Are you keeping locals through satellite?
Misc. Pennsylvania: Over the past few days, I have decided to no longer pay an extra 5 dollars a month with Dish for local Erie stations I can get very well off the antenna for free. With the antenna in my area near Cochranton, I can get several digital stations from Erie, Youngstown and Pittsburgh. I know to some this may sound old fashioned and not worth the effort but how can you pay for local digital stations that come in just as clear if not clearer over the air. The late Jack Tirak definitely had a point here and I wish he could see the clarity he pushed for on his former Erie Media Go Round blog. Of course, over the air reception issues may not favor this for some readers but are you leaning towards or are no longer paying for locals through Dish or Directv? (for our Youngstown readers who have locals on both.) We'd like to know that or are you satisfied with exclusive digital OTA reception if you do not have cable or satellite.Readers’ Forum
If you do not subscribe to the local package, you will not get guide data, which makes using the dish DVR a little harder to use. Instead of just clicking on the grid to record a show, you will have to set up a timer the old fashion way, telling it what time and channel to record. Then, you will have to go back and figure out in your list of recorded shows what is what, since they all have the same name.
Stephen - May 04, 2009 at 11:28 am
I actually have a separate DVD recorder with a hard drive and set things the old fashioned way with either the satellite or OTA programs. Depending on the particular channel, you can still get program information over the air. I can usually scan through the recorded programs and figure out what it is. I guess I’m frugal in some ways.
Tom Lavery (URL) - May 04, 2009 at 1:27 pm
We have Comcast so it’s a moot point with us, but there are some areas that paying for locals are a necessity. Not so much in Cochranton where you are at Tom since it is relatively flat, but my dad lives ten minutes from Downtown Wheeling and he can’t get even WTRF over-the-air in digital because of him living in a valley (aka Barton, Ohio) in between several hills around St. Clairsville and Bridgeport. (Needless to say, he can’t get the slightly-further away WTOV in either.) The cable companies down there are outdated (Comcast does service Bridgeport and St. Clairsville, but most of the rural areas either don’t have cable or have the outdated-in-the-1980’s Powhatan Pointe.), so satellite is a necessity. Too bad in Belmont County WTRF will not sign a waiver to have the O&O’s of CBS & NBC from New York & LA air there, thereby blocking WTOV from signing a waiver as well despite the fact that they are more than willing to sign one.
As for here in New Castle where despite having Comcast I do maintain one TV for strictly over-the-air digital, the Youngstown stations come in fine on digital except for WYTV, and they will likely come in better once their power finally increases. Here you could probably get away with watching the locals over-the-air without paying for locals on satellite. I just don’t understand why satellite companies aren’t required to follow the FCC’s “must carry” rules that the cable companies have to follow for local stations.
I just wonder if that carbon tax bill passes if more people will go back to watching over-the-air TV. The good news is that it has strong bipartisan opposition, but if it did our utilities would shoot up sky high, even more so than they are already. Pay TV would certainly be the first to go.
Oh, and BTW Tom, there is a comment pending on the WSEE/WICU sharing studios page that has been pending for a week now. You might want to check it out. This last paragraph doesn’t need posted, of course.
Joe Gerard (URL) - May 04, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Joe – Sorry about that but our comments section only allows us to read the first part of an article. I checked out the comment waiting to be approved on the WSEE / WICU merger and could not find any info & that was a few days ago. It might have been a spam post for male enhancement or others that we delete on a regular basis.
Tom Lavery (URL) - May 04, 2009 at 3:38 pm
I cheat here, because I can watch cable at my mother-in-law’s house and satellite in The Daily News newsroom, but at home I use rabbit ears for both living room and bedroom TVs. Pickup consists of KDKA, WTAE with its weather channel, WPXI with RTN, the three WQEDs, WQEX and, in a truly strange situation, two apiece of WPMY, WPCB and WPGH. At least the two Sinclair stations, WPMY and WPGH, offer SD on one channel and what appears to be HD on the other, but WPCB-1 and WPCB-2, at least for now, are the same feed. Also, I wonder why KDKA has never exercised use of a DT2 to get WPCW on digital until it can take Channel 11 come June 12. Sadly, I lost WWCP and WATM, WWCP’s DT2, when that combo switched off analog and, so far, I can’t get anyone else from out of town, though my wife’s aunt was able to get WJAC, WWCP and WKBN on her TV with an outside aerial in the Kiski Valley (the last time I saw all that was before the analogs started switching off).
Pat Cloonan (URL) - May 05, 2009 at 07:49 am
Pat – From what I have heard, CBS O&O stations are not allowed to add sub channels. Thus KDKA cannot add WPCW though it would have been a good idea and I could have watched the Nightly Sports Talk show they carry after the 10pm news. WNEO in Alliance (Youngstown) is also simulcasting (PBS) on 45-1 and 45-2. Meanwhile WQLN has 3 channels with regular programming on 54-1, Create on 54-2 and a west coast PBS feed on 54-3. Your wife will have WKBN’s analog signal until June 12th when all of Youngstown’s commercial analog stations shut off. WNEO already did last November. I’d like to see less duplication on stations with one sub channel. Bring some variety with the sub channel networks now available.
Tom Lavery (URL) - May 05, 2009 at 11:49 am
That is puzzling why CBS won’t let its O&O’s to have subchannels. NBC is taking full advantage of it, as is ABC to a lesser extent. Meh, the digital transition is (hopefully) only a month away at this point.
Joe Gerard (URL) - May 05, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Nothing puzzling about it. CBS is quality over quantity. Their O&Os have some of the best looking HD picture qualities of any stations I’ve seen.
Trip Ericson (URL) - May 05, 2009 at 11:59 pm
Joe@5/4: Under federal law, DirecTV and Dish Network ARE required to follow DMA boundaries when providing local-in-local service. This means if you are in New Castle you’ll get Pittsburgh locals but not Youngstown locals.
Charles Everett - May 07, 2009 at 6:25 pm
Charles – I am well aware that despite the proximity of Youngstown to New Castle that New Castle is part of the Pittsburgh DMA, and my mom used to have Dish Network where she had to get Pittsburgh locals, which isn’t that big of a deal. We watch from both markets anyways. (We still have the dish sitting on the roof of our front porch.) New Castle is one of the few areas left that have an abundance of local channels from multiple markets on Comcast, as we have all Pittsburgh locals (due to “must-carry” rules), plus WFMJ, WKBN, WYTV, and WNEO from Youngstown, and until about a year ago WUAB from Cleveland. We don’t have WYFX on cable or any of the Youngstown subchannels.
What I’m saying is that satellite TV should be required to carry local channels AT NO EXTRA CHARGE, just like cable does, and if nothing else, have them automatically INCLUDED if you only have satellite hooked up and without paying the bill only get the preview and “how-to-use-the-satellite-box” channels. Of course, local cable channels like PCNC and FSN Pittsburgh, you would still have to pay the bill for, but if you didn’t you should be able to get the over-the-air locals alongside the preview channels.
As for over-the-air, there is no question that the Youngstown stations come in much better than Pittsburgh, which barely come in—if at all—in digital in the fireworks capital of America.
Joe Gerard (URL) - May 08, 2009 at 12:11 am