Macon, GA (4/10/1983 and 8/28/1983)

[crainbebo]

Only lists the Macon cable system. Source: Macon Telegraph (just recently added to Newspapers.com!)

2 WSB Atlanta ABC
3 WTBS Atlanta IND
4 WMAZ Macon CBS
5 WAGA Atlanta CBS
6 Weather
7 GN (not WGN, Good News TV, local Macon station that later went to UHF 64 in 1990)
8 WDCO Macon PBS/GPTV
9 WTVM Columbus ABC
10 WGXA Macon ABC
11 WXIA Atlanta NBC
12 WCWB Macon NBC
15 WANX Atlanta IND
16 USA Network
18 Cinemax
19 Dow Jones
20 HBO
21 Nickelodeon/ARTS
23 CNN
24 Spotlight
26 ESPN
27 Weather (again...I assume this was The Weather Channel and ch 6 was local weather w/ the rotating camera?)

Changes from 8/28/83...
15 Nashville Network
22 Disney Channel
25 Showtime
28 Cable Health Network

 

[IM42A]

I have to imagine that, at some point, the Macon stations objected to Atlanta stations being carried, and exercised exclusivity rules to remove them. (Or perhaps Cox in Macon just wanted to free up channel slots.) Per TVTV.com, Cox Cable in Macon now only carries a "Cox WSB" feed with newscasts and paid programming to fill in the gaps, kind of like what WSOC Charlotte does with their Roku feed, to provide a linear viewing experience, "WSOC but not really WSOC". WSOC, like WSB, is a Cox station.

I have to wonder how widespread such practices are, and whether this would be an acceptable solution to serve "orphan counties" which desire in-state programming (such as news, sports, and public affairs) but which are hamstrung by exclusivity invoked by out-of-state stations into whose markets the orphan counties fall. Garrett County, MD comes immediately to mind, in the Pittsburgh DMA but without OTA access to Baltimore stations due to the bizarre geography of far western Maryland. The way I heard it, some Baltimore newscasts are available on-demand (after broadcast) on cable in Garrett County, but that is very cumbersome. I suppose it's better that, than no Maryland news at all. But who wants to have to make a trip up into the nosebleed section of the cable lineup, then jump through the on-demand hoops, just to get news from Baltimore? That's every bit as clumsy as using NewsOn to get a newscast. (And VuIT is even worse, you have to wait until the news is fed live, then pick your station, and endure cut-in advertisements and those time-lapse videos of plants growing and the like. And even then, sometimes the feed just isn't there. At least NewsOn provides an archive of recent newscasts, so if you missed last night's 11 pm news, you can pick it up the next day.)