Stations That Use Their Cable Channel For Their Identification

[TexasTom]

With cable/satellite usage now approaching 80%, the OTA channel number is becoming increasingly irrelevent anyway.

Not necessarily -- it depends on the market, since the ratio of cable viewers versus satellite viewers versus OTA viewers varies widely from market to market.

But if you figure that the "average" market is 60% cable, 20% satellite, and 20% OTA, the OTA channel number remains relevant for 40% of viewers. As I noted in another post a moment ago, satellite receivers that I've seen map back to OTA channel numbers.

 

[Ultimajock]

...when I visited Montreal in 1980, I was surprised to see CFCF-TV/12 ID itself as "Cable 11" -- as I recall, CJOH Ottawa did the same at the time...

 

[chuckydoll]

At least 2 stations in Gainesville FL ID with their cable position. WGFL-TV ID's as CBS4; its OTA channel is 53 and its DT channel is 28-1. Sister station My11 is on DT channel 28-2.

Out in San Diego there's a dual-channel ID: NBC7/39, an NBC O&O on cable 7 and satellite/OTA 39.

 

[Morgan Wick]

I had thought that I heard that some or all TBN stations were going to map to Channel 75.

You did, but whoever wrote that mistook Tribune Broadcasting for Trinity Broadcasting. Tribune broadcasting wishes to map to channel 75.

http://www.atsc.org/standards/virtual_channels.html

Regardless of which TBN, you wrote:

Only true broadcast frequencies above channel 51 are being reallocated. Virtual channel numbers will be 2 - 99. Channels 2 - 69 will be used by DTV stations taking their channel from their existing analog station. Channels 70 - 99 have future uses planned. From the same FCC document:

The provisions listed above assign major_channel_number values 2 through 69 uniquely to broadcasters licensed to broadcast Digital ATSC signals and guarantee that the two-part channel number combinations used by a broadcaster will be different from those used by any other broadcaster with an overlapping DTV service area.

So why would Tribune (or whatever) even be able to put all its stations on channel 75? That was the implied point you missed.

 

[dhett]

Only true broadcast frequencies above channel 51 are being reallocated. Virtual channel numbers will be 2 - 99. Channels 2 - 69 will be used by DTV stations taking their channel from their existing analog station. Channels 70 - 99 have future uses planned. From the same FCC document:

The provisions listed above assign major_channel_number values 2 through 69 uniquely to broadcasters licensed to broadcast Digital ATSC signals and guarantee that the two-part channel number combinations used by a broadcaster will be different from those used by any other broadcaster with an overlapping DTV service area.

So why would Tribune (or whatever) even be able to put all its stations on channel 75? That was the implied point you missed.

I can't give you an authoritative answer on that. I was quoting verbatim from the FCC document. If you haven't already, take a look at it and see if you're reading the same thing.

One thing I can see from the link that shows where Tribune Media has applied for virtual channel 75 is that their on-air date says TBD.

::ons official Joe Gallant wizard's speculation hat

That may mean that this is a future service they haven't rolled out yet, not current OTA broadcast. If these are going to be current OTA channels all mapping to a common major channel number, wouldn't you think that more than 30 companies would already be wanting to do this? And why wouldn't ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, TBN (Trinity) and Daystar also be wanting channels? I would especially think that the last two would be duking it out for the rights to channel 77.

::offs hat

Anyway, I guess we'll see what shakes out, but the language in the FCC document seems quite compulsatory, as opposed to permissive.

 

[w9wi]

So why would Tribune (or whatever) even be able to put all its stations on channel 75? That was the implied point you missed.

I think they want that for subchannels, not for the main channel.

Note the other registrant of virtual channels above 69 - US Digital TV, who registered channel 99.

As you may remember, this was the company that used spare bandwidth in stations' DTV streams to bring "over-the-air cable" to Salt Lake City and a few other places. A station (say, KPNZ-24) would run its regular programming on virtual channel 24-1, then conditional-access streams on 99-2 (Disney Channel, for example), 99-3 (CNN?), 99-4, etc...

I want to say Tribune had some kind of conditional-access movie service in mind, but that's really pushing my memory and is probably wrong...

Of course, the stations' RF channels - 19 for WGN-TV, etc. - would be unchanged.