT-MA), 395 (MD), 495 (DE), 610 (LA), 684, 691, 695 (MD), 695 (NY), 795 (MD)

PaulRAnderson

Quote from: slorydn1 on December 19, 2017, 02:13:25 AM

Another wierd thing was that the over the air channel numbers and the cable channel numbers for our local channels never matched when I had cable in the analog days. WCTI-TV (ABC) channel 12 was 13 on cable, WFXI-TV (FOX) channel 8 was 9 on cable, WNCT-TV (CBS) channel 9 was 8 on cable, and WITN-TV (NBC) channel 7 was 6 on cable. It never made any sense to me. I don't know if its still like that, I have had DirecTv for 10 years this month.

This was done so that the over-the-air signal of a station did not interfere with the cable transmission of the station on the same channel.  There would be no reason to do that today, since analog broadcasting is gone and most stations broadcast their digital signal on a different channel number than they used during the analog days.

SP Cook

- Bob Braun.  Braun's show was syndicated around the lower midwest.  I know different Huntington stations had it from time to time.

- WVAH.  WVAH was the first "independent" station in this entire region (it is Fox today) and when it first started got on system far outside its market, many stlll carry it, even though it is just another Fox station.

- Channel 3 (WSAZ).  The other stations in the H-C market TOTALLY ignore KY and OH, which about one-third of the market lives in. (One also totally ignores Huntington as well).  This has caused WSAZ to have a TV news rating that has never been less than twice all competitors combined, and gives it outsized influence in the NBC affiliate group, as NBC has several times bent over backwards to avoid it switching networks.

- DirecTV says it does not have capacity to carry the sub-channels, except in a few places where there are so few stations that a major network or the CW is on a sub-channel (like Lexington, where the CW is a sub-channel of WKYT CBS, but is on DirecTV).  They used to have an add on box to allow you to intergrate an antenna, but they stopped supporting it a few years ago.  Of course it only worked if you can get the station OTA in the first place.
Supposedly they are working on an add on device that will deliver the sub-channels via internet, for 4Q this year.


hbelkins

WSAZ is also owned by Gray, which owns the CBS affiliates in Lexington (WKYT) and Hazard (WYMT). The Fox affiliate in Lexington has its news produced by WKYT. So very often there's major sharing of stories between the Fox station and the Lexington and Hazard stations. Hazard's coverage region overlaps both WKYT and WSAZ, as well as a Knoxville Gray affiliate. I'm not sure whether any of the WYMT news reports end up on WSAZ or Knoxville the way they do Lexington.


Government would be tolerable if not for politicians and bureaucrats.

jp the roadgeek

Some cable systems have now changed their stations to align with the channel number, especially Comcast, who has even aligned them even with traditional UHF channel numbers.  My cable system used to be really bad for channel number alignments, but has improved.  WFSB, Channel 3 used to be cable channel 7, but now is in the correct location.  WTNH Channel 8 was cable channel 10, but has since been aligned.  WVIT Channel 30 has always been cable channel 4, probably to mimic fellow NBC affiliate WNBC in NYC.  WTIC FOX 61 has always been cable channel 6, just dropping the 1.  PBS Channel 24 remains in position 5.  WCCT Channel 20 was cable channel 9, but is now 11, perhaps to mimic sister CW station WPIX in NY.  WCTX did the modern thing; although it is Channel 59, it bills itself as MYTv 9 (the "TV"  piece has to be there to differentiate it from WWOR My9 In NYC), and cable systems put it in that position.  The only constant is that our Univision affiliate Channel 18 has always been cable channel 18.
Interstates I've clinched: 97, 290 (MA), 291 (CT), 291 (MA), 293, 295 (DE-NJ-PA), 295 (RI-MA), 384, 391, 395 (CT-MA), 395 (MD), 495 (DE), 610 (LA), 684, 691, 695 (MD), 695 (NY), 795 (MD)

doorknob60

#40
Bend, OR is a bit weird. When I moved there, there were two true local stations, KTVZ (NBC) and KFXO (FOX). They each had news casts and everything. The cable provider had CBS stations from both Eugene (KVAL) and Portland (KOIN). ABC I think was only the Eugene station (KEZI), but maybe we also had KATU from Portland.

KTVZ (or their parent company, I guess) bought KFXO so now they share a news team.

However, soon Bend got their own ABC affiliate, KOHD. It was owned by the same company as KEZI in Eugene, but we had our own newscasts...for a while until they stopped them due to low viewership, going back to simulcast KEZI newscasts.

Around the same time as all that, KBNZ (a translator of KOIN) became its own proper station, though they still just simulcast KOIN newscasts. Shortly after, the station was bought by Zolo Media, a company owned by the cable company there (BendBroadband). I am just now learning that KOHD (ABC) is also owned by Zolo/BendBroadband now.

So currently, Bend has 2 of the big 4 owned by one company, and the other 2 owned by the cable provider...doesn't seem ideal haha. KBNZ has always been a low power signal well before it was its own station (it's by far the hardest to pick up with an antenna in most of the city), you think the cable company is going to want to increase power on it? No, they want people to buy cable. Bend still has only one local news team, KTVZ/KFXO, and KBNZ still simulcasts KOIN from Portland, and KOHD no longer shows any form of local newscasts. EDIT: Looks like KOHD might have started their own local newscasts again, looking at their website. Wikipedia seems to be out of date on that part. I haven't been to Bend (in front of a TV at least) recently enough to see it for myself.

SP Cook

Quote from: hbelkins on December 19, 2017, 03:16:25 PM
WSAZ is also owned by Gray, which owns the CBS affiliates in Lexington (WKYT) and Hazard (WYMT).


I'm not sure whether any of the WYMT news reports end up on WSAZ or Knoxville the way they do Lexington.

It is a mutual sharing thing.  Since my daughter lives in Lexington, I am familiar with both channel's reporters.  Things that happen in extreme eastern Kentucky, in the WSAZ market, but are of statewide Kentucky interest, like politics, the Eric Conn deal, extreme crimes, WSAZ will cover and the reports show up on WYMT/WKYT.   In turn WSAZ will take Wildcat material from WKYT and sometimes also if a local (local to WSAZ) HS team goes deep in KY HS sports, WKYT will do a report just for WSAZ use, taking the WKYT logo off their mikes and such and pretending they work for WSAZ.


Henry

When I first moved to L.A. in 1988, my first out-of-town station was WGN, and I always had that channel on whenever the Cubs were playing. Even now, I make sure never to miss a game.
Go Cubs Go! Go Cubs Go! Hey Chicago, what do you say? The Cubs are gonna win today!

MikeSantNY78

International/Adelphia/Time Warner/Spectrum in suburban Buffalo used to carry:
(W)WOR (9), NYC
WPIX (11), NYC
WSBK (38), Boston (mostly for the Red Sox)
CHCH (11), Hamilton, Ont.

CFTO (9) is still carried, but on the box only - direct links have HSN on in CFTO's spot.
CBLT/CBC Toronto (5) is still untouched. 

Some of the lineups in the outer reaches of WNY still carry what I listed; IIRC, Jamestown has some Erie stations as well...

bing101

KNTV San Jose was then considered an out of market ABC affiliate its due to the fact that Solano County,CA has both Sacramento and San Francisco TV stations as in market due to how Nielsen has put a boundary between Suisun City and Fairfield.

Back then KNTV was a Monterey ABC affiliate but KXTV Sacramento and KGO TV were considered in market ABC affiliates. Note this was the only out of market station that Solano County residents were aware of at the time.

However since 2002 KNTV San Jose had become the NBC affiliate for parts of Solano County due to Vallejo and Benicia being designated as San Francisco DMA. And half of Solano County gets KCRA.

The Nature Boy

I'm not quite sure when this stopped but up until the late 2000s, if you lived in an area where DirecTV didn't carry your local stations, you got the NYC ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC affiliates. I probably know more about New York's local networks than I do my own.

SP Cook

Quote from: The Nature Boy on December 20, 2017, 11:57:49 PM
I'm not quite sure when this stopped but up until the late 2000s, if you lived in an area where DirecTV didn't carry your local stations, you got the NYC ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC affiliates. I probably know more about New York's local networks than I do my own.

Long story actually.  Predates DirecTV/DISH Network, back to the days of the "BUD" (Big Ugly Dish).

BUDs were a godsend for rural people, particularly in the mountains, who previously could not get TV at all, or were at the mercy of cable bandits who charged outrageous $$ for poor service.  At first, nothing was scrambled at all, including the "backhaul" from network HQ to the local stations.  Then enough people got in on it that it cut into profits and Congress acted and made them sell the broadcast networks to viewers in "rural areas".  There were several outfits that provided these, including the "Denver Five" which gave the MT Denver stations, and PT24, which had a random mix of stations that changed from time to time (I suppose the idea was that you could find something sort of local news among them, as one statiion was iin the south, one in the north, one in the midwest and so on). 

But all they did was read you this statement that said "I can't get TV OTA" and you said yes and you got it.  No actual test, you could live anywhere and get this.

By this time the BUDs were replaced by the new DBS (DirecTV/DISH) systems, and they just did the same thing.  Lots of people preferred to get the out of town stations for various reasons.

Eventually this reached a critical mass and the local stations sued and got an injunction against ANYBODY, including people who really needed the service, which sucked, and Congress acted again.  They made the dish providers start actually testing if you could get a signal so rural people could still get the networks.  And freed up a lot more bandwidth so the sat companies could start providing local stations.  This is when they changed from the random mix of stations to NY/LA.  They also "grandfathered" anybody who had the service at the time. 

The NY/LA stations are still on the systems and there are still grandfathered customers and people in the few markets they do not have locals in (and quite a few more customers that are missing one network or another in a place without all the networks).

A weird remnant of the PT24 package is that it is still on the BUD system for hotels and ex-pats in the Caribbean and Mexico, including WSEE in, of all places, Erie, PA.  If you stay at a hotel down there catering to tourists, you are likely to see that station, complete with local news of the goings on in Erie.  They do replace the local commercials, and replace the weather with (same weathermen) a Caribbean weather report.  The station even runs a website that is the main weather channel like deal for that region in English.


Henry

Quote from: The Nature Boy on December 20, 2017, 11:57:49 PM
I'm not quite sure when this stopped but up until the late 2000s, if you lived in an area where DirecTV didn't carry your local stations, you got the NYC ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC affiliates. I probably know more about New York's local networks than I do my own.
In addition, you can get the four Los Angeles major-network affiliates on DirecTV as well. The NYC stations will have their network name followed by an E, and the L.A. ones will have a W suffix.
Go Cubs Go! Go Cubs Go! Hey Chicago, what do you say? The Cubs are gonna win today!

english si

I get, via Cable, the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish variants of BBC One (which only differ with continuity announcers, sports coverage, news, and maybe one other programme during the week).

I don't get the regional variants of BBC and ITV (though their on-demand services provide local news: which is about the only difference nowadays - probably why they have been dropped). I also get BBC Alba (Gaelic language) and S4C (Welsh language) channels (which are regional on aerial TV), Bloomberg from the US, plus a couple of French ones (though they bill themselves as global francophonic, rather than French) and a handful of South Asian channels (though it's hard to tell how many are Indian or Pakistani channels, how many are specifically international channels based there, and how many are Hindi/Urdu channels based in the UK and grouped with the others).

doorknob60

#49
Quote from: SP Cook on December 21, 2017, 09:47:13 AM
Quote from: The Nature Boy on December 20, 2017, 11:57:49 PM
I'm not quite sure when this stopped but up until the late 2000s, if you lived in an area where DirecTV didn't carry your local stations, you got the NYC ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC affiliates. I probably know more about New York's local networks than I do my own.

Long story actually.  Predates DirecTV/DISH Network, back to the days of the "BUD" (Big Ugly Dish).

BUDs were a godsend for rural people, particularly in the mountains, who previously could not get TV at all, or were at the mercy of cable bandits who charged outrageous $$ for poor service.  At first, nothing was scrambled at all, including the "backhaul" from network HQ to the local stations.  Then enough people got in on it that it cut into profits and Congress acted and made them sell the broadcast networks to viewers in "rural areas".  There were several outfits that provided these, including the "Denver Five" which gave the MT Denver stations, and PT24, which had a random mix of stations that changed from time to time (I suppose the idea was that you could find something sort of local news among them, as one statiion was iin the south, one in the north, one in the midwest and so on). 

But all they did was read you this statement that said "I can't get TV OTA" and you said yes and you got it.  No actual test, you could live anywhere and get this.

By this time the BUDs were replaced by the new DBS (DirecTV/DISH) systems, and they just did the same thing.  Lots of people preferred to get the out of town stations for various reasons.

Eventually this reached a critical mass and the local stations sued and got an injunction against ANYBODY, including people who really needed the service, which sucked, and Congress acted again.  They made the dish providers start actually testing if you could get a signal so rural people could still get the networks.  And freed up a lot more bandwidth so the sat companies could start providing local stations.  This is when they changed from the random mix of stations to NY/LA.  They also "grandfathered" anybody who had the service at the time. 

The NY/LA stations are still on the systems and there are still grandfathered customers and people in the few markets they do not have locals in (and quite a few more customers that are missing one network or another in a place without all the networks).

A weird remnant of the PT24 package is that it is still on the BUD system for hotels and ex-pats in the Caribbean and Mexico, including WSEE in, of all places, Erie, PA.  If you stay at a hotel down there catering to tourists, you are likely to see that station, complete with local news of the goings on in Erie.  They do replace the local commercials, and replace the weather with (same weathermen) a Caribbean weather report.  The station even runs a website that is the main weather channel like deal for that region in English.
I know when we had Dish Network in Bend around 2008 or so, we could not get any of the Bend local stations through Dish, so our only options were an antenna (finicky in that location, inconvenient due to no guide and switching inputs, and this was just before the digital switchover so mediocre quality), or to provide a Portland address in the system so we would receive the Portland locals. I'm pretty sure the Dish installer basically told us to do that. We did the latter, as we had family in Portland we could use their address. I'm not sure if DirecTV had the Bend locals at the time, I'm pretty sure they didn't. Now both providers do.

One of our neighbors had Dish before we moved in, and had access to all the LA local channels (not sure if also NYC ones). But a couple years after we got there they cut her off, and helped her install an antenna. That didn't work well and she switched to cable (we were on cable too by then because we moved houses and cable was already hooked up in the new place, and we didn't want to wait a month for Dish to come install it like it took at the last place, we just called the cable company and transferred service to our name before they shut it off, no downtime since it was analog and didn't need boxes).



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