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A sad loss for the Toledo TV market

E

edward1978

I just recently heard that WT05 which had been the WB and CW affiliate and the only cable only channel to have commercial and network programming for a market has ceased back on September 1st. It's CW affiliation and it's syndicated programming have all been taken over by WTVG 13 on their 13.2 subchannel. I have considered WT05 to be a very unique commercial channel because it was a cable only channel that was like a full powered broadcast station. Having first run syndicated shows, animated syndicated shows, all the qualities of a Fox, WB, UPN, CW, MNTV, and independent channel. The Toledo TV market really had been something special about having the only cable only station to have the qualities of your Fox or independent station. So what caused the demise of WT05 and how could it have been saved? What a loss for the Toledo TV market.
 
That's the state of digital television nowadays. Where the WB had been available on cable only, those cities now have it over the air on the subcarrier of another OTA station. Macon GA and Panama City FL are other examples of this happening. The CW is now on the subcarrier of WMAZ (CBS) in Macon and in Panama City it's on the subcarrier of WJHG (NBC).

My Network TV has lost affiliation in two cities in this region, Columbus GA and Montgomery AL. As it's not classified as a "television service" as opposed to a network, this may or may not figure.
 
Simple fact is that The WB was content with cable-only stations because that was the best situation at the time they launched. The CW came in during the digital age and made it clear that they'd rather deal with digital OTA carriage than having to deal with cable-only affiliations. Until WTVG was sold to Gray, a CW OTA station was a no-go as WTVG had a covenant with their former owners at ABC to maintain the status quo, including the Live Well Network, until Disney pulled the plug; open slot, and WTVG already controlled WT05's programming inventory, so it was the time to move. The WTOL/WUPW duopoly had commitments to Raycom's Bounce and Me deals, WNWO is a Superfund site Sinclair is only beginning to fix (Retro on DT2 in 2014 and a seven-month hiatus from WT05's cable system...need I say more), and the market's MyNet affiliate is a low-power hobby station which is running on auto-pilot but barely functional. The only other option in the market was WLMB, a religious broadcaster that will never convert to a commercial network.

Also, WKBD in Detroit has some reach in Toledo, so there wasn't a rush to end WT05. Basically Toledo for years was able to keep a 2000 TV market setup due to lack of room, and once WTVG got sold they found the opening to move the CW from cable to OTA.
 
What so sad about losing a TV station because not very many people watched it? It might be slightly unfortunate, but "sad"? It's a TV station!
 
The channel still lives on, instead being on cable-only, it's now on a digital subchannel that has more availability. Toledo 5 served its purpose giving the area at least something somewhat local, providing programming that mostly otherwise would be piped-in from another market (with Detroit being closest neighboring market). The channel was pretty unique in that it was one of first and few locally-operated cable channels of its kind.
 
The CW affiliates in both the Traverse City and Alpena TV markets are still cable-only. For a short period, CW+ was on WGTU-DT2 in Traverse City, but that was dropped when Barrington LMA'd WGTU and moved them in with WPBN, resulting in WPBN going on WGTU-DT2. Until recently, Ludington and Big Rapids (both in the southern portion of the Traverse City DMA) had no CW affiliate at all on cable. Now the cable-only one from TC is carried in those two communities (and on a lower channel than in the majority of the market!)
 
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