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Communities which formerly had cable service that no longer do

T

Tim from Springfield IL

If the online listings from Zap2it, Titan TV, etal. are accurate, there are several small communities not too far west of me which have apparently lost cable service entirely (including the Calhoun and Scott County, IL seats of Hardin and Winchester, respectively). If this is true, IMO it's most likely the casualty of the proliferation of Dish/DirectTV and most of the country now having access to local channels (with the obvious exceptions of subchannels) plus the ongoing weak economy and an aging cable infrastructure in those communities.

And last December some communities in Rogers County, OK apparently lost cable service entirely as the linked article below indicates:

http://technews.tmcnet.com/news/2011/12/30/6025717.htm

I would not be surprised if more smaller communities lost cable access entirely with the push to all-digital lineups coupled with ongoing economic problems (and even municipal budget deficits that might affect cable contracts with cities).

Any other locations that once had cable but the cord has been cut ENTIRELY?
 
Friendly, West Virginia lost its service due to a much-neglected system and the DTV conversion. We went through more cable companies in our 26 years in this area than most people go through underwear. One of the companies was known as 'Bates,' which was appropriate, since the service was DOA much of the time. It got so bad that we had a cheapie antenna mounted on the ground at the corner of the house, but we still picked up signal from the cable that was about 25 feet away! Fortunately, we have Dish Network, so we also get 5 local stations.
 
Two small towns in northwest Iowa no longer have cable service, Newell and Fonda. The provider (I don't know who, not local) was having financial problems. They only offered a fairly small number of channels and when contracts came up they replaced popular channels with cheaper ones, leading to more and more people going with Dish. Direct TV didn't have locals at the time. The cable system eventually shut down.

Several years ago, somebody was looking into buying the system in Newell and resuming service. They asked the county to reduce the back taxes owed. The county declined and they didn't purchase the system.
 
Interesting thread....

I didn't give much thought to cities' CATV systems going belly-up or abandoning the cities come DTV time....

cd
 
I'm going to post this and hope it's not too far off subject.
When dishes (big & small) began to really pop up, cable companies would actually count the number of dishes
they could find in an uncabled area to help decide if they should spend the upwards of $10,000+ a mile to hang cable.
I'm speaking before the era of the internet here, but you get what I mean.
The selling point of cable in an uncabled area with a lot of dishes was local channels before they became available
for the most part on satellite.
 
No truth-stretching here...the guy that ran the company offered to meet me in Charleston, West Virginia and was willing to sell it for ONE DOLLAR. I've never seen the physical plant, but horror stories were abundant.
 
Re: Communities which formerly had cable service, but no longer do

So what do they usually do with the coax lines when a cable company shuts down, just leave everything where it is and connect it to a master antenna on the headend's tower for whomever wants to pick up terrestrial signals that way, or does somebody else come along and just rip everything out?

Sounds like the former condition might make for a killer DX opportunity.....
 
Re: Communities which formerly had cable service, but no longer do

Darth_vader said:
So what do they usually do with the coax lines when a cable company shuts down, just leave everything where it is and connect it to a master antenna on the headend's tower for whomever wants to pick up terrestrial signals that way, or does somebody else come along and just rip everything out?

Sounds like the former condition might make for a killer DX opportunity.....
Click to expand...

:)
 
Re: Communities which formerly had cable service, but no longer do


Having STL problems there, cd?
 
Re: Communities which formerly had cable service, but no longer do

Darth_vader said:

Having STL problems there, cd?
Click to expand...

I don't think so...I'm just agreeing with your "DX opportunity" statement.

cd
 
Re: Communities which formerly had cable service, but no longer do

Uhhh.....okay. All I see is a quote of my post.

Did you post a picture, by chance? That might at least partially explain why your reply's MIA on my end.
 
Re: Communities which formerly had cable service, but no longer do

Darth_vader said:
Did you post a picture, by chance? That might at least partially explain why your reply's MIA on my end.
Click to expand...

I don't think Radio-Info allows posting of pictures or videos -- just links to them.
 
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