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Hotel "Cable" Lineup - White River Junction, VT - July 13, 2016

KML0224

KML0224

I'm presently staying at the Super 8 along US Route 5 in White River Junction, VT. It's very close to the junction of I-89 and I-91. Anyways, taking a look at the cable lineup, it's not actually all that bad:

2- WVTA-TV (PBS) channel 41 Windsor, VT
3- WCAX-TV (CBS) channel 3 Burlington, VT
4- WBZ-TV (CBS) channel 4 Boston
5- WCVB-TV (ABC) channel 5 Boston
6- QVC
7- WHDH-TV (NBC) channel 7 Boston
9- WMUR-TV (ABC) channel 9 Manchester, NH
12- WFFF-TV (FOX) channel 44 Burlington
13- WPTZ-TV (NBC) channel 5 Plattsburgh, NY (verified by them airing a NY Lottery drawing as I write this...surprised it's not WNNE-TV channel 31!)
15- NECN
17- ION (national feed)
19- HSN
21- C-SPAN
22- WVNY-TV (ABC) channel 22 Burlington
24- CNBC
25- MSNBC
26- NBC Sports Network
27- FOX News Channel
28- TRU-TV
29- CNN
30- HLN
31- The Weather Channel (With Local On The 8s)
33- ESPN
34- ESPN 2
35- Comcast SportsNet New England
36- NESN
37- FS1
38- EWTN
39- Hallmark Channel
40- Freeform
41- Comedy Central
42- Cartoon Network
43- Nickelodeon
44- TV Land
45- Disney Channel
49- TLC
50- Discovery Channel
51- Travel Channel
52- History Channel
53- Food Network
54- HGTV
55- Animal Planet
58- MTV
59- VH-1
61- Oxygen
62- TBS
63- USA
64- TNT
65- Lifetime
67- A&E
68- AMC
69- Bravo
70- E!
71- SyFy
72- FX

The lineup card listed "MyTV" on cable channel 14. I'm assuming it's WSBK-TV channel 38 from Boston. The TV showed nothing on this channel.
A couple of QAM Tuner spots showed up, but they had nothing on them. Missing was WBIN-TV (IND) channel 50 from Derry, NH and WLED-TV (PBS) channel 49 of Littleton, NH (NH Public Television). :confused:
 
That lineup resembles that of the local Comcast lineup that serves White River Junction (except for digital). Based on Zap2it, it's possible that this might still be the analog lineup for WRJ, as well as Bridgewater and Claremont areas.

Analog lineup (if it's still analog in White River Junction): http://affiliate.zap2it.com/tvlisti...5001&setMyPreference=false&lineupId=NH57423:-

Digital: http://affiliate.zap2it.com/tvlisti...5001&setMyPreference=false&lineupId=NH57423:X

Unless the Super 8 might be getting the cable system from Lodgenet but still kept the channel placement similar to the local Comcast lineup. Then again, at least during the analog cable days, any Super 8s I stayed at generally carried the local community's cable lineup rather than dealing with LodgeNet and the ilk.
 
Motels are always kind of a crapshoot as to what channels you get. I travel quite a bit and am always amazed at what local channels are offered. There was a time back in the 80's where you could get multiple markets on one system at hotels and motels. For example, I remember being in Rockville, MD in the late 80's and receiving all local affiliates from Baltimore and Washington. I'm not sure this still occurs today.

Today, you can watch Denver stations in Burns, Oregon, and Dillon, Montana, in addition to local Oregon/Montana stations. Makes little sense, but a fun watch nonetheless.
 
My mom and dad live in West Lebanon, NH, and get the same locals on Comcast that you saw in the hotel in WRJ, but their lineup includes WNNE as well as WPTZ. Of course, they lived in the Boston area until just last year, so just about all their "local" viewing is of WBZ, WCVB and WHDH.
 
I'm just surprised that the cable carried WPTZ-TV from Plattsburgh and not local WNNE-TV, which happens to be licensed to Hartford, VT...the town that White River Junction itself is part of! Granted, WNNE-TV is more or less a WPTZ-TV satellite. I didn't see a local ID pop up on the screen. The WPTZ-TV "5" bug was in the corner the entire time their syndicated programming was running. I didn't see any network or syndicated programming get blacked out.
 
Maybe this lineup is off a DTA box, rather than LodgeNet. LodgeNet gives you those stupid welcome channels and ripoff price PPV everywhere.
Not sure why didn't replace one of the cable networks (QVC or HSN probably) with HBO/Showtime.
 
I didn't see HBO or Showtime at all. As for the hotel "welcome" channels, I didn't see those either! Then again, White River Junction usually isn't a tourist destination outside of fall foliage or ski season! I did notice that the TV was barely two years old, unlike the Panasonic tube TV made in 2000! That was with a different Super 8 an hour south in Brattleboro. Although I had a small indoor TV antenna with me, I didn't chance it with hooking it up for a scan. The TV was also marked "HOSPITALITY" near the cable input and it looked like that part of the TV was disabled.
 
seatownmedia said:
Motels are always kind of a crapshoot as to what channels you get. I travel quite a bit and am always amazed at what local channels are offered. There was a time back in the 80's where you could get multiple markets on one system at hotels and motels. For example, I remember being in Rockville, MD in the late 80's and receiving all local affiliates from Baltimore and Washington. I'm not sure this still occurs today.

Today, you can watch Denver stations in Burns, Oregon, and Dillon, Montana, in addition to local Oregon/Montana stations. Makes little sense, but a fun watch nonetheless.
Click to expand...


Probably not just like how that there were some motels in the past who for one reason or another would avoid the local channels all together. The best example of the latter was back in the middle 1980's when a group of us were staying at a motel on the grounds of Kings Dominion Theme Park in Virginia. Despite the fact that the motel/park was well inside the Richmond DMA the channels available on our TV set were all from Washington DC. At the time I was told that was a decision from management to offer DC rather than Richmond since "...95% of our guest are from the DC and Baltimore region"..somehow I highly doubt that. Come to think of it I was told some years back that there were until about ten years ago a few motels/hotels in the Colorado Springs area that only offered the Denver stations on their televisions and nothing out of Colorado Springs or Pueblo at all since the management at the time had figured that their guests would probably end up in Denver anyway. I believe this was the era when Colorado Springs had tried to be a "cheaper alternative" for tourists who would had stayed in Denver.
 
@ Tim From Springfield, IL: I don't think it was the analog lineup which you mentioned. Their listing for ION implies WPXG-TV channel 21 of Concord, NH. The ION station I received was the national feed, as there was never a station ID on the hour. I had it on from :59:00 to :01:00 and watched.
 
I was in a hotel in Ridgeland, SC, after a vacation to my aunt's house in Asheville in 2013, and we needed somewhere to stay for the night and Econo Lodge there was the only one that was affordable for us. Of course, it has a cheap look, but the beds were comfortable enough for me to sleep until the next day, and we arrived at 4, since I was tired. So anyways, even though I don't remember the "cable" lineup, one of the stations there was Galavision! Of course, I also got WTOC (CBS), WSAV (NBC), WJCL (ABC) and WTGS (FOX), but I can't believe that Galavision was in the lineup. I didn't expect this station in an Econo Lodge a couple of miles from Savannah in Ridgeland.

Also, I took a vacation this year to Miami on the 3rd weekend of March, I got the local stations as usual in a Comfort Suites hotel near Kendall, next to the Homestead Turnpike, the O&Os WFOR and WTVJ, locally owned WSVN and ABC affiliate WPLG, but I also visited my half-sister's apartment in Miami Lakes, but she had the local Comcast lineup, over there, as it was one of the 2 (I believe) cable companies in South Florida, along with U-Verse, but (off-topic) I don't think U-Verse is going to last long, because AT&T also owns DirecTV, which some people say is "nicer" than Dish on how it handles local channels.
 
hamster said:
Probably not just like how that there were some motels in the past who for one reason or another would avoid the local channels all together. The best example of the latter was back in the middle 1980's when a group of us were staying at a motel on the grounds of Kings Dominion Theme Park in Virginia. Despite the fact that the motel/park was well inside the Richmond DMA the channels available on our TV set were all from Washington DC. At the time I was told that was a decision from management to offer DC rather than Richmond since "...95% of our guest are from the DC and Baltimore region"..somehow I highly doubt that. Come to think of it I was told some years back that there were until about ten years ago a few motels/hotels in the Colorado Springs area that only offered the Denver stations on their televisions and nothing out of Colorado Springs or Pueblo at all since the management at the time had figured that their guests would probably end up in Denver anyway. I believe this was the era when Colorado Springs had tried to be a "cheaper alternative" for tourists who would had stayed in Denver.
Click to expand...

How are those hotels (and their management) in those situations able to get away with offering only the out-of-market locals well-within their DMAs? Without the FCC and/or local station ownership coming down upon them and telling them to start offering the in-market channels.

I haven't heard of anything like this here in Illinois but if this wasn't enforced, you could start seeing situations around here like downstate Illinois colleges/universities with their own cable lineup--and with the vast preponderance of their student body coming from the Chicago area (which is common in downstate colleges, even as far south as Southern Illinois University-Carbondale), deciding to forego the local DMA's stations and only carry Chicago stations (or at least alongside the locals). With the reasoning that "most of the students come from the Chicago area." Even if the school was well downstate in the likes of the Quad Cities, Peoria, Champaign markets., etc.

Or even from Springfield southward, hotels/colleges with MATV cable lineups deciding to offer St. Louis and/or Chicago affiliates alongside (or even in place of) our local DMA stations.

Although I don't think there are any cases of that at any colleges/hotels with their own cable lineups (some with listings on Zap2It may show local Chicago WGN carried rather than WGN America, perhaps by error, but that's usually about it).

I just can't see how the FCC would allow those instances quoted above.
 
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