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Non-Road Boards => Off-Topic => Topic started by: ftballfan on December 16, 2017, 10:41:59 PM

Title: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: ftballfan on December 16, 2017, 10:41:59 PM
This is a spin-off of the regional TV markets thread. Back in the early days of cable, cable companies outside of the largest cities used to import network affiliates from other markets because they had the space to fill. They started dropping off one by one as stations became more protective of their market areas, stations stopped pre-empting network programming, new stations signed on in formerly short (short meaning a market without affiliates of all the Big Three/Four) markets, and cable channels coming on the air.

I'm quite young compared to some people, so when I was growing up, there were no out of market stations in my hometown (Manistee, MI) with the exception of the obvious superstations, WTBS and WGN. In the 1980s, before I was born, Manistee had the following (affiliations at the time listed):
WBAY (2) Green Bay [CBS, dropped early 1990s]
WFRV (5) Green Bay [NBC -> ABC, dropped late 1980s]
WLUK (11) Green Bay [ABC -> NBC, dropped early 1990s]
WZZM (13) Grand Rapids [ABC, dropped early 1990s]
WPNE (38) Green Bay [PBS, dropped 1984 when local PBS WCMW came on the air]

Ludington, 30 miles to the south, managed to hold on to 2, 5, and 11 from Green Bay until 2009 (!!) and still has 13. Side note: Ludington and Manistee were always served by different cable companies until Charter bought most of the cable companies in rural Michigan. Ludington, in addition to the ones available in Manistee (Ludington never had WPNE AFAIK), had:
WTMJ (4) Milwaukee [NBC, dropped early 2000s]
WITI (6) Milwaukee [ABC -> CBS -> FOX, dropped late 1990s]
WMVS (10) Milwaukee [PBS, dropped late 1990s]
For a while, Ludington dropped the in-market ABC affiliate (WGTU), but it returned in 2014.

Also, Manistee and Ludington never had WKBD from Detroit, so they missed out on FOX until then-WGKI was added to the cable systems around 1990/91. Ludington missed out on the last few years of the WB (after WGN dropped the network on the national feed) and the first eight years of the CW (CW+ was added to the Ludington system at the same time WGTU returned).

Grand Rapids, where my aunt lived, had WKBD nights and weekends until 1999, when WXSP came on and took the UPN affiliation.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: OracleUsr on December 17, 2017, 12:16:02 AM
Greensboro had a few:

WRDU (Ch 28 Raleigh...can't remember when it was dropped)
WDCA (Ch 20 Washington, DC...stopped being on Cablevision of Greensboro in 1985)
WTBS (Can't remember the channel # but it was Atlanta's station before it became its own cable network)
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: Otto Yamamoto on December 17, 2017, 12:40:48 AM
In San Diego we used to get LA stations via cable, up until the early 80's.

P00I

Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: allniter89 on December 17, 2017, 01:03:07 AM
Quote from: OracleUsr on December 17, 2017, 12:16:02 AM
Greensboro had a few:

WRDU (Ch 28 Raleigh...can't remember when it was dropped)
WDCA (Ch 20 Washington, DC...stopped being on Cablevision of Greensboro in 1985)
WTBS (Can't remember the channel # but it was Atlanta's station before it became its own cable network)
I think it was channel 17
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: Brian556 on December 17, 2017, 01:32:53 AM
I remember seeing these on cable lineups. I never got to watch them, because my mom would not let us have it, because, according to her, "its nothing but trash"
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: LM117 on December 17, 2017, 02:14:52 AM
When I lived in Wayne County in North Carolina it was (and still is) part of the Raleigh/Durham market. We used to have Time Warner Cable (now known as Spectrum) and it had some stations from the Greenville market. Those stations were:

WITN (NBC ch. 7)
WNCT (CBS ch. 9)
WUNK (PBS UNC-TV ch. 25)
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: bandit957 on December 17, 2017, 11:38:11 AM
Storer Cable in northern Kentucky (Cincinnati market) used to have WDRB Louisville and WKYT Lexington. WDRB was dropped not long after we got cable. WKYT lasted a few more years. When Storer dropped WKYT, they kept running these little tirades by Storer management personnel blaming the local newspaper (the Kentucky Post) for making viewers think they'd lose sports coverage.

I'm disappointed that Storer had no out-of-town network affiliates after that, because Cincinnati stations were the absolute worst with preempting popular shows, usually because of content. There was a time there when 'New Year's Rockin' Eve' wasn't even shown in Cincinnati because it was considered too controversial for WKRC-TV to air. This was in the late '80s/early '90s. Also, WLWT kept preempting '80s favorites like 'Diff'rent Strokes' by showing 'The Billy Graham Crusade' instead.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: ghYHZ on December 17, 2017, 06:21:40 PM
I'm in the Canadian Maritimes.....in the early days of cable we got our US networks out of Bangor, Maine. Now...depending on your provider......they're out of Boston or Detroit and if you have  the west coast package.....you also get the Seattle stations.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: hbelkins on December 17, 2017, 08:04:52 PM
The Frankfort, Ky. cable system has both the Louisville and Lexington network affiliates.

You can go to several places in West Virginia and get both the Huntington/Charleston network affiliates and affiliates from other cities.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: txstateends on December 17, 2017, 08:08:13 PM
Amarillo's cable system used to carry KERA from DFW prior to 1988, as the market had no PBS station of its own.  Since KACV launched in 1988, it was not necessary to show another PBS station on the cable there.  Also on the cable into the early 1990s there was KTVT from DFW; it was an indie then (now a CBS station) and acted as a superstation.  KTVT left the cable listings there when they phased out superstation status.  Also, listed in Amarillo's TV Guide, was WFAA from DFW; I'm not sure what cable systems included WFAA then, but it definitely was not on Amarillo's system listing.

Meanwhile, across the state in Tyler/Longview, many cable systems there have previously included most if not all major stations from the nearest adjacent market (DFW, Shreveport, Houston).  With the growing availability of local stations in that market, fewer and fewer out-of-market stations were listed over time.  For example, in Tyler:
* WFAA continues to be listed despite the presence (and local top ratings) of KLTV (the local ABC)
* KXAS is no longer listed (KETK is the local NBC)
* KTVT is no longer listed (KYTX is the local CBS
; also, KTVT was previously DFW's primary indie station and there was no local market indie in Tyler/Longview)
* KDFW is still listed despite the presence of local Fox station KFXK (very likely as KFXK's local news and synd. programs pale compared to what KDFW offers)
* KXTX is possibly no longer listed (if so, it really wouldn't be necessary now; KXTX was for many years DFW's second-banana among indie stations there and there was no local Tyler/Longview indie stations... since then KXTX flipped to Telemundo (KLTV now carries Telemundo locally on a subchannel)
* KERA is still available on cable there.  There has been no PBS station before in the Tyler/Longview market, although KERA did try a few years ago to apply for a translator in Tyler.  It was denied as another applicant got the frequency instead.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: Desert Man on December 18, 2017, 01:57:19 AM
Palm Springs and Palm Desert before merging with Indio have two separate cable services in the 1970s - the Palm Springs and Palm Desert ones had XETV 6 (ABC-now Spanish independent), KFMB 8 (CBS) and KOGO, later KGTV 10 (NBC-now ABC) from San Diego, but they dropped them before 1980. The Indio services had KECY 10 (CBS/ABC-channel 9-now FOX/My Network) and KYEL 13 (NBC-renamed KSWT-was ABC now CBS) out of El Centro/Yuma Az. KVCR 12 (PBS-channel 24) from San Bernardino-Riverside on both cable services, but was eventually dropped in the early 1980s...it was brought back in the 2000s as a result of an over-air translator on channels 9 and 18.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: Stephane Dumas on December 18, 2017, 12:03:04 PM
I remember a time in the Eastern Townships, we got once in the cable line-up, CKTM-TV Trois-Rivières and CFCM Québec city who had been dropped in the mid-1980s. Also we used to get WMTW-8 ABC Portland/Mt. Washington until the early to mid-1990s replaced by Burlington station WVNY-22.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: dvferyance on December 18, 2017, 12:13:35 PM
Milwaukee
WGN Chicago
WHA Madison (former)
WHA I believe is still on cable in Rockford since that city has no PBS affiliate of it's own. They have to get their public TV from either Chicago or Madison.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: bandit957 on December 18, 2017, 12:50:40 PM
So Cheap Trick isn't allowed to watch 'Sesame Street'.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: cl94 on December 18, 2017, 01:07:21 PM
Growing up in the Albany area, we got a few New York City stations, including WPIX (WB 11 at the time) and WPXN (PAX). We may have gotten the New York UPN affiliate as well. I know for a fact that Albany had both WB and UPN affiliates. On Adelphia, WPIX was 11 and WEWB 45 (Albany's WB) was 12, so two adjacent stations often showed the same thing, but 11 was how we got Yankees games on broadcast TV.

Currently, I know that both Watertown, NY and Salisbury, MD/Delmarva get some stations from out of the area, because some networks have no local affiliate. Delmarva gets Baltimore stations and Watertown gets Syracuse.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: SP Cook on December 18, 2017, 01:31:37 PM
Quote from: hbelkins on December 17, 2017, 08:04:52 PM

You can go to several places in West Virginia and get both the Huntington/Charleston network affiliates and affiliates from other cities.

To flesh out, WV has only the one true market, Huntington-Charleston, and, of course the topography is non-conductive to TV reception.  Combined with the fact that even the Huntington-Charleston station's towers are 40 miles apart (4 in Huntington, 2 in Charleston) and thus have different reception patterns this means "everybody" has to have cable or dish to have TV, even long before cable (then called CATV) offered anything more than what most people got for free. 

In any event, because the rest of the state's markets are not full (missing affiliates) and serve such a small area (and thus have totally amateur hour local news) there is a mix in the southern half of the state of the local Bluefield-Beckley stations with Huntington-Charleston, the Tri-Cities, and/or Roanoke-Lynchburg.  The Parkersburg market (only one station) has always gotten either H-C or Columbus stations.  In the north, there is a little overlap between H-C and Clarksburg, but not much mainly because this is the empty part of WV with little population.  Most of the Clarksburg market also gets Pittsburgh TV.  All of the Wheeling-Steubenville market does as well.  In the eastern panhandle, technically in the DC market a random mix of DC, Baltimore and the single stations in that rural area show up. 

Back when even H-C had no "independent" station, much of the area got Indy's WTTV microwaved in.  Even though it only covered its own market in terms of ads, sports or news.

Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: Sctvhound on December 18, 2017, 01:33:12 PM
In Charleston, there are no out of town stations on local cable, since we are about 100 miles from Myrtle Beach and Savannah, and 110 from Columbia. In the 70s and early 80s, local cable would sometimes use a channel to broadcast Savannah or Columbia stations when the local stations preempted a program.

55 miles up US 17 in Georgetown, Myrtle Beach stations are on the cable. Wilmington stations (WECT NBC and WWAY ABC) were also there at one time. Beaufort, about 50-60 miles S, carries Savannah stations.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: bandit957 on December 18, 2017, 02:29:53 PM
Quote from: SP Cook on December 18, 2017, 01:31:37 PM
Back when even H-C had no "independent" station, much of the area got Indy's WTTV microwaved in.  Even though it only covered its own market in terms of ads, sports or news.

I'd think Cincinnati would be a better choice geographically than Indianapolis, but I guess the Cincinnati stations were just so bad.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: kphoger on December 18, 2017, 03:26:37 PM
Where I grew up out in the boonies of western Kansas (1990s), we only had 20-something channels.  With cable.  And in those 20-something channels, there were two iterations of ABC, from two different cities.  Most of the time, the programming was exactly the same.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: hbelkins on December 18, 2017, 06:27:46 PM
Quote from: SP Cook on December 18, 2017, 01:31:37 PM
Quote from: hbelkins on December 17, 2017, 08:04:52 PM

You can go to several places in West Virginia and get both the Huntington/Charleston network affiliates and affiliates from other cities.

To flesh out, WV has only the one true market, Huntington-Charleston, and, of course the topography is non-conductive to TV reception.  Combined with the fact that even the Huntington-Charleston station's towers are 40 miles apart (4 in Huntington, 2 in Charleston) and thus have different reception patterns this means "everybody" has to have cable or dish to have TV, even long before cable (then called CATV) offered anything more than what most people got for free. 

In any event, because the rest of the state's markets are not full (missing affiliates) and serve such a small area (and thus have totally amateur hour local news) there is a mix in the southern half of the state of the local Bluefield-Beckley stations with Huntington-Charleston, the Tri-Cities, and/or Roanoke-Lynchburg.  The Parkersburg market (only one station) has always gotten either H-C or Columbus stations.  In the north, there is a little overlap between H-C and Clarksburg, but not much mainly because this is the empty part of WV with little population.  Most of the Clarksburg market also gets Pittsburgh TV.  All of the Wheeling-Steubenville market does as well.  In the eastern panhandle, technically in the DC market a random mix of DC, Baltimore and the single stations in that rural area show up. 

Back when even H-C had no "independent" station, much of the area got Indy's WTTV microwaved in.  Even though it only covered its own market in terms of ads, sports or news.

I remember when WVAH, Channel 23 out of Hurricane, got started. I was in college in Morehead and it was added to the local cable system.

I spend the night in Princeton last night but didn't turn the TV on to look to see what local stations from what markets were carried. I've stayed in Clarksburg once and Weston several times, and there was a mixture of Huntington-Charleston and (I think) Pittsburgh.

Speaking of the Morehead cable system, when I was in college you didn't have a whole lot of channels available on TV, and most TVs at the time were limited to 13 cable channels. The Lexington stations were offered, I think maybe at least one Huntington station, WTBS from Atlanta, WVAH got added -- and there was at least one Cincinnati station. Can't remember which one it was, but it was the one that featured Al Schottelkotte (sp?) as the news anchor. All the southern Ohio students at MSU seemed to consider him a legend. I think he may have been on the station that also carried Bob Braun's talk show. If not, the local cable network carried both those Cincinnati stations.

And speaking of distant reception, my dad grew up at a place that was near the highest elevation in the county. They had a TV when he was a youngster and reception was, obviously strictly over-the-air and this may have been before Lexington got a TV station. Depending on which way they rotated the antenna, they could either pick up (very faintly) either Channel 3 from Louisville or Channel 3 from Huntington. Given that my grandfather was from about 30 miles south of Huntington, I can imagine which one they watched most of the time.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: epzik8 on December 18, 2017, 07:55:11 PM
I'm in Harford County, Maryland in the Baltimore market. Baltimore has WMAR (ABC), WJZ (CBS), WBFF (Fox), WBAL (NBC) and MPT (PBS). Before 2010, when we switched to Verizon FiOS, we also picked up two Susquehanna Valley stations from the SC Pennsylvania triangle of Harrisburg-York-Lancaster: WPMT (Fox) and WGAL (NBC). On FiOS I have two additional PBS affiliates from Washington, DC: WETA and WHUT.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: bandit957 on December 18, 2017, 10:44:20 PM
Quote from: hbelkins on December 18, 2017, 06:27:46 PM
Speaking of the Morehead cable system, when I was in college you didn't have a whole lot of channels available on TV, and most TVs at the time were limited to 13 cable channels. The Lexington stations were offered, I think maybe at least one Huntington station, WTBS from Atlanta, WVAH got added -- and there was at least one Cincinnati station. Can't remember which one it was, but it was the one that featured Al Schottelkotte (sp?) as the news anchor. All the southern Ohio students at MSU seemed to consider him a legend. I think he may have been on the station that also carried Bob Braun's talk show. If not, the local cable network carried both those Cincinnati stations.

Al Schottelkotte was WCPO. Bob Braun was WLWT.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: bandit957 on December 18, 2017, 10:50:27 PM
Also, the Al Schottelkotte era was when WCPO used the "Brrring! Channel 9!" jingle.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: Flint1979 on December 18, 2017, 11:35:04 PM
Use to be able to get WKBD TV-50 out of Detroit on cable in other Michigan markets. It was an Independent station, then a FOX station, then an UPN station and is now a CW station but is of course no longer offered outside of the Detroit market.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: Flint1979 on December 18, 2017, 11:35:47 PM
Quote from: OracleUsr on December 17, 2017, 12:16:02 AM
Greensboro had a few:

WRDU (Ch 28 Raleigh...can't remember when it was dropped)
WDCA (Ch 20 Washington, DC...stopped being on Cablevision of Greensboro in 1985)
WTBS (Can't remember the channel # but it was Atlanta's station before it became its own cable network)
WTBS was channel 17.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: bandit957 on December 18, 2017, 11:59:04 PM
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.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: slorydn1 on December 19, 2017, 02:13:25 AM
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.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: LM117 on December 19, 2017, 05:18:53 AM
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.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: jp the roadgeek on December 19, 2017, 06:56:50 AM
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
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: froggie on December 19, 2017, 10:48:56 AM
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.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: US71 on December 19, 2017, 10:56:57 AM
KTUL-TV Tulsa
KOTV-TV Tulsa
KOAM-TV Pittsburg, KS
KODE-TV Joplin
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: 1995hoo on December 19, 2017, 11:18:21 AM
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.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: hbelkins on December 19, 2017, 11:23:36 AM
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.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: briantroutman on December 19, 2017, 12:05:38 PM
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.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: LM117 on December 19, 2017, 12:09:20 PM
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.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: jp the roadgeek on December 19, 2017, 02:37:57 PM
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.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: PaulRAnderson on December 19, 2017, 02:50:50 PM
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.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: SP Cook on December 19, 2017, 02:52:48 PM
- 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.

Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: 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). 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.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: jp the roadgeek on December 19, 2017, 03:39:13 PM
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.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: doorknob60 on December 19, 2017, 05:04:32 PM
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.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: SP Cook on December 20, 2017, 08:02:33 AM
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.

Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: Henry on December 20, 2017, 10:08:57 AM
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.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: MikeSantNY78 on December 20, 2017, 07:16:28 PM
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...
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: bing101 on December 20, 2017, 07:49:55 PM
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.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: 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.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: 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.

Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: Henry on December 21, 2017, 09:48:36 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.
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.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: english si on December 21, 2017, 10:08:21 AM
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).
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: doorknob60 on December 21, 2017, 04:02:57 PM
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).
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: MikeTheActuary on December 22, 2017, 07:52:47 AM
Quote from: LM117 on December 19, 2017, 12:09:20 PMI 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.

There are only so many video streams that can be carried on a transponder, even with video compression.

There are only so many transponders on a satellite.

Cable companies, on the other hand, have the advantage of having terrestrial access to their distribution system, and in only needing to carry the local channels for the area (rather than ALL of them) through their systems.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: ftballfan on December 22, 2017, 10:31:42 PM
Here's some partial cable lineups for several Michigan communities, mostly communities around my hometown, in 1980:
Beulah
2 - WBAY (CBS Green Bay)
5 - WPNE (PBS Green Bay) / WFRV (NBC Green Bay)
6 - WCML (PBS Alpena)
7 - WPBN (NBC Traverse City)
9 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
11 - WLUK (ABC Green Bay)
13 - WGTU (ABC Traverse City)

Big Rapids
2 - WCMU (PBS Mount Pleasant)
3 - WKZO (CBS Kalamazoo)
4 - WGTU (ABC Traverse City)
5 - WNEM (NBC Bay City)
6 - WJIM (CBS Lansing)
7 - WPBN (NBC Traverse City)
8 - WOTV (NBC Grand Rapids)
10 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
11 - WGVC (PBS Grand Rapids)
12 - WJRT (ABC Flint)
13 - WZZM (ABC Grand Rapids)

Cadillac
2 - WZZM (ABC Grand Rapids)
3 - WTMJ (NBC Milwaukee)
4 - WJRT (ABC Flint)
5 - WNEM (NBC Bay City)
6 - WCMU (PBS Mount Pleasant)
8 - WPBN (NBC Traverse City)
10 - WGVC (PBS Grand Rapids)
11 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
12 - WKBD (IND Detroit)
13 - WGTU (ABC Traverse City)

Ludington (Channel 3 was split four ways, with WKZO likely only being carried whenever they had an NFL game that wasn't on WBAY, WITI, or WWTV)
2 - WBAY (CBS Green Bay)
3 - WKZO (CBS Kalamazoo) / WVTV (IND Milwaukee) / WGN (IND Chicago) / WGVC (PBS Grand Rapids)
4 - WTMJ (NBC Milwaukee)
5 - WFRV (NBC Green Bay)
6 - WITI (CBS Milwaukee)
7 - WPBN (NBC Traverse City)
8 - WOTV (NBC Grand Rapids) / WGTU (ABC Traverse City)
9 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
10 - WMVS (PBS Milwaukee)
11 - WLUK (ABC Green Bay)
12 - WISN (ABC Milwaukee)
13 - WZZM (ABC Grand Rapids)

Manistee
2 - WBAY (CBS Green Bay)
3 - WGTU (ABC Traverse City)
4 - WTMJ (NBC Milwaukee)
5 - WFRV (NBC Green Bay)
8 - WPBN (NBC Traverse City)
9 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
10 - WMVS (PBS Milwaukee)
11 - WLUK (ABC Green Bay)
12 - WVTV (IND Milwaukee)
13 - WZZM (ABC Grand Rapids)

Mount Pleasant
3 - WKZO (CBS Kalamazoo) / CBET (CBC Windsor)
4 - WEYI (CBS Saginaw)
5 - WNEM (NBC Bay City)
6 - WJIM (CBS Lansing)
7 - WPBN (NBC Traverse City)
8 - WOTV (NBC Grand Rapids)
9 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
10 - WKBD (IND Detroit)
11 - WCMU (PBS Mount Pleasant)
12 - WJRT (ABC Flint)
13 - WZZM (ABC Grand Rapids)

Traverse City (fun fact: WPBN, WCML, WGTU, and WWTV are still on these cable channels to this day in Traverse City and area)
2 - WBAY (CBS Green Bay)
3 - WKBD (IND Detroit)
4 - WPBN (NBC Traverse City)
5 - WFRV (NBC Green Bay)
6 - WCML (PBS Alpena)
8 - WGTU (ABC Traverse City)
10 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
11 - WLUK (ABC Green Bay)
13 - WZZM (ABC Grand Rapids)

Whitehall
2 - WVTV (IND Milwaukee) [WVTV remained on cable in Whitehall until 2006, when WWMT launched a CW subchannel; Grand Rapids, which was and is a top 40 market, never had its own WB affiliate]
3 - WKZO (CBS Kalamazoo)
4 - WTMJ (NBC Milwaukee)
6 - WITI (CBS Milwaukee)
7 - WGVC (PBS Grand Rapids)
8 - WOTV (NBC Grand Rapids)
9 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
10 - WMVS (PBS Milwaukee)
11 - WUHQ (ABC Battle Creek)
12 - WISN (ABC Milwaukee)
13 - WZZM (ABC Grand Rapids)
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: Sctvhound on December 23, 2017, 12:12:17 AM
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.

Dish Network had distant locals as well for a long period of time. They had something like 5 or 6 cities to choose from. One of the markets they used was Atlanta. They had ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox to choose from, none of the smaller networks. There was a Ruby Tuesday we frequented that couldn't get cable, so they picked up the Atlanta locals. I remember watching Hurricane Ivan coverage on a couple of the stations there.

Dish Network, very soon after that, added locals in Charleston, as they went through the TV markets one by one and added them. DirecTV added them not long after that (beginning of 2005), and we ditched Comcast immediately for them.

There were a couple of times a few years back we had satellite issues with a local station and they opened up New York and LA stations for us. We got to see an additional Giants game because of that issue.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: bandit957 on December 23, 2017, 08:34:35 PM
In the mid-'90s, I saw a small article in the newspaper that said Ohio had just banned backyard satellite dishes. The cable TV industry had lobbied for this law.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: jp the roadgeek on December 23, 2017, 09:25:30 PM
Quote from: bandit957 on December 23, 2017, 08:34:35 PM
In the mid-'90s, I saw a small article in the newspaper that said Ohio had just banned backyard satellite dishes. The cable TV industry had lobbied for this law.

My dad used to have a name for a backyard satellite dish: The Montana state flower.

When I went to the Bahamas, I seem to recall the affiliates on the hotel TV system were WABC in New York, WRAL in Raleigh (when it was CBS), and WXIA in Atlanta.  It was 1993, so I don't remember FOX being available, as it was still a fledgling network and I visited just a few days after they announced they stole the NFC package from CBS. 
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: hbelkins on December 23, 2017, 09:29:10 PM
Quote from: bandit957 on December 23, 2017, 08:34:35 PM
In the mid-'90s, I saw a small article in the newspaper that said Ohio had just banned backyard satellite dishes. The cable TV industry had lobbied for this law.

I can't imagine that even being legal. Even now, federal law requires that dishes have to be installed in apartment buildings or other rental properties if the tenant desires. The building owner can't prevent a dish from being installed.

The BUDs sprang up around here in lots of places that can't pick up OTR signals and there was no cable service. The old joke was that if the dish was pointed straight up at the sky, that's where the pr0n channels were located and the person at that home was viewing pr0n.

Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: bing101 on December 24, 2017, 10:06:47 PM
KSBW in Monterey but parts of Santa Clara County, CA got KSBW back in 2001 when I was there.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: Flint1979 on January 23, 2018, 09:30:32 PM
For Michigan I know Saginaw's on Charter is
4 WEYI - NBC 25
7 WNEM - CBS 5
8 WSMH - FOX 66
11 WJRT - ABC 12
17 WBSF - CW 46

The number to the left is the channel in Charter's lineup, the number on the right is the real channel number.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: Flint1979 on January 23, 2018, 09:32:03 PM
Quote from: ftballfan on December 22, 2017, 10:31:42 PM
Here's some partial cable lineups for several Michigan communities, mostly communities around my hometown, in 1980:
Beulah
2 - WBAY (CBS Green Bay)
5 - WPNE (PBS Green Bay) / WFRV (NBC Green Bay)
6 - WCML (PBS Alpena)
7 - WPBN (NBC Traverse City)
9 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
11 - WLUK (ABC Green Bay)
13 - WGTU (ABC Traverse City)

Big Rapids
2 - WCMU (PBS Mount Pleasant)
3 - WKZO (CBS Kalamazoo)
4 - WGTU (ABC Traverse City)
5 - WNEM (NBC Bay City)
6 - WJIM (CBS Lansing)
7 - WPBN (NBC Traverse City)
8 - WOTV (NBC Grand Rapids)
10 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
11 - WGVC (PBS Grand Rapids)
12 - WJRT (ABC Flint)
13 - WZZM (ABC Grand Rapids)

Cadillac
2 - WZZM (ABC Grand Rapids)
3 - WTMJ (NBC Milwaukee)
4 - WJRT (ABC Flint)
5 - WNEM (NBC Bay City)
6 - WCMU (PBS Mount Pleasant)
8 - WPBN (NBC Traverse City)
10 - WGVC (PBS Grand Rapids)
11 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
12 - WKBD (IND Detroit)
13 - WGTU (ABC Traverse City)

Ludington (Channel 3 was split four ways, with WKZO likely only being carried whenever they had an NFL game that wasn't on WBAY, WITI, or WWTV)
2 - WBAY (CBS Green Bay)
3 - WKZO (CBS Kalamazoo) / WVTV (IND Milwaukee) / WGN (IND Chicago) / WGVC (PBS Grand Rapids)
4 - WTMJ (NBC Milwaukee)
5 - WFRV (NBC Green Bay)
6 - WITI (CBS Milwaukee)
7 - WPBN (NBC Traverse City)
8 - WOTV (NBC Grand Rapids) / WGTU (ABC Traverse City)
9 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
10 - WMVS (PBS Milwaukee)
11 - WLUK (ABC Green Bay)
12 - WISN (ABC Milwaukee)
13 - WZZM (ABC Grand Rapids)

Manistee
2 - WBAY (CBS Green Bay)
3 - WGTU (ABC Traverse City)
4 - WTMJ (NBC Milwaukee)
5 - WFRV (NBC Green Bay)
8 - WPBN (NBC Traverse City)
9 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
10 - WMVS (PBS Milwaukee)
11 - WLUK (ABC Green Bay)
12 - WVTV (IND Milwaukee)
13 - WZZM (ABC Grand Rapids)

Mount Pleasant
3 - WKZO (CBS Kalamazoo) / CBET (CBC Windsor)
4 - WEYI (CBS Saginaw)
5 - WNEM (NBC Bay City)
6 - WJIM (CBS Lansing)
7 - WPBN (NBC Traverse City)
8 - WOTV (NBC Grand Rapids)
9 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
10 - WKBD (IND Detroit)
11 - WCMU (PBS Mount Pleasant)
12 - WJRT (ABC Flint)
13 - WZZM (ABC Grand Rapids)

Traverse City (fun fact: WPBN, WCML, WGTU, and WWTV are still on these cable channels to this day in Traverse City and area)
2 - WBAY (CBS Green Bay)
3 - WKBD (IND Detroit)
4 - WPBN (NBC Traverse City)
5 - WFRV (NBC Green Bay)
6 - WCML (PBS Alpena)
8 - WGTU (ABC Traverse City)
10 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
11 - WLUK (ABC Green Bay)
13 - WZZM (ABC Grand Rapids)

Whitehall
2 - WVTV (IND Milwaukee) [WVTV remained on cable in Whitehall until 2006, when WWMT launched a CW subchannel; Grand Rapids, which was and is a top 40 market, never had its own WB affiliate]
3 - WKZO (CBS Kalamazoo)
4 - WTMJ (NBC Milwaukee)
6 - WITI (CBS Milwaukee)
7 - WGVC (PBS Grand Rapids)
8 - WOTV (NBC Grand Rapids)
9 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
10 - WMVS (PBS Milwaukee)
11 - WUHQ (ABC Battle Creek)
12 - WISN (ABC Milwaukee)
13 - WZZM (ABC Grand Rapids)
Just so ya know you have WEYI and WNEM backwards. WEYI is NBC and WNEM is CBS, they switched this around the same time Detroit switched their stations about 25 years ago.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: abefroman329 on January 24, 2018, 02:07:14 PM
Quote from: jp the roadgeek on December 23, 2017, 09:25:30 PM
Quote from: bandit957 on December 23, 2017, 08:34:35 PM
In the mid-'90s, I saw a small article in the newspaper that said Ohio had just banned backyard satellite dishes. The cable TV industry had lobbied for this law.

My dad used to have a name for a backyard satellite dish: The Montana state flower.

When I went to the Bahamas, I seem to recall the affiliates on the hotel TV system were WABC in New York, WRAL in Raleigh (when it was CBS), and WXIA in Atlanta.  It was 1993, so I don't remember FOX being available, as it was still a fledgling network and I visited just a few days after they announced they stole the NFC package from CBS.

When I went to the USVI in 2008, they were getting broadcasting from network affiliates in Puerto Rico.  It was right before the election, and I thought was funny that all of the programming was in English, but all of the campaign ads were in Spanish.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: ftballfan on January 25, 2018, 08:59:45 AM
Quote from: Flint1979 on January 23, 2018, 09:32:03 PM
Quote from: ftballfan on December 22, 2017, 10:31:42 PM
Here's some partial cable lineups for several Michigan communities, mostly communities around my hometown, in 1980:
Beulah
2 - WBAY (CBS Green Bay)
5 - WPNE (PBS Green Bay) / WFRV (NBC Green Bay)
6 - WCML (PBS Alpena)
7 - WPBN (NBC Traverse City)
9 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
11 - WLUK (ABC Green Bay)
13 - WGTU (ABC Traverse City)

Big Rapids
2 - WCMU (PBS Mount Pleasant)
3 - WKZO (CBS Kalamazoo)
4 - WGTU (ABC Traverse City)
5 - WNEM (NBC Bay City)
6 - WJIM (CBS Lansing)
7 - WPBN (NBC Traverse City)
8 - WOTV (NBC Grand Rapids)
10 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
11 - WGVC (PBS Grand Rapids)
12 - WJRT (ABC Flint)
13 - WZZM (ABC Grand Rapids)

Cadillac
2 - WZZM (ABC Grand Rapids)
3 - WTMJ (NBC Milwaukee)
4 - WJRT (ABC Flint)
5 - WNEM (NBC Bay City)
6 - WCMU (PBS Mount Pleasant)
8 - WPBN (NBC Traverse City)
10 - WGVC (PBS Grand Rapids)
11 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
12 - WKBD (IND Detroit)
13 - WGTU (ABC Traverse City)

Ludington (Channel 3 was split four ways, with WKZO likely only being carried whenever they had an NFL game that wasn't on WBAY, WITI, or WWTV)
2 - WBAY (CBS Green Bay)
3 - WKZO (CBS Kalamazoo) / WVTV (IND Milwaukee) / WGN (IND Chicago) / WGVC (PBS Grand Rapids)
4 - WTMJ (NBC Milwaukee)
5 - WFRV (NBC Green Bay)
6 - WITI (CBS Milwaukee)
7 - WPBN (NBC Traverse City)
8 - WOTV (NBC Grand Rapids) / WGTU (ABC Traverse City)
9 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
10 - WMVS (PBS Milwaukee)
11 - WLUK (ABC Green Bay)
12 - WISN (ABC Milwaukee)
13 - WZZM (ABC Grand Rapids)

Manistee
2 - WBAY (CBS Green Bay)
3 - WGTU (ABC Traverse City)
4 - WTMJ (NBC Milwaukee)
5 - WFRV (NBC Green Bay)
8 - WPBN (NBC Traverse City)
9 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
10 - WMVS (PBS Milwaukee)
11 - WLUK (ABC Green Bay)
12 - WVTV (IND Milwaukee)
13 - WZZM (ABC Grand Rapids)

Mount Pleasant
3 - WKZO (CBS Kalamazoo) / CBET (CBC Windsor)
4 - WEYI (CBS Saginaw)
5 - WNEM (NBC Bay City)
6 - WJIM (CBS Lansing)
7 - WPBN (NBC Traverse City)
8 - WOTV (NBC Grand Rapids)
9 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
10 - WKBD (IND Detroit)
11 - WCMU (PBS Mount Pleasant)
12 - WJRT (ABC Flint)
13 - WZZM (ABC Grand Rapids)

Traverse City (fun fact: WPBN, WCML, WGTU, and WWTV are still on these cable channels to this day in Traverse City and area)
2 - WBAY (CBS Green Bay)
3 - WKBD (IND Detroit)
4 - WPBN (NBC Traverse City)
5 - WFRV (NBC Green Bay)
6 - WCML (PBS Alpena)
8 - WGTU (ABC Traverse City)
10 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
11 - WLUK (ABC Green Bay)
13 - WZZM (ABC Grand Rapids)

Whitehall
2 - WVTV (IND Milwaukee) [WVTV remained on cable in Whitehall until 2006, when WWMT launched a CW subchannel; Grand Rapids, which was and is a top 40 market, never had its own WB affiliate]
3 - WKZO (CBS Kalamazoo)
4 - WTMJ (NBC Milwaukee)
6 - WITI (CBS Milwaukee)
7 - WGVC (PBS Grand Rapids)
8 - WOTV (NBC Grand Rapids)
9 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
10 - WMVS (PBS Milwaukee)
11 - WUHQ (ABC Battle Creek)
12 - WISN (ABC Milwaukee)
13 - WZZM (ABC Grand Rapids)
Just so ya know you have WEYI and WNEM backwards. WEYI is NBC and WNEM is CBS, they switched this around the same time Detroit switched their stations about 25 years ago.
At the time these lineups were taken from (1980), WNEM was NBC and WEYI was CBS. They swapped in 1995
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: Flint1979 on January 25, 2018, 01:27:11 PM
Quote from: ftballfan on January 25, 2018, 08:59:45 AM
Quote from: Flint1979 on January 23, 2018, 09:32:03 PM
Quote from: ftballfan on December 22, 2017, 10:31:42 PM
Here's some partial cable lineups for several Michigan communities, mostly communities around my hometown, in 1980:
Beulah
2 - WBAY (CBS Green Bay)
5 - WPNE (PBS Green Bay) / WFRV (NBC Green Bay)
6 - WCML (PBS Alpena)
7 - WPBN (NBC Traverse City)
9 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
11 - WLUK (ABC Green Bay)
13 - WGTU (ABC Traverse City)

Big Rapids
2 - WCMU (PBS Mount Pleasant)
3 - WKZO (CBS Kalamazoo)
4 - WGTU (ABC Traverse City)
5 - WNEM (NBC Bay City)
6 - WJIM (CBS Lansing)
7 - WPBN (NBC Traverse City)
8 - WOTV (NBC Grand Rapids)
10 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
11 - WGVC (PBS Grand Rapids)
12 - WJRT (ABC Flint)
13 - WZZM (ABC Grand Rapids)

Cadillac
2 - WZZM (ABC Grand Rapids)
3 - WTMJ (NBC Milwaukee)
4 - WJRT (ABC Flint)
5 - WNEM (NBC Bay City)
6 - WCMU (PBS Mount Pleasant)
8 - WPBN (NBC Traverse City)
10 - WGVC (PBS Grand Rapids)
11 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
12 - WKBD (IND Detroit)
13 - WGTU (ABC Traverse City)

Ludington (Channel 3 was split four ways, with WKZO likely only being carried whenever they had an NFL game that wasn't on WBAY, WITI, or WWTV)
2 - WBAY (CBS Green Bay)
3 - WKZO (CBS Kalamazoo) / WVTV (IND Milwaukee) / WGN (IND Chicago) / WGVC (PBS Grand Rapids)
4 - WTMJ (NBC Milwaukee)
5 - WFRV (NBC Green Bay)
6 - WITI (CBS Milwaukee)
7 - WPBN (NBC Traverse City)
8 - WOTV (NBC Grand Rapids) / WGTU (ABC Traverse City)
9 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
10 - WMVS (PBS Milwaukee)
11 - WLUK (ABC Green Bay)
12 - WISN (ABC Milwaukee)
13 - WZZM (ABC Grand Rapids)

Manistee
2 - WBAY (CBS Green Bay)
3 - WGTU (ABC Traverse City)
4 - WTMJ (NBC Milwaukee)
5 - WFRV (NBC Green Bay)
8 - WPBN (NBC Traverse City)
9 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
10 - WMVS (PBS Milwaukee)
11 - WLUK (ABC Green Bay)
12 - WVTV (IND Milwaukee)
13 - WZZM (ABC Grand Rapids)

Mount Pleasant
3 - WKZO (CBS Kalamazoo) / CBET (CBC Windsor)
4 - WEYI (CBS Saginaw)
5 - WNEM (NBC Bay City)
6 - WJIM (CBS Lansing)
7 - WPBN (NBC Traverse City)
8 - WOTV (NBC Grand Rapids)
9 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
10 - WKBD (IND Detroit)
11 - WCMU (PBS Mount Pleasant)
12 - WJRT (ABC Flint)
13 - WZZM (ABC Grand Rapids)

Traverse City (fun fact: WPBN, WCML, WGTU, and WWTV are still on these cable channels to this day in Traverse City and area)
2 - WBAY (CBS Green Bay)
3 - WKBD (IND Detroit)
4 - WPBN (NBC Traverse City)
5 - WFRV (NBC Green Bay)
6 - WCML (PBS Alpena)
8 - WGTU (ABC Traverse City)
10 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
11 - WLUK (ABC Green Bay)
13 - WZZM (ABC Grand Rapids)

Whitehall
2 - WVTV (IND Milwaukee) [WVTV remained on cable in Whitehall until 2006, when WWMT launched a CW subchannel; Grand Rapids, which was and is a top 40 market, never had its own WB affiliate]
3 - WKZO (CBS Kalamazoo)
4 - WTMJ (NBC Milwaukee)
6 - WITI (CBS Milwaukee)
7 - WGVC (PBS Grand Rapids)
8 - WOTV (NBC Grand Rapids)
9 - WWTV (CBS Cadillac)
10 - WMVS (PBS Milwaukee)
11 - WUHQ (ABC Battle Creek)
12 - WISN (ABC Milwaukee)
13 - WZZM (ABC Grand Rapids)
Just so ya know you have WEYI and WNEM backwards. WEYI is NBC and WNEM is CBS, they switched this around the same time Detroit switched their stations about 25 years ago.
At the time these lineups were taken from (1980), WNEM was NBC and WEYI was CBS. They swapped in 1995
Yep. I remember when they switched.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: KEVIN_224 on January 28, 2018, 07:43:09 PM
Quote from: jp the roadgeek on December 19, 2017, 03:39:13 PM
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.

In New Britain with systems prior to Comcast, channel 3 was on cable channel 2. This was due to something called ingress. Signal leakage from channel 3 was even more prevalent on cable channel 3 if you had poor quality connections. Channel 30 was on 4. Channel 61 was on 6. Channel 24 was on 7. Channel 8 of New Haven was always on channel 8, since New Britain was far enough away from Hamden (site of channel 8's transmitter). Moving on, channel 59 was on 9, channel 26 New London was on 10. Channel 20 was on 11. Channel 57 (PBS) of Springfield, MA was on 12. Channel 13 was for the low-power Telemundo station channel 13 of Hartford (I think it was last on channel 50). Channel 18 was on 18, but was added after they came back on as a Univision affiliate.

We used to get channel 9 of Secaucus/New York City, channel 11 of NYC and channel 38 of Boston. SYNDEX more or less forced channel 11 off our lineup on July 1, 1990. It was replaced that morning by in-market channel 26 of New London (IND then, ION now). Channel 9 more or less became their EMI-Eastern Microwave station. Channel 38 Boston was dropped last, likely at the end of the 1990s.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: ftballfan on January 28, 2018, 10:39:15 PM
Quote from: KEVIN_224 on January 28, 2018, 07:43:09 PM
Quote from: jp the roadgeek on December 19, 2017, 03:39:13 PM
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.

In New Britain with systems prior to Comcast, channel 3 was on cable channel 2. This was due to something called ingress. Signal leakage from channel 3 was even more prevalent on cable channel 3 if you had poor quality connections. Channel 30 was on 4. Channel 61 was on 6. Channel 24 was on 7. Channel 8 of New Haven was always on channel 8, since New Britain was far enough away from Hamden (site of channel 8's transmitter). Moving on, channel 59 was on 9, channel 26 New London was on 10. Channel 20 was on 11. Channel 57 (PBS) of Springfield, MA was on 12. Channel 13 was for the low-power Telemundo station channel 13 of Hartford (I think it was last on channel 50). Channel 18 was on 18, but was added after they came back on as a Univision affiliate.

We used to get channel 9 of Secaucus/New York City, channel 11 of NYC and channel 38 of Boston. SYNDEX more or less forced channel 11 off our lineup on July 1, 1990. It was replaced that morning by in-market channel 26 of New London (IND then, ION now). Channel 9 more or less became their EMI-Eastern Microwave station. Channel 38 Boston was dropped last, likely at the end of the 1990s.
I'm guessing 38 hung on as long as it did for one reason only: Red Sox baseball. Did a station in Hartford pick up the Yankees since they were on 11 in NYC?
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: jp the roadgeek on January 29, 2018, 12:07:55 AM
Quote from: ftballfan on January 28, 2018, 10:39:15 PM
Quote from: KEVIN_224 on January 28, 2018, 07:43:09 PM
Quote from: jp the roadgeek on December 19, 2017, 03:39:13 PM
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.

In New Britain with systems prior to Comcast, channel 3 was on cable channel 2. This was due to something called ingress. Signal leakage from channel 3 was even more prevalent on cable channel 3 if you had poor quality connections. Channel 30 was on 4. Channel 61 was on 6. Channel 24 was on 7. Channel 8 of New Haven was always on channel 8, since New Britain was far enough away from Hamden (site of channel 8's transmitter). Moving on, channel 59 was on 9, channel 26 New London was on 10. Channel 20 was on 11. Channel 57 (PBS) of Springfield, MA was on 12. Channel 13 was for the low-power Telemundo station channel 13 of Hartford (I think it was last on channel 50). Channel 18 was on 18, but was added after they came back on as a Univision affiliate.

We used to get channel 9 of Secaucus/New York City, channel 11 of NYC and channel 38 of Boston. SYNDEX more or less forced channel 11 off our lineup on July 1, 1990. It was replaced that morning by in-market channel 26 of New London (IND then, ION now). Channel 9 more or less became their EMI-Eastern Microwave station. Channel 38 Boston was dropped last, likely at the end of the 1990s.
I'm guessing 38 hung on as long as it did for one reason only: Red Sox baseball. Did a station in Hartford pick up the Yankees since they were on 11 in NYC?

WCTX carries the OTA Yankees games, while WCCT carries OTA Mets games.  WSBK was dropped by all cable systems when they lost the Red Sox contract, much as most cable systems north of New Haven dropped MSG for YES upon the Yankees creating their own network.  The only NY teams that garner significant interest in the 50/50 Boston/New York Greater Hartford area are the Yankees and Giants, who are on equal footing with the Red Sox and Pats.   The Celtics get more interest than the Knicks and Nets, and the Bruins get a little more interest than the Rangers and a lot more interest than the Islanders and Devils.  The Mets are a distant third in baseball, and the Jets fan base in the area is about equal to those of the Cowboys, Steelers, and Packers (I know more Steelers fans than Jets fans).

The funny thing is that when WWOR went to Eastern Microwave, Dimension (now Cox) kept the local WWOR feed while TCI (now Comcast/XFinity) went with EM.  I'm surprised that WGBY out of Springfield is so widely available in CT nearly 25-30 years after all cable systems dropped WWLP and WGGB (the latter is only available in the Enfield area), plus we already have CPTV.  Amazingly, WCBS, WNBC, and WABC are still available as far north as Wallingford, while Waterbury has WNBC, WABC, WWOR, and WPIX. 
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: ftballfan on January 29, 2018, 01:12:25 PM
Quote from: jp the roadgeek on January 29, 2018, 12:07:55 AM
The funny thing is that when WWOR went to Eastern Microwave, Dimension (now Cox) kept the local WWOR feed while TCI (now Comcast/XFinity) went with EM.  I'm surprised that WGBY out of Springfield is so widely available in CT nearly 25-30 years after all cable systems dropped WWLP and WGGB (the latter is only available in the Enfield area), plus we already have CPTV.  Amazingly, WCBS, WNBC, and WABC are still available as far north as Wallingford, while Waterbury has WNBC, WABC, WWOR, and WPIX. 

Two reasons why WGBY is still seen in CT:
1. Syndex doesn't apply to PBS members
2. PBS members can and do have varied programming, especially during prime time.

Also, WNET is carried in Wallingford. I think the New Haven area does have a sizable portion of NYC commuters, hence the availability of NYC stations there.

Speaking of Enfield, they have WGBH from Boston (!) but no WWLP which is based right across the state line. It seems like most if not all cable companies in CT carry at least one of WGBH, WGBY, WNET, or WSBE in addition to WEDH.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: hockeyjohn on January 29, 2018, 02:03:09 PM
I would have enjoyed getting WKBD-50 out of Detroit when it was an independent station to see the Tigers/Wings and CBET-9, Windsor, to see HNIC down here in Indiana.   Both of these were staples throughout the State of Michigan for a long time.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: KEVIN_224 on January 29, 2018, 10:46:45 PM
@ FTBALLFAN: No channel 22 carried in Enfield, CT? Strange! When I stayed a night once in Springfield, the cable carried channel 20 and 30 from Hartford/New Haven. I think the Sheraton was using Comcast. Not 100% sure.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: RobbieL2415 on January 29, 2018, 11:17:18 PM
In my childhood, we're talking 1998 onward, we had TBS and WGN. I believe early on they were still true superstations just simulcasting their main programming feed on a satellite uplink.  Never had any NYC stations except for when Yankees and Mets games are locally broadcast in NYC and picked up on WCTX and WCCT via local marketing agreements.

The New Haven/Hartford market used to include Springfield until 1997 or so, with an overlapping market existing for the Pioneer Valley which still exists to this day.  I've never had a cable provider give us any out of market stations except WGBY and WNET.  New England has some weird market overlaps.  In southern Vermont cable systems will provide stations from Boston, Springfield and Albany. Cape Cod and the Islands gets Boston and Providence stations.  Thus you end up with two or three affiliates for the same network, each with different syndication schedules and all showing identical network programming.  It's a mess.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: 1995hoo on January 30, 2018, 08:43:22 AM
Quote from: hbelkins on December 23, 2017, 09:29:10 PM
Quote from: bandit957 on December 23, 2017, 08:34:35 PM
In the mid-'90s, I saw a small article in the newspaper that said Ohio had just banned backyard satellite dishes. The cable TV industry had lobbied for this law.

I can't imagine that even being legal. Even now, federal law requires that dishes have to be installed in apartment buildings or other rental properties if the tenant desires. The building owner can't prevent a dish from being installed.

....

It's not quite that simple. I looked into this issue some years back before my wife and I got married because she lived in a rented 18th-floor condo. As a general matter you're correct that the state can't simply "ban" satellite dishes altogether. There's a federal regulation that protects the homeowner's ("owner" being important) right to use a satellite dish of up to one meter in diameter, and/or an outdoor antenna, and the federal regulation preempts state or local law and HOA regulations. (The diameter provision means they can regulate Big Ugly Dishes much more strictly than DBS-type dishes.) The state or local government and HOA can designate preferred locations for the dish (such as around the back where you can't see it from the street), but if the homeowner can't get adequate reception with it there, he's entitled to move the dish elsewhere after giving notice and conferring with them on a new location. (The intent there is to protect the homeowner's TV reception while also protecting denser urban and suburban communities from ugly things like people sticking satellite dishes on poles in the front yard.)

The "owner" part is important. If you rent your house to someone, you can specify "no satellite dish" in the lease and the tenant is stuck with it, this because it is the owner's prerogative, not the tenant's, to determine what sort of things may be done with or on the property. More relevant to most people is that someone living in a building like an apartment building or condo is only entitled to mount a dish in places fully under his control, and the building management is allowed to prohibit things like drilling through the wall to run a wire. So, for example, my wife could not have had a dish hanging from her balcony, nor could she have had a dish mounted to an exterior building wall, because her complex prohibited objects protruding beyond the balcony railing and prohibited drilling through walls. The building also need not allow you access to the roof to stick a dish up there (practical reasons why places don't allow that are kind of obvious). What you could do, if your unit faced the correct direction, would be to put a dish in some kind of heavy planter, make sure no part protrudes beyond the balcony or patio railing, and then run the wire through an open door or window or perhaps through a hole in a screen.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: KEVIN_224 on January 30, 2018, 09:20:34 AM
Quote from: RobbieL2415 on January 29, 2018, 11:17:18 PM
The Hartford/New Haven market used to include Springfield until 1997 or so, with an overlapping market existing for the Pioneer Valley which still exists to this day.  I've never had a cable provider give us any out of market stations except WGBY and WNET.  New England has some weird market overlaps.  In southern Vermont cable systems will provide stations from Boston, Springfield and Albany. Cape Cod and the Islands gets Boston and Providence stations.  Thus you end up with two or three affiliates for the same network, each with different syndication schedules and all showing identical network programming.  It's a mess.

Brattleboro, VT is in Windham County. It's the northwest fringe of the Boston/Worcester DMA, likely due to viewership patterns. I personally think they should be part of the Burlington/Plattsburgh (NY) DMA, since Montpelier is the capitol there, not Boston. Brattleboro is usually paired with Keene, Cheshire County, NH (about 15 miles to the east) for radio purposes. Cheshire County, NH is also in the Boston/Worcester DMA and is home to WEKW-TV (PBS) channel 52. Go one county west and you have Bennington County, VT. That's in the Albany/Schenectady, NY DMA. Last I checked, Comcast (formerly Adelphia) in Brattleboro carried WCAX-TV channel 3 (CBS) from Burlington. I think they also carried WCDC-TV (ABC) channel 19 from Adams, Berkshire County, MA.

As for the Springfield/Holyoke, MA DMA, it's always been Hampden, Hampshire and Franklin Counties, MA (i.e. Springfield/Holyoke, Northampton and Greenfield, respectively). They imported CBS and FOX from Hartford for years until "CBS 3" and "FOX 6" came along. "CBS 3" is a low-power digital station while "FOX 6" is actually WGGB-TV channel 40-2 of Springfield.

As far as I know, WNET-TV was never carried in New Britain. Channel 5 may been carried years ago in their days as independent WNEW-TV. Channel 9 and 11 were definitely carried here. So was channel 38 from Boston. WGBY-TV (PBS) channel 57 was the only Springfield/Holyoke market station I ever saw here.
Title: Re: Out of town stations that you used to see on cable
Post by: Sctvhound on January 31, 2018, 01:54:16 AM
Emporia, VA, at least 5 years ago, got all the major Richmond and Hampton Roads TV stations on their cable. Back in the old days before the internet, I'm sure there were some TV executives who traveled to towns that had cable systems with two or more sets of network affiliates to recruit for talent.