Station ID oddity

[MarcB]

When I'm watching FOX CT in Hartford and the legal ID pops up in the corner of the screen it will show the FOX CT logo and underneath it will say WTIC-TV 31.1 Hartford New Haven. However when I'm watching Antenna TV and the legal ID pops up it will show the FOX CT logo and underneath it will say WTIC-TV 61.2 Hartford New Haven.

In the analog days FOX CT was on Channel 61. Now it's on 31. It's just weird that the sub-channel's Legal ID will show a different channel number.

 

[KML0224]

My guess is that Antenna TV uses "WTIC-TV 61-2", sometimes with the FOX-CT logo, so more people realize that it's their station offering the service? Other than that, I can't figure that one out either.

As for WTIC-TV 61-1, it's usually right at the bottom, in tiny print, when they show the 10 second spots of the news anchors, while the background is whizzing past behind them at light speed.

 

[recto101]

This is like KNTV the NBC O&O in San Jose they ID themselves under Channel 3 in 2002 but KCRA viewers Dish and Directv Objected the Channel 3 id. So from 2003-2008 KNTV was called NBC11 before its present ID as NBC Bay Area.

 

[fybush]

When I'm watching FOX CT in Hartford and the legal ID pops up in the corner of the screen it will show the FOX CT logo and underneath it will say WTIC-TV 31.1 Hartford New Haven. However when I'm watching Antenna TV and the legal ID pops up it will show the FOX CT logo and underneath it will say WTIC-TV 61.2 Hartford New Haven.

In the analog days FOX CT was on Channel 61. Now it's on 31. It's just weird that the sub-channel's Legal ID will show a different channel number.

Clueless promotions director, probably.

In the early years of DTV, long before the DTV transition, it wasn't immediately clear that channel mapping would be the way things would go, and so you saw a few stations here and there creating new IDs with their RF channel numbers. Somewhere on tape I have an ID from then-KBHK San Francisco circa 2001, calling itself "UPN 44/45" (analog 44, digital RF 45), and I remember WCBS-TV sticking a "WCBS-DT 56" in small print under its legal ID (and on the side of its news vans) for a while, too.

Eventually, most stations figured out that from a promotional point of view, it was a lot easier to just stay "Channel 8" or "Channel 3" and embraced virtual channels wholeheartedly. (Or, in some cases, got rid of channel-number branding entirely, e.g. "Fox CT.")

I would guess that some graphics person at WTIC-TV made up the "WTIC-DT 31.1" ID many years ago and hasn't even thought about it since. And incidentally - it's not even a correct ID. The main Fox program on WTIC-DT actually goes out as program "3" on RF channel 31 (call it "31.3" if you must) with PSIP data mapping it as virtual 61.1, and I can guarantee that there's not a receiver anywhere in existence on which WTIC-DT is tuned in as "31.1."

 

[KML0224]

Strange! My Sanyo 26" LCD HDTV from 2006 always showed "WTIC 61-1" on antenna (when I had one hooked up anyways). My mother's TV on cable, with no converter (and my TV now, also with no converter), shows them as "WTIC 61-1" and Antenna TV as "WTIC 61-2". If this is the case Scott, what actually goes out on WTIC 61-1?

Meanwhile, I guess they'll never change the digital assignments for this market or Boston/Worcester, considering both use channels 20, 31 and 39 for digital (WTXX, WTIC and WCTX here along with WCVB, WFXT and WSBK there).

 

[fybush]

Strange! My Sanyo 26" LCD HDTV from 2006 always showed "WTIC 61-1" on antenna (when I had one hooked up anyways). My mother's TV on cable, with no converter (and my TV now, also with no converter), shows them as "WTIC 61-1" and Antenna TV as "WTIC 61-2". If this is the case Scott, what actually goes out on WTIC 61-1?

If the question is, "what's on RF channel 61?," the answer is nothing, at least no TV broadcasts: the digital TV spectrum ends at the old channel 51 and by year's end even the remaining LPTVs on 52-69 will have been cleared away as those frequencies transition to other uses.

But, again, *any* channel number is a virtual concept. As W9WI is so fond of pointing out, all TVs from the beginning have used channel mapping. It's just that it used to be a fixed mechanical mapping - any analog TV, anywhere in America, that was tuned to "channel 2" was receiving a signal between 54-60 MHz. Today, that same TV could be tuned to "channel 2" and could be receiving an over-the-air ATSC digital signal anywhere between 54 and 700 MHz, or could be receiving an analog cable signal on 54-60 MHz, or a digital cable signal anywhere from baseband to 1 GHz, or a digital satellite signal somewhere up around 12 GHz.

You don't need to know that to watch "channel 2," any more than you need to know that the server running this message board is at IP address 72.29.72.50 in order to get to boards.radio-info.com. If you're within range of New York City TV, whatever underlying reception technology you're using, you select "2" (or "2.1") and you get CBS, channel 2. End of story.

And in that sense, you could say that what's "actually" on 61.1 is...WTIC-TV.

Meanwhile, I guess they'll never change the digital assignments for this market or Boston/Worcester, considering both use channels 20, 31 and 39 for digital (WTXX, WTIC and WCTX here along with WCVB, WFXT and WSBK there).

It's a better bet that some digital assignments will shift in the next few years, especially if the FCC follows through on its plan to repack the spectrum to free up more bandwidth for wireless broadband. The beauty of virtual channels is that as a viewer, it won't matter to you - you punch in "20" to get WTXX and "61" to get WTIC now, and wherever those underlying RF channels go, you'll still get WTXX on "20" and WTIC on "61," just the same way that you'll always find this site at "boards.radio-info.com" no matter what server and underlying IP address it happens to be using.

 

[w9wi]

In the early years of DTV, long before the DTV transition, it wasn't immediately clear that channel mapping would be the way things would go, and so you saw a few stations here and there creating new IDs with their RF channel numbers. Somewhere on tape I have an ID from then-KBHK San Francisco circa 2001, calling itself "UPN 44/45" (analog 44, digital RF 45), and I remember WCBS-TV sticking a "WCBS-DT 56" in small print under its legal ID (and on the side of its news vans) for a while, too.

Of course, I can't find the references now but... it's my recollection that by the time the first non-experimental DTV station went on the air, the PSIP standard (A/65), with channel remapping, was an accomplished fact.

What I can establish is that A/65 was first adopted two days before Christmas 1997; that the interim DTV channel assignment table was adopted in May of that year; and that the WIkipedia page on the DTV transition says the first non-experimental DTV station in the U.S. went on the air in October 1998.

I suppose there may have been some doubt as to whether channel remapping would be universally offered in all *receivers*. (and in fact, I've owned one receiver that *didn't* support it -- the early Hauppauge WinTV-D card.. although you could manually remap by proper manual selection of channel names)

 

[mjlarochelle]

When DTV first started in Detroit, WXYZ/7 even had a separate DT 41 logo, with the '4' curved to fit on the lower right side of the circle 7 logo. This was only seen on the DTV feed.

Also in Detroit, WWJ/62 at one point was IDing as WWJ-TV/DT 44, with no mention of 62. This was as recent as 2007.

WQLN/54 in Erie, PA had "TV 54 - DT 50.1" in its logo for awhile, still seen on their Wikipedia entry.

 

[nathannah]

This is like KNTV the NBC O&O in San Jose they ID themselves under Channel 3 in 2002 but KCRA viewers Dish and Directv Objected the Channel 3 id. So from 2003-2008 KNTV was called NBC11 before its present ID as NBC Bay Area.

In that case though, 3 was only the cable assignment; they still had to legally identify as Channel 11. Meanwhile the 3 mess was because the owners of KNTV before NBC bought them entirely (Granite) went with the "NBC 3" branding entirely against NBC's wishes because they knew the KCRA confusion would be a mess. So when NBC bought them, their first move was a rebrand back to "NBC 11", though they kept the channel 3 cable slot.

In Milwaukee though, WDJT/CBS has continued to identify as WDJT-DT since the transition, even though they're legally WDJT-TV. Seems to be OK as thee have been no problems at all, and it's only noticed by those like us who look close at these things.

And I'm not even going to count the dozens of channel errors RTV has in their TOOH ident system, such as misplaced callsigns and subchannel positions. The station in Green Bay just throws on a proper ID that stays onscreen all day and night to make sure they're kosher.

 

[tripinva]

And I'm not even going to count the dozens of channel errors RTV has in their TOOH ident system, such as misplaced callsigns and subchannel positions. The station in Green Bay just throws on a proper ID that stays onscreen all day and night to make sure they're kosher.

Once upon a time, when RTV was owned by Equity, each local feed was switched out of Little Rock. These days, most of the local stations do their own commercials and ID insertion on top of the RTV national feed, with only a relatively few stations still having the insertion done in Chattanooga. I honestly couldn't tell you which camp WBAY falls into offhand, but if you would send me an e-mail letting me know exactly what problems you are observing, I'll be glad to look into it.

- Trip

 

[recto101]

Look at KOFY-TV 20 In San Francisco they ID themselves KOFY-TV 20 Xfinity Cable 13.
and look at radio too in San Francisco KCBS will ID themselves as KCBS FM 106.9 and AM 740 when staff members are talking about traffic updates. But when KCBS goes to CBS News updates its KFRC 106.9 FM/ KCBS 740 AM San Francisco. And Look at KFOG, KDFC, KUFX, KPFA, and KNBR they all have special ID's where they name all the translators when they reach the :59 or :00 point at the hour. But during the hour they don't name their translators to the public.

 

[w9wi]

In that case though, 3 was only the cable assignment; they still had to legally identify as Channel 11. Meanwhile the 3 mess was because the owners of KNTV before NBC bought them entirely (Granite) went with the "NBC 3" branding entirely against NBC's wishes because they knew the KCRA confusion would be a mess. So when NBC bought them, their first move was a rebrand back to "NBC 11", though they kept the channel 3 cable slot.

In Milwaukee though, WDJT/CBS has continued to identify as WDJT-DT since the transition, even though they're legally WDJT-TV. Seems to be OK as thee have been no problems at all, and it's only noticed by those like us who look close at these things.

http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/cfr_2009/octqtr/47cfr73.1201.htm
73.1201 requires the hourly legal ID to contain the call letters and city-of-license. It also provides a (short) list of items that may, optionally, be inserted between the calls and the city.

Among them are the station's frequency and/or channel number.

It also provides that if a DTV station inserts its channel number, it must use the "major channel number" -- that's defined in PSIP and is the *virtual* channel, not the RF channel. So KNTV would be allowed to insert channel 11, or 11.1. They could not legally insert 12 (their RF channel) or 3. (their cable channel)

There are three caveats to the above statement.

1. I'm pretty sure that DTV provision is relatively recent -- didn't exist until 2009. Transition-period DTV stations faced a regulation with some ambiguity as to which channel could be used in the ID.

2. KNTV could argue that its *frequency* is 12. The rule would certainly allow them to ID as "KNTV, 204.31Megahertz, San Jose" (not that any promo department in their right mind would do so!); arguably "Channel 12" is defined in regulation 73.603 as shorthand for 204.31MHz.

3. The legal ID may be visual *or* aural. You're not required to do both. The FCC no longer cares what you put up outside of your legal ID, as long as you do do at least one legal ID per hour. So it's possible KNTV is saying "KNTV, San Jose" in the audio at least once an hour; if they do so, they can put up "KNTV, channel 827, The Moon" visually.

I suspect #3 also goes for WDJT. (shoot; I was in Milwaukee last weekend & should have noticed..) They can put up "WDJT-DT" on the screen as long as they say "WDJT-TV Milwaukee" aurally, or run at least one ID that says WDJT-TV.

 

[K6JHU]

"And Look at KFOG, KDFC, KUFX, KPFA, and KNBR they all have special ID's where they name all the translators when they reach the :59 or :00 point at the hour. But during the hour they don't name their translators to the public. "

FCC only requires that the translators be lsited once in a four hour block. Anything else is optional.