Fate of KYTX's UPN signal?

[stdjsb25]

Anyone hear yet of what KYTX plans to do with their UPN 18 DTV signal, now that KCEB has, in what has to be the dumbest move I've seen, gotten the CW affiliation?

I'm honestly shocked that Phil Hurley isn't fighting for the CW affiliation since KYTX had signed a multi-year UPN deal for 18 just this past fall. But then again, KYTX will probably profit since CBS Corp is going to have to buy out their contract for a load of money.

Add to that, KCEB is honestly, an unfit affiliate. Poor OTA coverage for the market, and no DTV signal.

 

[gbranch]

> Anyone hear yet of what KYTX plans to do with their UPN 18
> DTV signal, now that KCEB has, in what has to be the dumbest
> move I've seen, gotten the CW affiliation?
>
> I'm honestly shocked that Phil Hurley isn't fighting for the
> CW affiliation since KYTX had signed a multi-year UPN deal
> for 18 just this past fall. But then again, KYTX will
> probably profit since CBS Corp is going to have to buy out
> their contract for a load of money.
>
> Add to that, KCEB is honestly, an unfit affiliate. Poor OTA
> coverage for the market, and no DTV signal.
>

I was as shocked as everyone that KCEB got the CW affiliation. During the last email exchange that I had with Phil Hurley back in February, he was very confident that KYTX would win out. I agree that CBS/TW made a blockheaded move with KCEB.

The upside to this for KYTX is that digital sub-channels don't really take too much to put on the air. It is just another data stream that they multiplex into their signal. There is no extra transmitter, tower or antenna to deal with. A digital sub-channel can be taken off the air just as easily as it is put on. They may just replace KYTX-UP with some type of weather channel, like KLTV-WX. A 24 hour news channel would also be nice. KTBS in Shreveport is doing this. They just replay their most recent newscast every 30 minutes. Makes it convenient to watch the news on my schedule. Or better yet, just take the sub-channel off and dedicate the entire 19.2 Mbps bandwidth to HD. After all, the original intent of digital television was to provide HD, not fill up bandwidth with a bunch of lower resolution sub-channels.

OPINION MODE ON - The trend in terrestrial digital television is starting to shift from quality to quantity. More and more sub-channels are being shoved into the stations' data streams, causing reduced picture quality. The same thing happened with DBS. When Directv and Dish came on the scene 10+ years ago, they provided a high quality digital picture that was way above and beyond what analog cable could provide. Over time, as more and more channels are shoved into their limited bandwidth, PQ has suffered. Standard def DBS is almost unwatchable on large screen HD set. Too many compression artifacts. DBS has chosen quantity over quality. Digital cable is doing the same thing. Terrestrial DTV is heading in that direction. OPINION MODE OFF

Regarding KCEB's poor market coverage - remember that they still have a CP on file with the FCC to move their transmitter to the KFXK tower near Overton, move to channel 38, and raise the height a bit. _IF_ this actually happens, this should improve their signal in Tyler. However, they apparently have no plans at this time to go digital, so my suspicions are that they will continue to broadcast analog only until the 2009 analog cut-off date, then move their signal to a sub-channel on KFXK's digital signal. They may even put the sub-channel up later this year once KFXK gets their full power digital signal up.<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by gbranch on 04/05/06 03:57 PM.</FONT></P>

 

[MRD]

> Regarding KCEB's poor market coverage - remember that they
> still have a CP on file with the FCC to move their
> transmitter to the KFXK tower near Overton, move to channel
> 38, and raise the height a bit. _IF_ this actually happens,
> this should improve their signal in Tyler. However, they
> apparently have no plans at this time to go digital, so my
> suspicions are that they will continue to broadcast analog
> only until the 2009 analog cut-off date, then move their
> signal to a sub-channel on KFXK's digital signal. They may
> even put the sub-channel up later this year once KFXK gets
> their full power digital signal up.
>
Likely what will happen is that KCEB will make a "flash cut" to their digital signal. These days, newer full-power TV stations are not given a separate DTV channel assignment as "older" full-power TV stations are. This means that their analog channel assignment is also their DTV channel assignment and they will have to pick a day on which they will turn off the analog transmitter and fire up the DTV transmitter on the same channel number. Even though KYTX is new to Tyler-Longview, it was an existing station that moved in from Nacadoches and therefore already had a separate DTV channel assignment. The bottom line is that KCEB will have its own digital facilities and won't be relegated to being a sub-channel on someone else's DTV signal.

 

[gbranch]

> Likely what will happen is that KCEB will make a "flash cut"
> to their digital signal. These days, newer full-power TV
> stations are not given a separate DTV channel assignment as
> "older" full-power TV stations are. This means that their
> analog channel assignment is also their DTV channel
> assignment and they will have to pick a day on which they
> will turn off the analog transmitter and fire up the DTV
> transmitter on the same channel number. Even though KYTX is
> new to Tyler-Longview, it was an existing station that moved
> in from Nacadoches and therefore already had a separate DTV
> channel assignment. The bottom line is that KCEB will have
> its own digital facilities and won't be relegated to being a
> sub-channel on someone else's DTV signal.

Yes, but if this is the case, should not they have a separate CP for a DT on channel 38, in addition to the NTSC CP? Or, does a "flash cut" switchover not require a separate CP for the digital signal?

http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?list=0&facid=83913

KCEB TX LONGVIEW USA

Licensee: ESTES BROADCASTING, INC.
Service Designation: TV NTSC (analog) television station

Channel: 38 614 - 620 MHz Construction Permit
File No.: BPCT-20040521AGY Facility ID number: 83913
CDBS Application ID No.: 995074

32° 15' 36.00" N Latitude 94° 57' 2.00 " W Longitude (NAD 27)

Polarization: Horizontal (H) Effective Radiated Power (ERP): 5000. kW ERP Antenna Height Above Average Terrain: 267.6 meters HAAT Antenna Height Above Mean Sea Level: 404.2 meters AMSL Antenna Height Above Ground Level: 248.4 meters AGL TV Zone: 2 Frequency Offset: - (minus) Directional Antenna ID No.: 66672 Pattern Rotation: 0.00


Relative Field values for directional antenna Relative Field polar plot
Relative field values do not include any pattern rotation that may be indicated above.

0° 0.612 60° 0.834 120° 0.610 180° 0.822 240° 0.370 300° 0.342 10° 0.739 70° 0.691 130° 0.749 190° 0.684 250° 0.341 310° 0.348 20° 0.874 80° 0.563 140° 0.885 200° 0.572 260° 0.349 320° 0.389 30° 0.972 90° 0.483 150° 0.977 210° 0.505 270° 0.373 330° 0.439 40° 0.999 100° 0.464 160° 0.998 220° 0.464 280° 0.381 340° 0.480 50° 0.948 110° 0.508 170° 0.940 230° 0.420 290° 0.364 350° 0.527

Additional azimuths:
38° 1.000 157° 1.000 276° 0.381

Additional Individual Tower Information from the Antenna Structure Registration database.
(Use the Registration Number link for detailed information.)

ASRN Site Elevation (meters) Overall HeightAbove Ground(meters) Overall HeightAbove Mean SeaLevel (meters) NAD 83 Tower Coordinates----------------------------------------------- Convert toNAD 27 Latitude Longitude 1047436 155.8 365.0 520.8 N 32° 15' 37.0" W 94° 57' 3.0" To NAD27

*******************************************************************************

One thing for sure is that they will not retain their digital signal on channel 54. Once the analog cutoff is reached, there will be no stations above channel 50. That band will be reallocated by the FCC

 

[MRD]

> Yes, but if this is the case, should not they have a
> separate CP for a DT on channel 38, in addition to the NTSC
> CP? Or, does a "flash cut" switchover not require a separate
> CP for the digital signal?
>
That's a good question. I believe the CP for channel 38 only covers the analog signal. KCEB will likely have to apply and get a CP for their DTV facilities also on channel 38 as they get closer to the date that they want to make the flash cut. Here's a link that provides a bit more info. You'll see that they have elected to stay with channel 38 as their DTV channel assignment.

http://www.recnet.com/cdbs/fmq.php?...tate=&country=US&zip=&party=&party_type=LICEN

 

[gbranch]

> That's a good question. I believe the CP for channel 38
> only covers the analog signal. KCEB will likely have to
> apply and get a CP for their DTV facilities also on channel
> 38 as they get closer to the date that they want to make the
> flash cut.

As a data point, KPXJ-21 in Shreveport did a flash cut end of last year. Their analog license on channel 21 was for the old tower between Shreveport and Minden. They did have a separate CP for KPXJ-DT on channel 21, moving the transmitter to the KTBS tower in Mooringsport.

So, my guess is that KCEB will have to apply for a CP at some point to put the digital signal on the air. In reality, they may never transmit analog on channel 38. They may move to 38 and do the flash cut to digital at the same time.

 

[MRD]

> So, my guess is that KCEB will have to apply for a CP at
> some point to put the digital signal on the air. In reality,
> they may never transmit analog on channel 38. They may move
> to 38 and do the flash cut to digital at the same time.
>
That's a distinct possibility. KBEJ-TV in Fredricksberg, TX (to be KCWX on Friday) broadcasts on analog channel 2, but will do a flash cut to their DTV facilities also on channel 2 at some point. Currently, there's no application for their DTV facilities.