• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Fox stations pick up Heroes & Icons diginet

Odd that Houston is not on that market list, even though Fox O&O KRIV has no subchannels. Duopoly partner KTXH is already running four program streams. I've been wondering if one of them is going to wind up as spectrum bait.

I share in that concern, Frog. I didn't want to voice it, thinking it was too far fetched, but it does seem peculiar that KTXH carries all the diginets (Movies!, MundoMax, and Buzzr), while KRIV has none. My eyebrow rose when Buzzr ended up on 20.4 after being announced it would light up on 26.2 for weeks in advance. Speculative on both our parts, but might Fox scoot over to 20.1, My20 drops to .2, and MundoMax is displaced? Fox no longer has any association with MundoMax from what I've seen, so likely little incentive left for it to remain on the Fox O&O...if the network is to survive at all.
 
H&I runs two episodes of Hill Street Blues each evening. That was always one of my favorites. Great acting and story lines. And those were the days when a TV show could have a dozen actors, all with their own story lines, on one show! If it did well, the network didn't mind the expense.

If you look at the H&I line up, some shows are exclusive to it, such as Hill Street and NYPD Blue. But it shares some shows with Me-TV, including Wanted Dead or Alive with Steve McQueen, which I think is better than most 30 minute Westerns of its day, in part thanks to McQueen, who was a good actor as well as a handsome face.

My dad's cable system (Verizon Fios) carries both Me-TV affiliates in the NY area, WJLP on Channel 3 and WZME on Channel 19. I guess when WZME switches to H&I, that will go on Channel 19. My system, Time Warner, only has WJLP. So I guess we'll get H&I in the Channel 1200-somethings, as a subchannel of WNYW 5. That's where many of the subchannels air.
 
I guess that means the SD simulcast of Fox10 in Phoenix will disappear to be replaced with the new digitnet. I have often wondered how many viewers consistently watch the SD feed since it was created to address the crappy HD main signal. Fortunately, my Fox watching is restricted to their local morning show and reception is generally not a problem early in the morning so I have rarely needed the SD feed. None of the reruns on H&I appealed to me either.
 
Atlanta's WAGA/ch. 5 is a Fox O&O but they already have Movies! and Buzzr as subchannels. Heroes & Icons is on WGTA/channel 32 out of Toccoa GA but so far it's not on any cable or satellite system here. The OTA signal just does penetrate the northeast fringes of metro Atlanta.
 
I guess that means the SD simulcast of Fox10 in Phoenix will disappear to be replaced with the new digitnet. I have often wondered how many viewers consistently watch the SD feed since it was created to address the crappy HD main signal.

Here's a guess: It has been over six years since full-power analog television transmissions ended (June 12, 2009). If you use industry standards, the average age of a television set being replaced is around seven or eight when replaced, so between 12% and 14% of sets are replaced each year. That means in that half-dozen years since the "sunset" between 72% and 84% of the sets that were in use on that date have also sunsetted. It is a certainty that all of the replacement sets were HDTV capable (or, even if only capable of digital reception, auto-convert to the SD screen ratio) so the number of viewers needing a SD feed has declined by those same percentages.

Figure that analog sets stopped being available for a couple of years prior (2007) and there is a strong likelihood that the number of sets still using a digital-to-analog converter or similar technology is under 5%.

So it may well be that the same logic applies to this as it does to supporting low-listenership radio formats ...there aren't enough viewers left to make it worthwhile to continue the duplicate feed. And Fox can probably run a few bonus spots on H&I for local advertisers to enhance marketability of the parent station.

Like I said, just a guess.
 
Like I said, just a guess.

My understanding when KSAZ created their SD simulcast was that they were getting so many complaints about their primary HD broadcast, instead of boosting the power on HD they set up the SD feed to compensate. I was one of those that could rarely get a clean HD signal in the first 18 months or so after the conversion and used the SD signal when that was the case. I don't know if they have made substantial improvements to their HD signal but I don't seem to have the same problems common in the early days of the digital conversion. All of the OTA VHF signals still have problems to my area of town. Fortunately they are the least used channels in my house.
 
I've been wondering if one of them is going to wind up as spectrum bait.

Not when KUHT, KHOU, and KTRK are on VHF. Fox would not give up the advantage of having 2 scarce UHF stations in a major market, unless money changes hands with the two commercial stations or another donation to KUHT.
 


My understanding when KSAZ created their SD simulcast was that they were getting so many complaints about their primary HD broadcast, instead of boosting the power on HD they set up the SD feed to compensate.

As Oingo Boingo once said ... nothing lasts forever.
 
I would assume in Dallas-Fort Worth, KDFI/My 27 will be carrying H&I on 27.4 since for some (lame) reason, KDFW/Fox 4 doesn't like subchannels just like they don't like airing sitcoms.

Since someone mentioned it before, weird that Houston isn't listed. Also noticed that Austin isn't listed either since Fox does own KTBC/Fox 7.
 
I would assume in Dallas-Fort Worth, KDFI/My 27 will be carrying H&I on 27.4 since for some (lame) reason, KDFW/Fox 4 doesn't like subchannels just like they don't like airing sitcoms.

Two words; video quality. In the heart of Cowboys country do you really want the switchboard and Facebook lighting up because you devoted extra bits to an old game show rerun on 4.2 that made the game on 4.1 look like a blurry mess? Better to throw it on the rerun-heavy MyNetworkTV station few actually watch than even dare to compromise on PQ on Fox.
 
It's finally on 2.4 in Detroit. Like having Hunter back.

I may have to break down and buy one of these Channel Master DVRs. If Antenna TV comes back to Detroit I definitely will. Neither H&I, Grit or GetTV are on cable, and I suspect Antenna won't be either if it comes back.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom