WB/UPN cw transition screws many Analog users, including Grand Rapids

I'm glad there is nothing on my network TV that I want to
watch because we have no outlet here. Our local UPN station
is going independent. The WB is becoming CW.

So unles our cable system either picks it up on on demand, or
picks up a "my network" superstation, when we won't have that
network here.

This is in Boston, the nearest outlet for my network TV is
Connecticut.

Last I heard the only thing on My Network TV was some
evening soap operas.

David Levy...

The Fox-owned WFXT (channel 25) intends to carry them.

David Levy...

Barnabas Collins replied:

Barnabas Collins...

And how will they do that? What happens to the regular fox
shows that are on 25?

David Levy...

The MyNetworkTV programming will air outside of prime time.

Jim Reid...

The My Network station in Dallas is the Rangers and Stars station. On
game nights, my network stuff will air after the game.

Anim8rFSK...

Our MyNetwork station wouldn't run their UPN programming like Vernonica
Mars 'til 2am on game nights, if at all. Sometimest they'd move VM to
the weekend. All of it unscheduled of course. I can't begin to imagine
what a mess they're going to have now.

Grand Rapids Michigan currently has 3 UPN or WB stations. But now
UPN/WB are merging into the new CW network, and persons with old analog
tvs are getting left out of the mix:

WOLP-UPN becomes independent
WXSP-UPN becomes WXSP-mynetworktv
WZPX-WB/i becomes WZPX-i

Where's the UPN/WB aka CW network? It's been put onto a cbs
sub-channel 3.2 where only digital owners can watch it, so we analog
users are out-of-luck. I don't understand why they could not leave the
CW on the old WB channel. :-( I wonder how much a digital tuner
costs?

Alan Figgatt...

The list price on the Samsung SIR-T451 ATSC digital receiver is still
$249. However, there are older STBs from DirecTV and Voom which have
built-in ATSC tuners on Ebay. You must be sure to get a box which has
been activated so the ATSC part of it works. Your other option is to buy
an HDTV which has the ATSC tuner built-in. All TVs larger than 25" must
now have ATSC tuners built-in as mandated by the FCC. By March 1, 2007,
all TVS down to 13" must have ATSC tuners, if they are to be sold as a "TV".

I can get 17 digital stations over the air, 13 of them with a HD
sub-channel (two stations for ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, PBS, WB, one for UPN),
with a Samsung ATSC receiver from where I live in Northern Virigina, so
there are a fair number of TV stations now at full power on the digital
broadcast.

To me, the biggest drawback of putting CW on a x.2 subchannel is the
viewers in that area will not be able to get CW network in HD. The CBS

Jorabi...

Not necessarily. The HD channel does not have to be the x.1 carrier.
My local PBS station uses x.1 for SD and x.2 for HD. I think HD
can be any of the three.

Alan Figgatt...

They can put the HD sub-channel where ever they want up to a x.6
sub-channel that most ATSC receivers are limited to. But they can not
put two HD sub-channels into a 19.3 mb/sec ATSC channel bandwidth. The
OP was discussing his local CBS station which will providing the CW
network on a digital sub-channel. The CBS station will giving priority
to CBS so provided they are providing an HD signal, CBS will be in HD
and CW will get stuck with a compressed SD sub-channel.

In general, there is a still a very good picture quality for the HD
sub-channel if there is no more than 1 SD sub-channel. Add any more SD
sub-channels such as weather, local news, or even infomercials,
bandwidth is taken away from the HD sub-channel and overall picture
quality is degraded. The more SD sub-channels, the worse the picture
quality is for all the sub-channels. They all have to fit into the 19.3
mb/sec bandwidth for one ATSC 8-VSB encoded 6 MHz VHF or UHF channel.

Alan F

broadcast will be HD on the x.1 channel, the x.2 subchannel will be
heavily compressed SD. If they have x.3 sub-channel for weather, the HD

videonovels...

Since I'm an analog user, it's *all* SD to me.

Since I can't get CW's 3.2 sub-channel, I'm just going to ask my
parents to tape their analog station back in Lancaster PA. Then I can
review smallville/veronica mars at some later date.

.

and SD picture quality for all the sub-channels will suffer. If I lived
in Grand Rapids, I might just forget about watching the CW network and
maybe wait for the DVD season set to come out the following year for any
shows I wanted to watch. Once you start watching shows in HD, you don't
watch the SD channels very much.

With the independent stations, I'm surprised CW could not come to an
agreement for one of the them to become a CW station. Perhaps the
station owners are holding out for better terms.

videonovels...

The UPN stations are owned by Fox who wants its own network (mynetwork)
to be broadcast. I don't know who owns the WB/i station. Perhaps CW
did not want to share space with the i? (shrug)

It does suck for us analog-only users to lose access to our favorite
upn/wb shows.

Alan F

Barry Margolin...

I don't know why this happened to Grand Rapids, but I think it's a
pretty rare exception. In most of the country, a former WB or UPN
affiliate will be the CW affiliate. It seems really strange that you
had 3 affiliates and none of them alligned with CW.

I don't really want to spend that much money for only 2-3 good shows,
so maybe I'll ask my parents back home in Lancaster PA to record the
WB/UPN shows for me. They're have the exact opposite situation....
they don't get Mynetwork (digital only) but they do get the new CW.

.

I wonder how coverage figures are calculated? Are digital-only
stations counted as "covering" a City even if they are NOT available to
the ~70% of users who do not have digital television?

Anyone else in a similar situation with the new networks only available
on digital tv?

Barnabas Collins...

My understading is at some point they will have a converter box
so that those with older non-hdtv equipment can view tv channels.
I'm not sure when these come out or if they are are out but
that is the plan for when regular TV goes dark in 2009.