CBS Launches Dabl, a National Subchannel, Mostly Cooking and Lifestlyle Shows

[Gregg.]

All the CBS O&O TV stations now have Dabl ,which premiered on Sept. 9. In NYC, WCBS-TV is 2.1, Start TV is on 2.2 and now Dabl is on 2.3.

Dabl's schedule, at least for now, is mostly made up of old Martha Stewart and Emeril Lagasse cooking shows. There are also some home fix up shows, previously seen on HGTV. There are old CityLine shows from CITY-TV in Toronto, a lifestyle and fashion program. And some pet shows from Cesar Millan.

I saw the affiliate list on Wikipedia and it is impressive. Many places where there isn't a CBS O&O also have Dabl. Some large owners have committed to putting it on their digital line ups. It supposedly has coverage in 70% of the country.

So this is CBS's third digital channel, after the main programming plus Start TV, which replaced Decades last year on CBS O&Os. Remember when CBS engineers were reluctant to have a .2 subchannel, fearing it would reduce the quality of the main channel? NBC, ABC and Fox O&Os all had subchannels well before CBS. Now CBS O&Os have two subchannels in addition to the main channel.

 

[KTN Corp]

I was channel surfing last Monday and bumped into Rachel Ray on independent KUBE-TV here in the Houston market. During a commercial break, Martha Stewart, Emeril, et al. were promoting Dabl on 57.2. It had been missing when I channel surfed on my 2012 LG a few weeks before. I've only seen Martha Stewart on PBS and Create--but she only cooks these days--no crafts or gardening tips like her old syndicated daytime show back in the '90s and early '00s (before the stock scandal). (The comeback show was a total format change--and a flop!)

Remember when CBS engineers were reluctant to have a .2 subchannel, fearing it would reduce the quality of the main channel? NBC, ABC and Fox O&Os all had subchannels well before CBS. Now CBS O&Os have two subchannels in addition to the main channel.

Sadly, the NBC and CBS stations are affiliates. NBC has had 3 subchannels for the longest time (with a 4th intermittently). CBS only had 2 (while the O&Os only had x.1) and started adding 11.3 and 11.4 after Belo was acquired. So we have had many subchannels for a long time.

Luckily the ABC station is an O&O and we were able to keep Live Well after it ceased national distribution. Ion Life was rebranded a couple of months ago and no longer has old Canadian home & lifestyle shows (like Divine Design on HGTV US back in the late '00s), so being one of the lucky few to keep Live Well didn't push me back to go back to the cord.