Is clustering of frequencies/affiliates gone with HDTV?

[Markxxx]

Actually more and more companies are discovering brand identification isn't as important as one thinks.

I was hired for studies for both the former Amoco and soon to be former Fields. Both had very strong brand identities and Amoco is now BP (actually Amoco had even a stronger brand as Standard but that's another story) and Marshall Fields will become Macys.

It's a lot easier for people to work with ONE brand name or identification than several.

The newer tuners will map two stations for mixed markets. For example people in Delaware have tuners that receive WCBS Channel 2 and WMAR Channel 2 from NYC and Baltimore respectively without issue.

For TV it isn't the channel brand so much as the placement. For instance Channel 50 WPWR wants to be on cable 8 in the metro Chicago area. Simply because WLS-TV ABC Channel 7, and WGN-TV WB Channel 9 are very strong channels. So when people surf they are more likely to hit WPWR on channel 8 between two highly rated channels.

People don't like change but it isn't nearly the insurmountable thing people make it out to be.

 

[fybush]

> People don't like change but it isn't nearly the
> insurmountable thing people make it out to be.

You're right about that, to an extent - if WLS rebranded tomorrow as "ABC Chicago," the world would keep spinning and the ratings probably wouldn't suffer.

But what the OP was talking about would be the equivalent of an overnight rebranding that turned Amoco stations into Exxons, Exxons into Citgos and Citgos into Marathons. (Unless you happen to be driving a car that's more than five years old, in which case Amocos would still be Amocos, Exxons would still be Exxons, etc.)

Sure, the industry would survive even that kind of upheaval, in the long run. But it's important to remember (as I was reminded today when I drove my mom to the airport for her first flight in about 16 years) that most average viewers don't travel as widely or pay as much attention to channel numbers in other cities as many of us do. The fact that NBC is on 10 here in Rochester and on 3 in Las Vegas, where mom's headed for the week, is of no particular relevance - and in any event, "NBC" is the strong national brand there, not "3" or "10."

It's also important to remember that issues like remapping aren't decided by an ivory-tower FCC. For the most part, the FCC gladly defers to industry committees to handle the development and implementation of standards for new broadcast technologies. We may not be completely delighted with the way DTV remapping was handled, but the system was designed by a consensus of broadcasters themselves. If the industry had wanted to move in a different direction, it had that opportunity much earlier in the process.<P ID="signature">______________
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[w9wi]

> However another bump to mapping is several manufacturers
> have said if they can make digital to analog converters
> without ANY extra stuff, such as PSIP mapping they can do it
> for under $10.00. This means the issue of mapping isn't a
> done deal yet.

Seems like a "red herring" from here. Channel remapping is all in software -- the hardware necessary to implement it must already be in the box if the audio/video are to be decoded.

Seems to me channel remapping isn't a particularly difficult software project either. Tune each RF channel in succession, check whether the hardware reports a valid signal, grab the VCT, stick it in a database with the RF channel and the PID.

Unless they plan to use a non-computer-controlled RF tuner?

 

[w9wi]

> Would WBRE, WYOU, and other stations whose digital channels
> have considerably lower numbers than their analog channels
> be able to forego mapping to their analog channels and
> instead rebuild their brand identities around their digital
> channels, by any chance?
> ...
> Also, what about stations that prefer to brand themselves by
> their most common cable channel numbers, like San Diego's
> KSWB "WB 5" or Charlotte's WCNC "NBC 6"? Would those
> stations have the freedom to map their digital OTA signals
> to their predominant cable channel numbers, since their
> analog OTA channels might not be very familiar to most of
> their viewers?

It is my understanding (of course can't find it on the FCC site right now!) that DTV stations may remap either to their analog channel or their DTV channel. No other choice is permissible. (except that PBS obtained a waiver allowing their affiliates to remap to channel 80 for that prepackaged satellite feed) These two choices are guaranteed unique, as they're assigned by the FCC to prevent interference.

I suppose it would be technically feasible to remap to cable channels in some markets. You'd have to write the rules to ensure two stations don't remap to the same channel. Really, in the DTV world having two stations with the same virtual channel assignment is pretty much as bad as having two with the same RF channel assignment, just for a different reason!