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Should ION begin making themselves available for DTV?

C

carolinaradio

With the developments in the OTA digital world recently with channels like Antenna TV, Me-TV, The Country Network, etc., I've been wondering - ION Television, like it or not, is missing in quite a few markets. Should they make themselves available for digital television? MyNetworkTV, which I think is rather similar to ION, does, as they don't have their "own channel" in a lot of smaller markets. So does The CW. It certainly couldn't hurt them, could it? Here in SC, there are no ION affiliates. The only place I could see them ever ending up is on a subchannel. Why don't they make the channel available for other channels to carry on their subs? They are buying a station in Pittsburgh to broadcast on...couldn't all of that trouble and money have been saved by just broadcasting on another network's subchannel? Why do they not do that? If they do, I've never seen it.

ION has actually been seeing good growth in the ratings, despite their small rotation of the same shows. They have some good movies. It would never work, but maybe they should combine with MyNetwork.... :D
 
Time Warner Cable in SC shows the national feed of Ion on cable. Which I believe other cable companies do across the country.
 
Ken said:
Time Warner Cable in SC shows the national feed of Ion on cable. Which I believe other cable companies do across the country.
Click to expand...
True, as well as on satellite. However, ION apparently has interest in being on locals (they are still considered a broadcast network) as they, like I said, are apparently still interested in purchasing OTA properties and keep their O&O's. IMO, if they are still interested in being available OTA, they ought to try to expand that footprint by subchannels.
 
The national feed of ION is carried on Time-Warner Cable in Portland, ME. They use to have a then-PAX affiliate way back when, but that station changed over to today's WPFO-TV (FOX) channel 23 of Waterville (Portland/Poland Spring market).
 
Dish Network used to have the national feed of Ion, and "Ion-W" which I think at first was a west coast feed delayed by a few hours, then it turned to being Qubo most of the time.
 
I don't think that plays into Ion's business plan real well. They like their affiliates to clear all 3 of their channels: Ion, Qubo and Ion Life. Unless someone is willing to devote 3 subchannels, I don't see Ion being too keen on taking them as an affilate.
 
Ion should just become a cable/satellite channel. There's no point in them having broadcast affiliates when they all show the exact same schedule, plus a good chunk of them are obscure LP stations. I have a feeling they'd make more money as a cable channel.
 
tested said:
I don't think that plays into Ion's business plan real well. They like their affiliates to clear all 3 of their channels: Ion, Qubo and Ion Life.
Click to expand...

On Bright House's systems in Tampa Bay (where we have an aerial Ion station, WXPX), only the main Ion feed is cleared, in regular and HD, not the subchannels.
 
nickelodeonfan97 said:
Ion should just become a cable/satellite channel. There's no point in them having broadcast affiliates when they all show the exact same schedule, plus a good chunk of them are obscure LP stations. I have a feeling they'd make more money as a cable channel.
Click to expand...

Yup. Besides, how much are they spending to maintain all those transmitters? That HAS to be a pretty significant chunk of what they bring in from the 16+ hours per day of infomercials they air.
 
I was about to say the same thing...ION needs to decide what they want to do. Like I said, they're still buying stations OTA, so I guess they still see something in it. I know several years ago some of the big providers (DirecTV I know) threatened to pull them.

Maybe they should make their subchannels available for other channels to air...just an idea...
 
carolinaradio said:
I was about to say the same thing...ION needs to decide what they want to do. Like I said, they're still buying stations OTA, so I guess they still see something in it. I know several years ago some of the big providers (DirecTV I know) threatened to pull them.

Maybe they should make their subchannels available for other channels to air...just an idea...
Click to expand...

The thing is they have been trying to do that, but for some reason the cable and satellite providers just associate ION=infomercials, even though an infomercial has never aired on Qubo or ION Life and ION has drastically reduced their infomercial hours since the dark days of 2005.

The other thing is they still go with the analog day excuse of 'we can't receive your station because your transmitter is so far away'. No excuse anymore; in many markets ION has joined the other big stations in transmitting from the metro's main antenna farm in the digital age.
 
mescutia said:
nickelodeonfan97 said:
Ion should just become a cable/satellite channel. There's no point in them having broadcast affiliates when they all show the exact same schedule, plus a good chunk of them are obscure LP stations. I have a feeling they'd make more money as a cable channel.
Click to expand...

Yup. Besides, how much are they spending to maintain all those transmitters? That HAS to be a pretty significant chunk of what they bring in from the 16+ hours per day of infomercials they air.
Click to expand...

Exactly. If you're going to operate like a cable channel, then you might as well be one.

Ion is a small company. They almost went bankrupt in 2009. Selling off their fleet of more than 50 stations would provide some cash flow to the company. Then they could sign deals with the cable companies and sign on as a cable channel, where they would likely get twice as many viewers. And then, instead of having to rely on infomercials to provide cash, they could acquire more programming.

I know it's not that simple, but they should at least look into it.
 
Back with Boston Legal and NCIS, I thought of them as kind of a OTA version of USA or TNT in a way.

IMO, they need to decide between cable or OTA and focus their efforts.
 
nickelodeonfan97 said:
Exactly. If you're going to operate like a cable channel, then you might as well be one.

Ion is a small company. They almost went bankrupt in 2009. Selling off their fleet of more than 50 stations would provide some cash flow to the company. Then they could sign deals with the cable companies and sign on as a cable channel, where they would likely get twice as many viewers. And then, instead of having to rely on infomercials to provide cash, they could acquire more programming.
Click to expand...

You're not wrong, but there is the problem. With TV stations they get "must carry" status. If they no longer had those TV stations the cable companies could drop them anytime it suited them. ION wouldn't have the "Big guns" to bargain with. The way ABC and FOX get their lesser cable networks on by insisting to get the popular cable channels they take the lesser one too.
 
mrschimpf said:
The thing is they have been trying to do that, but for some reason the cable and satellite providers just associate ION=infomercials, even though an infomercial has never aired on Qubo or ION Life and ION has drastically reduced their infomercial hours since the dark days of 2005.

The other thing is they still go with the analog day excuse of 'we can't receive your station because your transmitter is so far away'. No excuse anymore; in many markets ION has joined the other big stations in transmitting from the metro's main antenna farm in the digital age.
Click to expand...

The Indianapolis market is one market where the Ion station (WIPX-TV) still doesn't cover the entire market. With the station's COL being Bloomington, having the station's transmitter in or north of Indianapolis (where most transmitters are located) won't give the station Grade A coverage over Bloomington to satisfy FCC requirements. That's the same reason WTTV also can't locate in or much closer to Indianapolis. The only advantage WTTV (CW) has is a simulcast of WTTK to cover the northern part of the market. Ion Media doesn't have that option with WIPX. They do have a translator in Indianapolis (technically an LP station as the call letters are WIPX-LP) in Indianapolis to cover parts of Indianapolis where the main signal can't easily be picked up. Even with that, it still doesn't cover the northern part of the market (mainly the near northern suburbs of Indianapolis, like the main signal does).
 
ION is the G4 channel in my house. I think they have MASH, but other than that, nothing. I can see why they almost went bankrupt. They had the chance to become another TV Land, but they wanted to be CBS instead. Whoever is calling the shots there, is not doing a very good job.

They probably paid big bucks for reruns of "Without A Trace" and "Criminal Minds". Those shows
are going to draw a limited audience, especially when up against the same type NEW programs on other networks. For that same money or less they could have gotten 12 hours of "Gilligan's Island" "Pettycoat Junction" and "Gomer Pyle" type shows and they would be getting better ratings also.

Antenna TV is going to show these half-ass-networks HOW IT'S DONE.
 
Antenna TV is going to show these half-ass-networks HOW IT'S DONE.

I hope you're right but probably not. As I said before, on this site it's all about women 25 -54, mostly 25 - 45. I'm sure Without A Trace appeals to that group much better than Mama's Family. But that being said, the last time I watched ION was for Green Acres. I was hoping they would pick up where TV LAND dropped the ball. However, I certainly don't fit the demos they are looking for.
 
azumanga said:
On Bright House's systems in Tampa Bay (where we have an aerial Ion station, WXPX), only the main Ion feed is cleared, in regular and HD, not the subchannels.
Click to expand...

Same here with Time Warner Cable's Cleveland system, and WVPX. Of course, Bright House is connected to Time Warner as far as carriage agreements go.
 
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