Why does WSBE Providence go off the air except on Cable?

[Skynet74]

I don't understand why they shut off their over the air signal every night between Midnight and 8 AM, but they still broadcast on cable. You would think that they might occasionally do this to perform some kind of work on the tower. However this happens every night! If they are going to keep broadcasting on cable systems all night than why don't they also keep broadcasting over the air as well?

 

[ssetta]

I've actually wondered the same thing, and they even do it with their new HD Digital signal, which is an even bigger surprise.

 

[ansky212]

PBS in CT does the same thing. Maybe they save money on their utility bill by not transmitting all night.

 

[mescutia]

I believe there are stations out in Montana and the Dakotas that still sign off every night.

Granted, those areas are significantly less populated than southern New England...

 

[Skynet74]

They might save Money, but it's doing a disservice to the viewers who don't have cable. I guess they figure there arn't enough of them overnight to matter. At least The Boston stations pick up the slack. You can always rely on good WGBH and WGBX.

 

[someplacesomewhere]

Its been mentioned several times on air on all the Providence TV stations. Cable has an almost 90% saturation in the market. Probably a lot closer to 100% that late at night.

 

[Bill_W]

So if you have DirecTv, do you lose it? Doesn't DirecTv get locals over the air?

 

[RonTheEngineer]

So if you have DirecTv, do you lose it? Doesn't DirecTv get locals over the air?

Not always, many stations feed via fiber for reliability. And this is what is happening here...

There is a large fiber network out there among cable systems. In CT it was built and maintained by Comcast, but everyone has a few spigots into and out of it. Alot of stations feed directly or via fiber to a headend, then it goes to alot of systems.

Then... Cablevision also has their own proprietary fiber network, so if a station goes in one... they all get it. So if my station goes down to 1/4 power on a cabinet failure, the Westchester systems never notice.

I then feed uVerse, FiOS, Direct and Dish via fiber directly.

I only feed TWO cable systems off air, as they don't want to rely on the handshake agreement of the fiber network.

 

[Kenny Atkinson]

So if you have DirecTv, do you lose it? Doesn't DirecTv get locals over the air?

WSBE on Directv goes off the air.

 

[LA_Guy]

I believe they do it to use the digital 'pipe' for other purposes. You have to stop limiting your thinking to believing that DTV transmitters can only transmit pictures. What they transmit is a 19.8 MBPS data stream. Many school districts sign their DTV off at night so they can use that 'pipe' to send data to the schools. Things like films, video presentations, memos, closed circuit broadcasts, emails and even attendance records can all be sent through that big pipe.