Northeast Ohio Cablevision Channel Surfing 8/18/1994

[Scott2011]

Found this on a tape I bought at a flea market a couple months ago. I'm not sure what division of Cablevision this is (since they had divisions for different regions of Northeast Ohio at the time), but I'm pretty sure it's not Bath Township (the one we subscribed to).

Apparently whoever recorded this WEWS Movie 5 presentation of The Westerner did quite a bit of channel surfing during one of the commercial breaks. Based on my remembrance of the Cablevision channel lineup and what I saw on this tape, here's what I think the lineup was:
02 WVIZ 25 (PBS)
03 WKYC 3 (NBC)
04 WEAO 49 (PBS)
05 WEWS 5 (ABC)
06 WUAB 43 (Independent)
07 CNN
08 WJW 8 (CBS)
09 ESPN
10 Discovery Channel
11 SportsChannel
12 CNBC
13 Nickelodeon
14 TNT
15 WBNX 55 (Independent)
16 Headline News
17 TBS
18 USA
19 WOIO 19 (Fox)
20 Family Channel
21 A&E
22 Lifetime
23 WAKC 23 (ABC)
24 Public access (which also included a feed from the former AM 1220 WKNR)
26 Showtime
27 Movie Channel
28 Cinemax
29 Playboy
30 Prevue Channel
31 Bravo
32 Pay-Per-View
33 Pay-Per-View
34 HBO
35 Disney Channel
36 TNN
37 MTV
38 VH1
39 AMC
40 C-SPAN
41 C-SPAN2
42 TLC
43 MEU
44 EWTN
45 INSP
46 Weather Channel
47 Court TV
48 QVC
49 WQHS 61 (HSC)
55 Sci-Fi Channel

Here's the video itself. If I'm wrong on any of these, please let me know.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rbb-fLb2dKA

 

[DrC]

I can confirm that channel lineup was Cablevision's in Geauga County (remember seeing it in Newbury and Chardon for sure). I remember being jealous of them having a few more channels (especially Sci-Fi, which was on 55 on the box, and 99 on cable-ready sets) than we did on the Cleveland Heights system, which stopped at channel 39 back then.

Great video, by the way. Was recorded on my 14th birthday...man, how cable (and everything) has changed since then.

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

Which Cleveland-area cable systems carried Canadian stations, in particular, CFPL/10? I seem to recall that the systems currently in the Cox umbrella carried CFPL.

 

[DrC]

Which Cleveland-area cable systems carried Canadian stations, in particular, CFPL/10? I seem to recall that the systems currently in the Cox umbrella carried CFPL.

The only Cuyahoga County system that carried CFPL (to my knowledge) was the Cleveland Heights Viacom system (which served CH, Shaker Heights, Euclid, South Euclid, Mayfield Hts, etc). They were on channel 10 from the early 1980s to around 1987, at which time they were moved to channel 33. They were deleted from that lineup entirely some time between 1990-91.

Cox and the North Coast Cable system in the city of Cleveland never carried CFPL to my knowledge.

CFPL was also on the Madison and Ashtabula area TCI systems from the early 80s at least into the early 90s, based on my memories of the News-Herald cable listings (which they stopped publishing around the early 90s). Not sure when CFPL went away there, but the News-Herald TV guide listed CFPL's program schedule from the early 80s into the early 90s, right after channel 8's column......

 

[DrC]

Another interesting thing about the Cleveland Heights Viacom system - some areas were grandfathered into allowing carriage of out-of-market network stations when the Browns games were locally blacked out. For example, Euclid and Shaker Heights had identical channel lineups, but when the Browns game was blacked out, the Shaker Heights system would carry Toledo's WTVG on channel 10 (which I believe carried the Discovery Channel normally). I remember everyone going to my grandparents' house in Shaker in the late 80s to catch blacked-out games. Cities that weren't grandfathered in, like Euclid, wouldn't get the WTVG feed.

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

The only Cuyahoga County system that carried CFPL (to my knowledge) was the Cleveland Heights Viacom system (which served CH, Shaker Heights, Euclid, South Euclid, Mayfield Hts, etc). They were on channel 10 from the early 1980s to around 1987, at which time they were moved to channel 33. They were deleted from that lineup entirely some time between 1990-91.

Ah, Viacom is what I was forgetting. I also don't know how those systems ended up with Time Warner today, presumably through Cablevision or Adelphia?

That was quite a run for CFPL locally, about 10 years as recently as 1991.

And it makes sense that the TCI systems along the lake carried CFPL.

 

[DrC]

The Cleveland Heights system started as Viacom, was purchased by Cablevision around 1992, was purchased by Adelphia in late 2000, and TWC bought the system when Adelphia left the cable industry (thinking 2006).

Also, around early 1996, Cablevision switched Cleveland Heights (only) to a completely new channel lineup and used addressable traps (remember watching a boxing PPV at a friend's house in CH and was amazed that they didn't have a cable box). The rest of the cities under the 'Cleveland Heights' system were also upgraded to a higher channel capacity, with a different lineup and with Scientific Atlanta 8600s replacing the vintage 1980s Zenith boxes.

The Geauga County system was always owned by Cablevision (at least from the mid-80s on). Viacom never ran that system.

One last note re: CFPL on Viacom- there was absolutely no substitution or blackout of content duplicated by American networks. You could see the Tonight Show with Carson on WKYC, and on CFPL with Canadian advertisements. It's much different now, of course.

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

One last note re: CFPL on Viacom- there was absolutely no substitution or blackout of content duplicated by American networks. You could see the Tonight Show with Carson on WKYC, and on CFPL with Canadian advertisements. It's much different now, of course.

Yipes. The local stations probably complained at some point, particularly when CFPL was on the prime 10 channel position!

The Cablevision Cleveland Heights lineup changes had staying power, at least with the listings services. To this day, to get the local TWC lineup on Zap2It.com and similar sites, you have to select "Cleveland Heights" (vs. Akron, etc.).