Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert Grant
My guess that the bankruptcy of Equity Media made it difficult for RTN to sign up new affiliates.
I also suspect that there is an unwritten dictate not to develop subchannels on commercial stations in the Cleveland market. Rob
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Why should Cleveland be any different from any other city in the country where DTV subchannels are concerned? Where is it written that Cleveland cannot have subchannel programming on its existing seven TV channels? I have lived in northeastern Ohio my entire life, and have never heard of any such statute.
IMHO, there should be no restrictions in Cleveland as to what subchannels can be piggybacked onto the city's existing stations' main signals. Cleveland should have the opportunity to have DTV subchannels if the stations agree to it and can afford it. The city has been made fun of and maligned far too much already in the last 40 years (and it continues to this day). Keeping its TV stations from having DTV subchannels when other cities, yes, including Detroit, has had them for some time, doesn't make sense to me.
I honestly don't know where you get your information. How do you know so much about Cleveland television, anyway, when you live in Michigan?
Did you live in the Cleveland/northeast Ohio area and/or work in TV in the area at one time?
The lack of RTN and other subchannels on Cleveland's commercial TV channels will, IMHO, just boost the sales of DVDs and DVD players in northeastern Ohio, as more viewers turn to DVDs to watch their favorite old classic shows. I am just about ready to downgrade my cable service to basic myself (I currently have Time Warner expanded basic cable), watching DVDs for other programming. As it is, I watch very little broadcast TV these days, instead watching DVDs of the old shows of the '70s I grew up with; in fact, I have a small collection of DVDs and VHS tapes of such programs as
Quincy,
Kojak,
The Odd Couple, and more (I am adding more DVDs from time to time as well). I don't think I would miss the extra channels in the expanded basic package at all.
I don't care for the idea, either, of the FCC toying with the idea of yet again pushing back the digital transition date, as I read in a blog on an industry website (Broadcasting and Cable) the other day. First it was 2006, now it's mid-February 2009 . . . what next? It almost makes me think that the FCC isn't that serious about the transition after all. IMHO, they just want to keep people well off balance about the issue, and give the news media more to gossip about.
However, the same blog that mentioned the FCC's plan to again delay the digital transition also mentioned that it is actually too late to do so now. Too much money has been invested in PSAs (public service announcements) and runners across the screen during network shows intended to educate the viewing public about DTV and the transition [including stressing the fact that analog TV will end for good on 02.17.09], too much work and expense has gone into equipping the nation's analog TV stations for digital (the stations' owners are probably facing huge electricity bills at this time because of having to power two high-power TV transmitters at the same time, antenna/tower/transmitter maintenance for two stations, et al.), and so forth. I sincerely hope the digital transition occurs on 02.17 so we can get this over with, once and for all.
Sheeeesh . . . Good grief.