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QVC Over-The-Air

C

Caper the Fox

When i did a channel scan QVC popped up as a Digital Subchannel for WTXL but the channel is blank. so I'm confused lol

and since when did QVC became a over the air channel?
 
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I don't know when they started OTA, but its been on for some time in Philly,on 61.5.
 
I know you should never trust Wikipedia as a source, but in this case it's fact. In the QVC Wikipedia article it states that QVC and ION Media Networks launched a partnership in 2013 to launch QVC Over The Air. There are also some non ION station that carry QVC OTA. HSN also has a similar partnership with ION. QVC is on the .5 channel of the ION station and HSN is on the .6 channel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QVC (You have to scroll down)

Using my local ION station WHPX 26 I'll list their multi-cast network.

26.1 - Main ION Programming
26.2 - QUBO (Kids Programming)
26.3 - ION Life (Lifestyle Programming)
26.4 - ION Shop (Infomercials)
26.5 - QVC
26.6 - HSN

And while we're on the subject of ION, how many cable companies carry their QUBO service or their ION Life service? I know here in CT several of the Comcast and COX systems don't carry either.
 
I haven't seen either Qubo or Ion Life on any cable system. I guess they're depending on over-the-air viewers. ABC's Live Well, similar to Ion Life, was carried on many cable systems. I guess ABC O&Os have more clout, telling cable systems, if you want ABC programming, you gotta take Live Well too. I imagine Ion is just trying to make sure its main service is carried in all markets.

Some systems still carry Live Well, even though ABC is not producing any new programming for it and is now concentrating on "Laff," a classic TV and movie subchannel concentrating on comedies from the ABC library.
 
There was a time in the late 80s and early 90s when Channel 68 in Newark/NYC were owned by, and ran, the Home Shopping Network as an OTA TV channel.
 
TheBigA said:
There was a time in the late 80s and early 90s when Channel 68 in Newark/NYC were owned by, and ran, the Home Shopping Network as an OTA TV channel.
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Yeah. I remember because I used to be able to pick up their Smithtown, Long Island sister station on Channel 67 sometimes up in Bristol, Connecticut. (I also could sometimes get Channel 55 from Riverhead as well).

Channel 68/67 ran HSN 2 which was called Home Shopping Club. So did Channel 20 in Waterbury, CT (and before that Channel 18 in Hartford). When HSN discontinued HSN 2 Channel 68/67 switched to the main HSN Channel while Channel 20 switch to Home Shopping Spree. Home Shopping Spree later became America's Store and was discontinued. They revived it as HSN 2 a few years back.
 
I've often heard folks say "No one tunes in for the commercials," but these networks are basically 24/7 commercials, and they obviously get their share of viewers, and those viewers spend money, which keeps those channels on the air.
 
MarcB said:
TheBigA said:
There was a time in the late 80s and early 90s when Channel 68 in Newark/NYC were owned by, and ran, the Home Shopping Network as an OTA TV channel.
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Yeah. I remember because I used to be able to pick up their Smithtown, Long Island sister station on Channel 67 sometimes up in Bristol, Connecticut. (I also could sometimes get Channel 55 from Riverhead as well).

Channel 68/67 ran HSN 2 which was called Home Shopping Club. So did Channel 20 in Waterbury, CT (and before that Channel 18 in Hartford). When HSN discontinued HSN 2 Channel 68/67 switched to the main HSN Channel while Channel 20 switch to Home Shopping Spree. Home Shopping Spree later became America's Store and was discontinued. They revived it as HSN 2 a few years back.
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We got HSC here in L.A. over-the-air via channel 46 and HSS via channel 62. 46 was part of Barry Diller's ill-fated Silver King Network concept and was eventually sold to Univision to launch TeleFutura (now UniMas). 62 was using home shopping as a placeholder while they shopped around (pun intended) for someone to sell the station to, which they ultimately found in Liberman, which ran it as a local Spanish-language station for several years before launching their Estrella TV network.

Meanwhile, the cable system I was on at the time -- United Artists -- had both UHFs on its lineup due to the must-carry rules then in effect and HSN on a third channel. What's interesting is that I bought something from them at one point during that time and they asked where I watched them. I told them it was channel 62 (which it was) but via cable; they insisted on knowing which cable system because "they get the sales credit, not the UHF station." So much for the benefits of must-carry as a home shopping channel.

Of course, these days, the home shopping services are only on full-power stations via one of the sub-channels. Lots of LPTVs running them, though. And cable is still the primary market for them.
 
Gregg. said:
I haven't seen either Qubo or Ion Life on any cable system. I guess they're depending on over-the-air viewers. ABC's Live Well, similar to Ion Life, was carried on many cable systems. I guess ABC O&Os have more clout, telling cable systems, if you want ABC programming, you gotta take Live Well too. I imagine Ion is just trying to make sure its main service is carried in all markets.

Some systems still carry Live Well, even though ABC is not producing any new programming for it and is now concentrating on "Laff," a classic TV and movie subchannel concentrating on comedies from the ABC library.
Click to expand...

FiOS Philly has both; QUBO on 491, ION Life on 492.
 
QVC had been on and off the air in Vancouver/Portland via UHF NTSC translators since probably the mid 1990s, along with Home Shopping Club and Valuevision. The KPXG mux has carried QVC and HSC continuously for about the last 3-4 years.
 
umfan said:
Don't these QVC OTA Stations still have to air the mandatory E/I content hours?
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It's not the networks that are required to air the E/I content, but the local station. The E/I shows can air on any or all of the stations sub-channels, since the FCC considers them the same station. On the ION owned that have QVC and HSN. The e/i programing that Qubo and the main ION (maybe Ion Life also) more than covers the required hours. Though the more sub-channels a station has, the more E/I contnet they have to air
 
So a sub-channel doesn't need to air E/I content if the main (.1) channel does? I thought each sub-channel had to provide a certain number of hours. I wasn't implying that QVC needed to produce the content, but the stations that rebroadcast it would need to air it to comply with their license requirements.
 
It's 3 hours of E/I content per week per channel on the multiplexer. The .1 channel is mandated to carry at least 3 hours per week, but if it carries let's say, 6 hours per week, then the .2 channel is not mandated to show any.
 
The primary channel must air three hours of E/I for itself.

Subchannels can either be covered by running three hours each on each one, by running an additional three hours per subchannel on the primary channel (I think), or by doing what ION does, and putting all of the E/I for all of the subchannels on one, in this case, Qubo. Because of the above, Qubo can't make the E/I for the main channel go away, but it does satisfy the requirements for all of the other subchannels ION carries.

- Trip
 
tripinva said:
The primary channel must air three hours of E/I for itself.

Subchannels can either be covered by running three hours each on each one, by running an additional three hours per subchannel on the primary channel (I think), or by doing what ION does, and putting all of the E/I for all of the subchannels on one, in this case, Qubo. Because of the above, Qubo can't make the E/I for the main channel go away, but it does satisfy the requirements for all of the other subchannels ION carries.
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To take ION's Los Angeles station KPXN/30 as an example ... 30.1 airs its E/I block on Sunday mornings from 9:00am to noon (well within the times specified by the FCC as valid for E/I).

They have six subchannels in total: 30.2 is Qubo, which (to confirm what Trip said) has such a high percentage of content which can be labeled E/I that it more than covers the entire rest of KPXN's requirements (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qubo#Programming). 30.3 is ION Life, and 30.4 through 30.6 are ION Shop, QVC and HSN. Those four subchannels have no E/I programming whatsoever.
 
Gregg. said:
I haven't seen either Qubo or Ion Life on any cable system. I guess they're depending on over-the-air viewers. ABC's Live Well, similar to Ion Life, was carried on many cable systems. I guess ABC O&Os have more clout, telling cable systems, if you want ABC programming, you gotta take Live Well too. I imagine Ion is just trying to make sure its main service is carried in all markets.

Some systems still carry Live Well, even though ABC is not producing any new programming for it and is now concentrating on "Laff," a classic TV and movie subchannel concentrating on comedies from the ABC library.
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Big 4 stations and their sub channels are the biggest priority for cable systems. In the large markets, the Spanish language stations and their sub channels also have that priority too.

The difference between Live Well and Ion Life is that Live Well is more recent, original programming, while Ion Life is at least a decade old and is full of Canadian shows that once aired on HGTV.

Remember Candice Olsen? Steve and Chris (now on Live Well) looked much different when they were younger. It's nice to go back down memory lane but the late '00s are almost a decade ago. Styles change rapidly, especially in home decorating. You can tell that the program is dated from the colors and the fixtures. Before you know it, it will be 2019!

Luckily my local ABC station is O&O KTRK, so I am one of the few Americans left still with access to Live Well. I cut the cord and was able to replace my mom's HGTV and Food Network habit with primarily Live Well and PBS' Saturday morning block of Martha and America's Test Kitchen/Cooks Country. Hopefully ABC will relaunch Live Well; it was way ahead of its time, but just at the right time as it's not too late to rescue. (Just wish KHOU was an O&O so I can watch Decades!!!)
 
In Sacramento we now have THREE broadcast stations carrying QVC- KSPX channel 29 (ion) plus KBTV channel 8 which is a class A low-power station and a new station channel 43 that just went on the air that is low-power and only comes in sporadically. Of these, NONE of them have the signal properly flagged for 16x9, instead displaying a squeezed 4x3 picture. While the primary audience for QVC is likely the idiots who don't know how to properly set their TVs for 4x3 anyways, it sure makes the people running these stations look like they don't know what they're doing. Meanwhile KBTV also carries HSN 2 in a standard-def 4x3 letterboxed feed, which is then flagged to stretch to 16x9!
 
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