A Question About A Cable TV Situation Involving 2 Channels?

[rch66]

How common is it for large cable operations (like Comcast) in a large market (like SFO or SAC) to pick up their signals OTA anyway? I don't subscribe to cable, but I would have thought that the signals were fed to the cable headends by some other means to ensure a reliable signal. If that's the case, then OTA interference isn't an issue.

Your answer is the best that I have received yet and I thank you. I don't know how a Cable Company picks up Non-Satellite Channels. At the local COMCAST, There is a Huge Tall Antenna with added Dishes on it. I assumed that the cable companies receive their Local and Long Distance TV Channels OTA using that large Tall Antenna but I maybe wrong? There was a time when All Cable Companies picked up TV Stations Hundreds Of Miles Away, like RENO, NEVADA and MEDFORD, OREGON. Both of those citeies at one time offered both KTXL-40 SACRAMENTO and KTVU-2 OAKLAND. My Cable System is one of the rare ones. While most of our TV Stations on COMCAST STOCKTON are from the SACRAMENTO REGION, we also are fortunate to get 6 Bay Area TV Stations which is about 80-85 miles away with Mountains separating us. Both Dish and Direct TV only offer the Local Sacramento TV Stations, Not the long distance Bay Area Ones. If you had neither one, You would need a very Tall Roof Antenna to pick up the Bay area TV Stations, but even then, only the VHF ones came in clear, The UHF ones had a little bit of snow. My Cable Company used to have more Bay Area TV Stations but lost half of them in 1993.

There are some stations that
-fiber feed their signals directly to the cable headend (likely a big 4 network), and
-other stations that simply install an antenna at the cable head-end so that the station can be picked up on the cable system (likely a smaller station that had to more or less push their way on the system).
-other stations that feed it to one point of presence where the major cable operator, that services an entire market, then internally feeds it to each system

1st. In lower Delaware/Salisbury MD (DelMarVA) DMA, there is no NBC affiliate. At one time there was no Fox affiliate. The Baltimore NBC station, Hearst Argyle owned, has been carried for over 20 years, and b/c the city of license of Baltimore is closest (as the crow flies) to Salisbury Seaford DE and most major towns in the DMA, over Philadelphia, Washington, WBAL (Hearst Argyle) has the NBC rights for the market. On the other hand, the Baltimore Fox station WBFF 45 (uhf) was never carried down there, where as WTTG and WTXF 29 had carriage, but Fox the network, granted WBOC (CBS) an affiliation so WBOC now runs Fox on a digital subchannel.

Verizon Fios then carries WBAL from Baltimore, exclusively for NBC, as well.
I'm quite sure Hearst Argyle is willing to pay all the fiber expenses (delivering the signal), so that they can retain primary NBC rights, rather than the NBC network signing up a new local station/digital subchannel rights.

2nd.
In Allentown there is a Christian oriented commercial station WBPH 60 (Ind.). Their digital signal is on VHF 9. However, WWOR 9 from NY is still transmitting on channel 9. So, for the time being WBPH-DT is running low power. WBPH can't afford to fiber feed their signal (they aren't running the more lucrative 24x7 infomercial lineup), so on a limited budget, they rely on setting up antennas at a few cable head-ends upon their must-carry request. When the digital transition is finished, they will increase power on VHF 9, and according to the engineer will buy WWOR's old transmitter, and then reach more cable systems and Philadelphia proper and via must-carry and setting up antennas, they'll be able to get on more cable lineups and DirecTV/Dish.

3rd.
Im not so sure of an example but, in Philly, I think WTVE-51 Reading, does this with Comcast. I also know Comcast SportsNet Philadelhpia, CN8 and other regional channels are redistributed through a network throughout the market, so the capability/technology exists rather than feeding a signal to each cable headend.

While Comcast now receives digital stations for the big 4 networks, there is still analog interference at cable systems near the "antenna farm" where all the broadcast signals are transmitted because Comcast still supports /delivers back analog cable. It's why Comcast Philadelphia still carries WPVI 6 on Channel 5, KYW 3 on Channel 2, etc.

 

[Madmansam]

Well, as everyone predicted, Nothing happened to those 2 Channels. In fact, last night, a COMCAST representitive called me and told me that the Bay Area TV Stations that they carry were switched to Digital on JANUARY 1 of this year. Also found out that kenrayc was right. COMCAST utilizes a MICROWAVE RELAY from a antenna on top of Mount Diablo. That is why you never see ghosting on any of the Long Distance Bay Area Channels.

 

[Bill_W]

There are some stations that
-fiber feed their signals directly to the cable headend (likely a big 4 network), and
-other stations that simply install an antenna at the cable head-end so that the station can be picked up on the cable system (likely a smaller station that had to more or less push their way on the system).
-other stations that feed it to one point of presence where the major cable operator, that services an entire market, then internally feeds it to each system

I was under the understanding that all 6 major network Philly TV stations are feeding at least Comcast via fiber. Is Philly a unique situation due to the way Comcast SportsNet and CN8 are fed through the Philly area? From what I understand, here in the Philly area, everything is fed into a super headend in New Castle Delaware and there is a double fiber loop around Philly, into NJ and all the local Comcast headends are looped into each other. There's been times when some of the local stations have gone off the air due to transmitter problems but, if you had Comcast, you would not have even known, since you are not watching your local TV stations over the air. I know that WPSG-TV was off the air for a long while. I think that they were even considering turning it off because of WPSG-DT. Even the mighty WPVI-TV was off the air one night.

 

[compubit]

IIRC, Philly is unique, in that Comcast is doing everything possible to keep Comcast Sports Net off of satellite distribution (where it would have to be offered to other providers - Dish, DirecTV - not sure about FIOS).

Jim