Wouldn't Ottawa and Montreal had gotten Burlington/Plattsburgh back in the day on cable? (as well as ABC from Poland Spring, ME's channel 8 via Mt. Washington?
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Non-Big Three Superstations
- Thread starter installLSC
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When I lived in Wauconda IL (Lake County), we got Cox Cable in 1984, who sold it to Jones a year later. Cox had a couple channels left open where they put truck feeds of out-of-market MLB games, which was of questionable legality 40+ years ago. Jones plugged those open channels, and dropped WWOR in favor of WVTV Milwaukee, which could be received via antenna that far north.
They also moved WMAQ-TV from Channel 5 to Channel 54 (the highest channel number they had), which was 72-78 MHz, and left 5 open. I don't remember why; must have been some kind of interference issue.
You said you "believe" and "think" that Ottawa gets Detroit on cable. Are you now saying it positively does?
Yes, Ottawa positively gets Detroit on cable these days. It's been at least a decade since the old microwave system that received Rochester's big 3 from a site near Belleville and fed it up to Ottawa was decommissioned.
Since most cable systems in Canada are owned by one of a handful of major providers (Shaw, Rogers, Cogeco, Bell), their distribution and, critically, "simsub" (replacing US network feeds and US ads with a simulcast of a Canadian local channel carrying the same show) is generally handled at a national hub level. It's much easier to do simsub over a relatively small number of US affiliates that are fed by fiber to the national hub than it is to try to pull a US DTV signal off the air, especially once you're past the immediate border area.
And so Detroit has become the default set of US affiliates for anything in Ontario or west until you get to Pacific Time and Spokane and Seattle feeds take over, depending on which cable provider you're using.
The greater Toronto area still gets Buffalo stations because of many decades of tradition and habit, as well as a strong affinity for Bills instead of Lions, Quebec gets Burlington/Plattsburgh and the Maritime provinces get Boston.
There are very few other exceptions anymore for the traditional big 3. WUHF in Rochester is fed by satellite and fiber as the Fox affiliate even in many areas that otherwise would get Detroit or Buffalo, with some of its daytime offerings and infomercials replaced by Canadian infomercials.
For PBS, there's a little more variety because some border PBS stations have been willing to pay for fiber delivery to Canadian markets where cable once picked them up over the air. (And of course simsub doesn't apply!)
So WPBS Watertown is still seen in Ottawa, Prairie Public from North Dakota is still seen in Winnipeg and WQLN Erie is still seen in London even though the big 3 from Erie have long since been replaced by Detroit or Buffalo.
The CRTC has a list of which US affiliates are approved for carriage on Canadian cable. It also includes a small number of superstations that are generally an extra cost tier: WSBK Boston, WPIX New York, WGN Chicago, KTLA Los Angeles and somewhat unusually, WPCH-TV Atlanta, the successor to the old WTBS over the air feed. Canada always got the full local feed of each of these channels, even after WGN and WTBS split off their separate satellite feeds.
Thanks for clarifying for CTListener. I was 90% certain about Ottawa getting Detroit. But when I'm not 100% certain I prefer to say "believe" or "think" something.
The info regarding Greater Toronto makes sense. Part of that market is within the viewing area of Buffalo.
WUAB/Channel 43 in Cleveland was a small, regional superstation during at least the 1980s. They were carried on cable systems as far north as London, ON, into Erie and Western PA, south into Columbus and toward Dayton. Not sure how long that lasted, but it was around the time WUAB had the rights to most Cleveland Indians and Cavaliers games.
KWGN/Denver was tested/teased very briefly in Toledo on the Buckeye Cablevision in the mid 80s (I think it was on for a week, as it came on the lounge TV in our dorms at the time). Apparently, KWGN was testing the waters to see if there was enough interest in yet another superstation on cable.
KWGN/Denver was tested/teased very briefly in Toledo on the Buckeye Cablevision in the mid 80s (I think it was on for a week, as it came on the lounge TV in our dorms at the time). Apparently, KWGN was testing the waters to see if there was enough interest in yet another superstation on cable.
I had Cox in the south Chicago Suburbs and like you NBC WMAQ was on another channel, in our case, channel 55. This was odd as the next channel down was 36. So it went 36-55-2 (WBBM CBS). When Jones bought out Cox, the first thing they did was move WMAQ to channel 5, announcing it with the slogan "Channel 5 on Channel 5. Why? Because it just makes sense."
Goes to show the 70s-80s were great before Syndex ruined everything.
WPIX was on cable in Troy, AL in the 1990s and they most have been unaffected or exempt from Syndex.
KTVU is local in the Bay Area however they were also carried in places like Redding, Chico and Eureka at one point before those cities got their own local Fox affiliate. This was when Cox owned KTVU.
KEQI-LD - Wikipedia
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Interestingly there's a claim that KTVU was at one point carried in Guam before they gotten own Fox Affiliate. Its like when Fox O&O KTTV Los Angeles at one point was automatically carried in Palm Springs and Santa Barbara because those two markets didn't have a local Fox affiliate at the time the Fox Network was formed.
KTVU was carried on Primestar from 1995-1998 before those stupid laws and policies came into effect.
Synex rules was that the one? But its been mentioned that there was a FoxNet Service during that time frame where in some cases Fox O&O's KTTV and WNYW did serve not just their COL and home DMA's but also parts of the country that didn't even have a Fox affiliate.
KTVU went from a national superstation pre-Fox era to regional Fox affiliate where even their newscasts aired in places like Reno when KRXI signed on because that Fox affiliate lacked a news division during sign on.
Yes until 1998 when SHEVRA and those stupid laws,
WPIX was carried as far as Troy, AL. They receivef it in the 90s and early 2000s. IIRC. I would go to a friend’s house and he had it and my great aunt lived jn Troy in May of 02 and I watched some of Total Recall that day. When it was on.
You got KTVU as far away as Chicago wow. And WWOR, are you surf you mean that and not WGN?
I don't know whether I mentioned it here, but WRET Channel 36 in Charlotte was briefly a "superstation". I remember it being on cable at the beach in the late 70s. Then it took the NBC affiliation when WSOC changed to ABC. WCCB was left without a network but later became the Fox station.
I had newspapers.com and the majority of The Orlando Sentinel issues were The Lake County editions and it appeared that Lake County received that station as far as the 80s and 90s. Because listings for that station were in Orlando Sentinel’s TV time.
Several of the FOX affiliates in northern California/southern Oregon have or had calls ending in VU, possibly in tribute to KTVU (and likely replaced KTVU on cable):
KBVU Eureka (now Roar; FOX now on KAEF-DT2)
KCVU Paradise/Chico (now Roar; FOX now on KRCR-DT2)
KMVU Medford (still FOX)
Those two stations were definitely popular and carried on CATV systems in the Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia areas. "Mini" superstations, if you will.