Quote:
Originally Posted by tubesrule
Not sure what you meant as Detroit got it's network stations in 1947 and 1948 on channels 2, 4 and 7 where they remain to this day. (although none of them are going back to these after the transition)
Darryl
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I simply meant that channels 4 and 9 in Cleveland, which had gone on the air in 1948 and 1949, had to move to channels 3 and 8, respectively, when Detroit's channel 4 and Windsor, Ontario's channel 9 went on the air. Cleveland's original three network stations remain on 3, 5 and 8, except that CBS moved to channel 19 in the early 1990s when channel 8, a CBS affiliate for over 40 years, was sold to FOX.
I don't know what channels any of these stations will be on after 02.17.09, although it shouldn't affect anyone on cable; that is, if you have stations on channels 3, 5 and 8 as we do here in northeastern Ohio (for example), these channels will be on the same positions on your TV tuner after the transition if you connect your cable directly to your TV or through your VCR. The only difference may show up when converter boxes are used with analog sets and over-the-air antennas; these boxes may show the actual digital channel positions (3.1, 5.2, 8.3, etc., using my examples for Cleveland's channels 3, 5 and 8) rather than whole one- or two-digit numbers.
BTW: There is some question, however, as to the branding of TV newscasts after the transition; after all, the stations in this area (or any place else, for that matter) won't be able to use (using the Cleveland stations as examples) "Channel 3 News", "News Channel 5", "Fox 8 News" and "Nineteen Action News", because the TV stations themselves will be on different channel numbers. Channel three in Cleveland, for example, will be on channel 2; channel five may be on a UHF channel; eight may also be on UHF; the same with 19 and the other four stations in our area (for PBS, MyTV, The CW and Univision--25, 43, 55 and 61, respectively). I think what may happen with those stations is they may wind up on fractional channel numbers such as 25.1, 36.7, and so on. Again, all this will be completely transparent to viewers using analog TVs with cable; they should get all Cleveland television stations on their usual channel positions, just as they always have.
I think what may happen as far as station branding goes once the transition is complete is that the TV stations just will not use channel numbers anymore. Channel three in Cleveland has already taken a step in that direction, eliminating "Channel 3 News" completely from the opening sequence for its newscasts; today, the station shows an animated NBC peacock, under which is shown the station's call sign, in lower-case letters, with -hd appended to it. The other three news programs, however, still open with their standard branding: News Channel 5, FOX 8 News, Nineteen Action News. What will change on this front after the transition, however, is anyone's guess. I don't even want to so much as hazard a guess right now as to what the local news will look like after everything goes digital in just over a month from today.