Crappy Hotel "Cable" Report - Bedford Park, IL

[azumanga]

Last June I stayed at the Motel 6 in Southington, CT and there were 19 or 20 channels on the lineup. 3 were unwatchable. 2 were had poor reception and 1 was in Espanol. This Motel 6 gets its cable from DISH NETWORK rather than the local COX franchise.

In 2005, I stayed at a Motel 6 in Chula Vista, California (near San Diego, where I attended Comic Con that year), which also had a pretty basic lineup: NBC (KNSD, on channel 2, not 7), ABC (KGTV), CBS (KFMB), Fox (at the time, XETV), Spanish (XEWT from Tijuana) and the late UPN (KCOP from Los Angeles, which looks like they were picked up off thew air). Plus the usual assortment of popular cable channels, including CNN (it was off watching Larry King at 6PM) and Cartoon Network (it was odd watching Adult Swim at 8PM).

It seems that Canadian hotels are more better than Americans -- I've stayed at hotels throughout Quebec and Ontario, and they generally offered everything on the system, except pay per view. At a motel in Mississauga (near Toronto), a motel I stayed at even offered porn on one channel. For free. Unscrambled. (And, being a "prude" I am, I did not watch.) The oddest hotel cable in Canada was the Hotel Auberge Universal in Montreal, which seemed to get its programming from various sources -- CBC, Radio-Canada, CTV (CFCF), TVA, TQS, Global (CKMI) and Tele-Quebec from Videotron, CBS (WWJ) and NBC (WDIV) and some cable channels from Star Choice, Fox (WFXT) from ExpressVu (now Bell TV), ABC (WVNY) directly off the air, and, believe it or not, ESPN, from what I suspect to be a gray market subscription. That's right -- ESPN. In Canada.

I stayed at a Comfort Inn near San Francisco International Airport which had no more than 15 channels and had NO NBC affiliate! Apparently, they never bothered to update their "system" when KRON went independent and KNTV-11 took over as the NBC affiliate for the market.

In 2007, on two separate trips, I stayed at a Howard Johnson's in St. Augustine, FL and a Motel 6 in Jacksonville, both with their measly cable line-ups. None offered NBC (from WTLV). I ended up missing "Deal or No Deal" (at the time my favorite game show).

 

[radiorob2.0]

I was affiliated with a hotel convention center earlier this decade. Lodgenet interfaced the local cable system with their head end. They used the first 48 channels out of 75 and inserted The Weather Channel from 58 to 38. Channels above 48 were used for hotel pay per view. The room televisions had a decoder box attached to the back of the set that communicated with the system. When you ordered a movie the switcher would assign the television a channel and one of the many VCR's would feed you a movie. If a regular television was attached to the system or the box was bypassed PPV movies could be viewed on the upper channel.

An amusing story, a phone tech decided to wire up a few of the meeting rooms with cable from the Lodgenet feed. Catering added one of my television in a conference room so a little league team could watch a NCAA tournament game. When I arrived at the hotel to process the paperwork something in the back of my mind told me to check the television. I scanned the upper channels to find somebody ordered PPV porn and this television was receiving the channel. So I wouldn't scar the children for life I blocked out the channels above 48, left it on CBS and kept the remote.

 

[KML0224]

It was mentioned a while back that the Comcast line up in Chicago is all digital. Does Bedford Park use that same lineup or is it their own company? The hotel I stayed at had a zip code of 60638.

 

[BRNout]

It seems that Canadian hotels are more better than Americans -- I've stayed at hotels throughout Quebec and Ontario, and they generally offered everything on the system, except pay per view. At a motel in Mississauga (near Toronto), a motel I stayed at even offered porn on one channel. For free. Unscrambled. (And, being a "prude" I am, I did not watch.) The oddest hotel cable in Canada was the Hotel Auberge Universal in Montreal, which seemed to get its programming from various sources -- CBC, Radio-Canada, CTV (CFCF), TVA, TQS, Global (CKMI) and Tele-Quebec from Videotron, CBS (WWJ) and NBC (WDIV) and some cable channels from Star Choice, Fox (WFXT) from ExpressVu (now Bell TV), ABC (WVNY) directly off the air, and, believe it or not, ESPN, from what I suspect to be a gray market subscription. That's right -- ESPN. In Canada.

This has been my experience as well. I've had the pleasure of traveling north of the border many, many times and almost all of the hotels that I have stayed in have had good channel lineups. Most offered full analog cable - including all US networks and at least a couple of US (former) 'superstations.' Several hotels that I have stayed at in Ontario have offered the likes of WPIX, KTLA and WSBK, for example. Combine that with a full slate of Canadian networks, NBC/CBS/ABC/Fox/PBS and Canadian cable channels and you've got more TV than I have time to watch!!

 

[Garrett]

Hello all! I just had a 2 night stay at the Fairfield Inn & Suites hotel, on the Bedford Park, IL side of South Cicero Avenue (IL Route 50) near Chicago-Midway Airport. Here's what little I saw:

0- Welcome Guide
1- Interactive TV 3
2- WBBM (CBS) channel 2 Chicago
3- USA
4- WPWR (MY) channel 50 Chicago
5- WMAQ (NBC) channel 5 Chicago
6- WGBO (UNI) channel 66 Joliet
7- WLS (ABC) channel 7 Chicago
8- ESPN
9- WGN (CW) channel 9 Chicago
10- HBO
11- WTTW (PBS) channel 11 Chicago
12- Interactive TV 2
13- WFLD (FOX) channel 32 Chicago
14- Disney
15- MSNBC
16- ESPN 2
17- CNN
18- CNN Headline News
21- TNT
22- TBS
23- Discovery
24- The Weather Channel
26- Cartoon Network
27- C-Span
28- Golf Channel
29- HGTV
30- Food Network
31- CNBC
32- Travel Channel
33- TLC
34- ESPN News
35- ESPN 2
36- FOX News Channel
37- Hotel Information Channel
39- AUX

NOTES: WBBM looked like it was an off-air pick up because it looked like crap. WFLD was even worse, also seeming to have interference with another station. There was no WCIU-TV (IND) channel 26 or WSNS-TV (TEL) channel 44 at all. ESPN 2 was on this lineup twice, although the graphic had said "ESPN Classic". Strange. I wonder how different things would've been if the digital switchover had fully took place last week? Oh well! While at the airport, one restaurant had on WGN-TV channel 9, crappy analog reception and all.

I'm usually happy to have any kind of cable in a hotel room. I'm old enough to remember when you were lucky to get a color television with a working antenna, and that was at Holiday Inn.

 

[mescutia]

I stayed at the Motel 6 in Framingham, MA, for one night back in December courtesy of a certain ice storm and week-long power outage. I didn't take any notes on the channel lineup, but the local (Boston) stations were all mostly in the upper 20s and 30s (and not clustered together, either). The strangest part, though, was that the one PBS station offered was WGBX -- not WGBH. I know there are cable systems in NH that carry WGBH but not WGBX, so to be in a motel significantly closer to Boston that did the exact opposite was a surprise.

Also, I was stuck in Charlotte once back in August 2007 thanks to a missed flight. The airline put me up at a hotel near the airport that had HD TVs in the rooms. The local channels all looked like crap, though, so they were likely being pulled in over the air, but I had the Weather Channel on the next morning as I was packing and it looked quite nice. I so wanted to take the TV home with me. And the bed, too, for that matter.

 

[KML0224]

It's kind of tough to guess which of these systems would be the one to serve Bedford Park itself? I put in their 60638 zip code at tvguide.com. All of these providers came up:

# Chicago - AT&T U-Verse
# Chicago - RCN-Chicago Rebuild
# Chicago Area 1 - Comcast Cable
# Chicago Areas 4 & 5 - Comcast Cable - rebuild
# Elmhurst - Comcast Cable

 

[ssetta]

I stayed at the Motel 6 in Framingham, MA, for one night back in December courtesy of a certain ice storm and week-long power outage. I didn't take any notes on the channel lineup, but the local (Boston) stations were all mostly in the upper 20s and 30s (and not clustered together, either). The strangest part, though, was that the one PBS station offered was WGBX -- not WGBH. I know there are cable systems in NH that carry WGBH but not WGBX, so to be in a motel significantly closer to Boston that did the exact opposite was a surprise.

That same thing happened to me a long time ago at a Sheraton in Eastham. They actually had the full cable lineup (which I think was only 36 channels at the time; it was in 1999, but Eastham is a very remote area), but channel 2 was replaced by HBO.

 

[KML0224]

Here's an observation I made while staying at that hotel this week in Bedford Park on South Cicero Avenue: I was about a half mile south of Midway Airport. We've all heard how a passing plane would interfere with traditional analog reception. What effect do all those planes have on digital reception, if known? While at Midway on Wednesday morning, waiting for my flight back to Bradley Airport in Connecticut, I saw this one shop who had their TV on WGN-TV (CW) analog channel 9. The reception looked like crap.

 

[charlestondxman]

Well, most of the Charleston hotels have small cable lineups, as they put in their own visitors channels, that we don't get on regular cable.

I was in a hotel in Rosemont (right next to O'Hare airport) a couple of years back, and the lineup was horrible. There were maybe 20 channels or so, and PBS-WTTW was blocked out (by the DirecTV basics channel, that shows you how to hook up your receiver).

Most hotels in the Atlanta suburbs have a good selection of channels, along with the hotels in Athens, GA.

 

[kenglish]

America is so very unready for the "receiving end" of the Digital Transition!!

Do these hotels realize that they don't have anything ready for the OTA switch, that they will need dozens of Digital Cable boxes to continue offering Cable-fed channels (when the local Cable system goes all-digital), or that the DBS SDTV feeds are going to still look terrible (and, have very few channels)?

I haven't been in a hotel for a couple of years (2007 National Association of Former Broadcasters), but I've spent a few days around the local mega-hospital, and, of their 600-800 (IIRC) HDTV sets, I've only seen a couple that were ever programmed for the local stations' DTV channels. Most were just scanned for analog CATV mode, set for "perma-stretch", and left.

A friend who does MATV systems tells me that almost all his customers just want to feed SD channels from DirecTV in to mono-audio NTSC modulators, and "call it good". A few, who are in bad areas for satellite, will down-convert the OTA signals to modulators.

I'm starting to think that, if I was not a TV Broadcast Engineer, I probably could say that I've NEVER SEEN an over-the-air DTV signal on a TV set. I've hardly ever seen it work, except at the station.
I wondered, yesterday, if someone like the ARRL and CQ Magazine should create a DTV subchannel just for engineers, Hams and radio-monitoring folks. Seems like we are the only group that ever goes to the "trouble" to try and receive DTV....everyone else has fallen for the "it doesn't work" rumours. So, who would be watching sub-channels, except us "antenna-lovin' geeks"?

 

[BRNout]

I was in a hotel in Rosemont (right next to O'Hare airport) a couple of years back, and the lineup was horrible. There were maybe 20 channels or so, and PBS-WTTW was blocked out (by the DirecTV basics channel, that shows you how to hook up your receiver).

Now that you mention it, I have noticed that a lot of hotels in the Chicago area offer secondary PBS station WYCC ("Wise TV") in place of WTTW. The reason escapes me - almost no one watches that channel locally. My thought was that Direct TV or Dish must be offering it as the Chicago PBS signal. Of course their package of locals should offer all of them but, then again, most hotels that get programming from Dish or Direct seem to offer an extremely truncated and uninspired mix of channels that include several ESPNs and a couple of HBOs - and not a whole lot more. Let's just say that I am relieved when I flip on the hotel TV and see that they actually offer Discovery. Far too many don't bother. And really pissed when I see the Golf Channel, yet no Discovery or History channel. That happens more often than you would think.

 

[Goldilocks94941]

I stayed at a major hotel in Hollywood last fall (the high rise hotel adjacent to the Kodak Theatre) for a public broadcasters convention, and the "cable" TV system in the hotel didn't even carry the Los Angeles PBS affiliate, KCET. Just a weak signal of the secondary PBS outlet from Orange County.
Not what colleagues want to see when they're having a convention and would like to check out one of the best PBS outlets in the country for themselves.

Hard to believe this is actually legal, if the FCC ever bothered to check on things like this. If the cable system is supposed to carry all local stations, then why not hold the same true for a hotel system? Or for Dish?

Also, the Hyatts (a Mariott company, proud to contribute to the Mormon Church, I am reminded by the staff) never offers Comedy Central in their properties. Just the Fox/Spike/CartoonChannel BS for the lowest of the low mentalities. And there were no outlets for anything prior to the election that might give you something that investigated or made fun of the Bush Administration, beyond the network newscasts on the local commercial stations. I'd be afraid of sounding conspiratorial - but I keep finding the same thing at these corporate hotels, like in most corporate radio. Well-paid hawks shouting at us to believe a lot of lies.

Doesn't seem fair, or wise, to provide porno on demand, but not even one clear channel that wasn't commercial crap. Even in the middle of Hollywood there ought to at least be Turner Classic Movies on the hotel TV.

GL

 

[JustinT]

2- WBBM (CBS) channel 2 Chicago
3- USA
4- WPWR (MY) channel 50 Chicago
5- WMAQ (NBC) channel 5 Chicago
6- WGBO (UNI) channel 66 Joliet
7- WLS (ABC) channel 7 Chicago
8- ESPN
9- WGN (CW) channel 9 Chicago
10- HBO
11- WTTW (PBS) channel 11 Chicago
12- Interactive TV 2
13- WFLD (FOX) channel 32 Chicago

NOTES: WBBM looked like it was an off-air pick up because it looked like crap. WFLD was even worse, also seeming to have interference with another station. There was no WCIU-TV (IND) channel 26 or WSNS-TV (TEL) channel 44 at all. ESPN 2 was on this lineup twice, although the graphic had said "ESPN Classic". Strange. I wonder how different things would've been if the digital switchover had fully took place last week? Oh well! While at the airport, one restaurant had on WGN-TV channel 9, crappy analog reception and all.

I believe the poster who said early 90s is right-on. At the time, WGBO 66 (yes Joliet COL, but their TX has always been downtown at Hancock) was a low-profile independent, as "Super 66." WCIU ran ethnic programming, part-time Univision, and business news until it flipped to its English-language independent format in 1995. As another poster said, they're a great independent station today with a local feel - something that so many IND stations lack.

Other Chicago stations that would be seen on a typical local cable lineup include WSNS (44, Telemundo), WYCC (20, PBS operated by the City Colleges of Chicago), WYIN (56, PBS from NW Indiana), WJYS (62, religious/brokered), WXFT (60, Telefutura), and WCPX (38, Ion). North of Chicago, substitute WYIN for WMVS (10, PBS from Milwaukee)

 

[BRNout]

Also, the Hyatts (a Mariott company, proud to contribute to the Mormon Church, I am reminded by the staff) never offers Comedy Central in their properties. Just the Fox/Spike/CartoonChannel BS for the lowest of the low mentalities. And there were no outlets for anything prior to the election that might give you something that investigated or made fun of the Bush Administration, beyond the network newscasts on the local commercial stations. I'd be afraid of sounding conspiratorial - but I keep finding the same thing at these corporate hotels, like in most corporate radio. Well-paid hawks shouting at us to believe a lot of lies.

GL

Sorry, but you are incorrect about Hyatt. The Hyatt chain is owned by the Global Hyatt Corporation. They have nothing to do with the Marriott chain, which was founded (and is still controlled) by the Marriott family. Who certainly are members of the LDS ("Mormon") Church. So, I think you are a bit confused there.

Other Chicago stations that would be seen on a typical local cable lineup include WSNS (44, Telemundo), WYCC (20, PBS operated by the City Colleges of Chicago), WYIN (56, PBS from NW Indiana), WJYS (62, religious/brokered), WXFT (60, Telefutura), and WCPX (38, Ion). North of Chicago, substitute WYIN for WMVS (10, PBS from Milwaukee)

About WMVS, I think you need to be well up into Lake County - a good 30 miles north of downtown - before you substitute WMVS for WYIN. Our Comcast system serves northern/northwestern Cook County (e.g. Arlington Heights, Rolling Meadows, Northbrook) and southern Lake County (e.g. Buffalo Grove, Long Grove, Riverwoods) and they carry WYIN (a.k.a. "Lakeshore PBS") from Gary. Farther north, in Vernon Hills and Lake Zurich, you get neither WYIN nor WMVS on cable. You have to get up to N. Chicago, Waukegan and Gurnee before the Milwaukee PBS signal is offered by Comcast. Quite a ways north of Chicago.

 

[KML0224]

I wonder what you'd get from Chicago besides WGN once you crossed the Wisconsin state line? Or would the CW affiliate in Milwaukee claim their rights?

 

[BRNout]

I wonder what you'd get from Chicago besides WGN once you crossed the Wisconsin state line? Or would the CW affiliate in Milwaukee claim their rights?

I can answer that. The Time Warner system that covers the wide area north of the border from Lake Geneva through Kenosha County, as well as the Racine area T-W system, offers all of the ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox stations from Milwaukee and Chicago. For PBS, you get WMVT Milwaukee, WTTW Chicago, WMVS Milwaukee. They also offer WGN (apparently the Chicago version). So, doubles on the CW network too. For "My" you get Milwaukee only, no WCIU, but there is a Milwaukee version of Weigel's MeTV that you get. HD offerings are limited to Milwaukee broadcast stations. All in all, not bad. A pretty large area that gets doubles on network affiliates.

My guess is that the programming duplication blackouts would be more widespread on the Racine system than on the Kenosha/Lake Geneva one thanks to geography (Racine is pretty close to Milwaukee).

I don't know of any cable systems south of the IL-WI border that offer anything from Milwaukee aside from one of the PBS stations.

 

[anotherguyTN]

See if anyone can explain this one: About a year ago I stayed with my family at a nice Best Western in Knoxville that had HDTVs, but only had the local Knoxville channels and 20 or so of the major cable channels, including HBO. But there was no HD programming at all. What was the point of upgrading their TVs but then have the same lousy lineup of channels? Hopefully they've upgraded the channels since then, but I haven't been back yet. It was a nice hotel otherwise.

 

[ShawnHill1]

I wonder what you'd get from Chicago besides WGN once you crossed the Wisconsin state line? Or would the CW affiliate in Milwaukee claim their rights?

I can answer that. The Time Warner system that covers the wide area north of the border from Lake Geneva through Kenosha County, as well as the Racine area T-W system, offers all of the ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox stations from Milwaukee and Chicago. For PBS, you get WMVT Milwaukee, WTTW Chicago, WMVS Milwaukee. They also offer WGN (apparently the Chicago version). So, doubles on the CW network too. For "My" you get Milwaukee only, no WCIU, but there is a Milwaukee version of Weigel's MeTV that you get. HD offerings are limited to Milwaukee broadcast stations. All in all, not bad. A pretty large area that gets doubles on network affiliates.

My guess is that the programming duplication blackouts would be more widespread on the Racine system than on the Kenosha/Lake Geneva one thanks to geography (Racine is pretty close to Milwaukee).

I don't know of any cable systems south of the IL-WI border that offer anything from Milwaukee aside from one of the PBS stations.

You're pretty much correct on that...in Rockford, the primary cable provider (now Comcast, formerly part of Insight) only offers, as far as out-of-town offerings, WTTW (PBS Chicago), WHA (PBS Madison), and you wants to extend it further, WGN America (although most areas to the east can pick up WGN Chicago OTA). Charter Cable, serving Rock County, Wisconsin (directly north of Rockford/Winnebago County) carries both Madison and Rockford stations.

Anyway, I was in Anaheim, across from Disneyland, for Valentine's Day having dinner and drinks, and the hotel I stayed at offer channels via DirecTV. As far as the offerings (from what I can remember...I didn't watch too much TV because I got back late and went to bed)...there were KCBS, KNBC, KTLA, KABC, KCAL, KTTV, KCOP, KMEX (Univision), and one PBS (KCET, and not the in-town local KOCE). Also on the lineup: TBS, TNT, ESPN, ESPN2, Discovery, CNN, Disney Channel, CNBC, and a few others I couldn't recall. To say the least, the reception was very sub-par.

 

[JustinT]

About WMVS, I think you need to be well up into Lake County - a good 30 miles north of downtown - before you substitute WMVS for WYIN. Our Comcast system serves northern/northwestern Cook County (e.g. Arlington Heights, Rolling Meadows, Northbrook) and southern Lake County (e.g. Buffalo Grove, Long Grove, Riverwoods) and they carry WYIN (a.k.a. "Lakeshore PBS") from Gary. Farther north, in Vernon Hills and Lake Zurich, you get neither WYIN nor WMVS on cable. You have to get up to N. Chicago, Waukegan and Gurnee before the Milwaukee PBS signal is offered by Comcast. Quite a ways north of Chicago.

Interesting stuff, I had no idea. I am on the Comcast Libertyville system, didn't realize this was probably the southern-most lineup to get WMVS. Seems like Vernon Hills should be getting WMVS though...