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WMFP-TV 62

W

WLYNWAZNgm

Not exactly radio, but related to the greater Boston area...

Our company (MultiCultural Radio) has recently made major program changes on
our WMFP-TV. The station is a full power TV sation, that had been airing
home shopping and infomercials, on analog channel 62. The WMFP digital transmitter
is now on the air. WMFP is carried by most cable systems in eastern MA/southern NH.
The station is now airing entertainment programming, from the Retro Television Network.
The last I checked, the Comcast on-screen cable guide was not showing the program
changes yet. This should be resolved soon. If you had previously locked out,
or surfed past that channel, you may want to revisit it, and check to see if some
of your old favorite shows are now airing there...
 
WLYNgm said:
Not exactly radio, but related to the greater Boston area...

Our company (MultiCultural Radio) has recently made major program changes on
our WMFP-TV. The station is a full power TV sation, that had been airing
home shopping and infomercials, on analog channel 62. The WMFP digital transmitter
is now on the air. WMFP is carried by most cable systems in eastern MA/southern NH.
The station is now airing entertainment programming, from the Retro Television Network.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but what happened Sunday afternoon?
Screen was either blank or with "please stand by" slide from before 2pm 'til 6pm on the button (I did note a computer screen program desktop for about 5 sec.s around 3:30....perhaps computer program crash?).
 
Uncle Kaimbridge said:
WLYNgm said:
Not exactly radio, but related to the greater Boston area...

Our company (MultiCultural Radio) has recently made major program changes on
our WMFP-TV. The station is a full power TV sation, that had been airing
home shopping and infomercials, on analog channel 62. The WMFP digital transmitter
is now on the air. WMFP is carried by most cable systems in eastern MA/southern NH.
The station is now airing entertainment programming, from the Retro Television Network.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but what happened Sunday afternoon?
Screen was either blank or with "please stand by" slide from before 2pm 'til 6pm on the button (I did note a computer screen program desktop for about 5 sec.s around 3:30....perhaps computer program crash?).
Click to expand...

More than likely, WMFP lost power at their transmitter site on Sunday afternoon just enough to cause a default in their link from RTN/Chattanooga. At that time, many parts of the area were innundated with heavy thunderstorm activity with heavy rains, some lasting over two to three hours. WMFP receives RTN at the transmitter site in Needham and back feeds it to Downtown Boston on their 62.2 subchannel. The signal is then audio/video processed, switched and fed back to Needham through their STL link to be broadcast on their 62.1. That's why they had some issues for several hours. But they're back and good to go. It's a new facility and it's bound to have some quirks from time to time.
 
You are correct, Pete. We also took an electric power hit at the WLYN/WAZN sudios in Woburn
on that Sunday, as some wild weather came through the area....

Eventually, the WMFP master control will probably be co-located in Woburn, as well...
The current master control site is up in the attic at 1 Beacon St., downtown Boston.
The Comark analog transmitter was located behind a window, in the next room.
(I used to work for TV62, a number of years ago...) The antenna for the analog
transmitter was up on the roof at 1 Beacon. It was really easy to check the tower lights there -
just walk out onto the (enclosed) roof, and look up... :D
 
It should be in Woburn now, it's not like there is a shortage of qualified TV people there.

2 Master Control people with years of experience and a Board Op with a First Class ticket, ya I think Woburn could have handled it.
 
The issue of relocating master control was the lease arrangement
at 1 Beacon Street. The timing of the lease period was a bit off...
 
Well, this borders on SPAM and it's not about radio.

But hell; glad to get the news!
 
WLYNgm said:
The station is a full power TV sation, that had been airing home shopping and infomercials, on analog channel 62. The WMFP digital transmitter is now on the air.
Click to expand...
I've heard that the IDs are sent to the station from Nashville or someplace in that direction along with the program content. Isn't there anything you can do to get them to stop IDing with the RF-channel (18-<something>) instead of the channel by which most TV sets and most people identify it (62-2 for the majority of over-the-air viewers, I believe). AFAIK, this is the only station in the Boston market that uses its RF-channel number over the air. It is both inconsistent and confusing.
 
Right now, I am not personally involved in WMFP daily operations (although, I
did work there years ago, under different ownership/format...) Nationally, I think
that stations will, ultimately ID themselves with call letters, not channel numbers.
Example - "CBS4" as an ID was short lived. With WBZ vacating channel 4 for their
digital channel, it makes no sense, to me, to perpetuate the old analog channel numbers,
at all. A "rebranding" all around is in order. The VHF/UHF parity is now a moot point,
as almost all of the digital channels are migrating to UHF, anyway...Watch for stations
to begin phasing out their identification with their former channel numbers at warp speed...
 
Another way to look at the channel number/ID:
if you leave Boston and travel somewhere in another time zone,
do you continue to think that the "real" time is the Boston time
zone time? I contend that once you go to bed that night, and wake
up the next day, the time back in Boston has no bearing on anything...
Add to this, the fact that different cable systems have stations in different
dial positions, in different cities, the "channel number" ID means nothing...
 
"rebranded"TV:
CNN2/CNN Headline News/ Headline News/HN
CBN Cable/Family Channel/ABC Family
The Nashville Network/Spike TV
WB & UPN/CW
Pax Net/Pax TV/Ion
WTBS/TBS Superstation/TBS
etc. ...
The old names are now only a footnote in history...
 
WLYNgm said:
Not exactly radio, but related to the greater Boston area...

Our company (MultiCultural Radio) has recently made major program changes on
our WMFP-TV. The station is a full power TV sation, that had been airing
home shopping and infomercials, on analog channel 62. The WMFP digital transmitter
is now on the air. WMFP is carried by most cable systems in eastern MA/southern NH.
The station is now airing entertainment programming, from the Retro Television Network.
The last I checked, the Comcast on-screen cable guide was not showing the program
changes yet. This should be resolved soon. If you had previously locked out,
or surfed past that channel, you may want to revisit it, and check to see if some
of your old favorite shows are now airing there...
Click to expand...

Yes! The Incredible Hulk!!! (One of my personal favorites) 8)

Jeff, you say you worked for Channel 62 some years ago... just curious: were you there in the early 90's? I ask because during that time (I'd like to say 91-92 ?) I believe Channel 62 aired a rather eclectic (and short-lived) network known as "Mainstreet TV" (?) IIRC, it aired a lot of old-time programs and such... production values weren't that great, but it was a really cool station/network... and also I believe that it eventually aired some programs from NBC that Channel 4 (the NBC affiliate in Boston at the time) chose not to carry... And also I think it was the very first station in Beantown to carry Don West's late night sports cards/memorabilia show!!! ("My GAWSH THIS DEAL IS A NO-BRAINER!!!") 8)

I watched Channel 62 quite often, since I did not have cable at the time and the station/network showed quite a bit of programming that was not offered on the other Boston stations.... I thought it was a really neat station...

Would you be able to share some recollections about the operations/programming of this now defunct network?
 
I was at TV62 just after the "Main Street" period. At that time the station was a secondary
NBC affiliate (carrying NBC programs that WBZ did not air). During the day was home shopping.
They also aired a thing overnights (my shift) called N1, or Network One - which was, basically,
soft core porn. Yes, on over-the-air TV! Bizarre...

The station was then bought outright by a group called Shop at Home, a home shopping company,
based in Knoxville, TN. To quote the Grateful Dead - what a long strange trip it's been! :D
 
I've sampled it a couple of times, and I've noticed there are NO logos, images, bugs or whatever they're called whatsoever...just a full screen of the programming material being aired at the time. It's just like the old days B.CF. before clutter.
 
WLYNgm said:
They also aired a thing overnights (my shift) called N1, or Network One - which was, basically,
soft core porn. Yes, on over-the-air TV! Bizarre...
Click to expand...

Pixellated nudity? Sex films with everything but kissing and fully clothed foreplay edited out? How did this concept work and not run afoul of the FCC?

By the way, are you the same Jeff Kline who had a sports talk show on WLYN in the '70s? If you are, not only do I remember that show from my high school days, but I used to call in from Swampscott, where I was living at the time.
 
Ch 62 used to have a show called "Studio 62 East" late on Fri nights, IIRC, with Morgan White Jr doing
old movies, comedy shorts, cartoons, etc. Morgan did the show as a silhouette, and he said he was
following the lead of someone named George Fennell or something--who had done that also on Ch 5--
it was awhile ago so I don't remember all the details.
 
No, I began working for WLYN when MRBI put the station on the air from Woburn,
Dec., 2002...That said, I am a Boston-area local guy - I made my TV debut, as a
little kid, on the Big Brother Bob Emery Show on WBZ. You would toast a photo of
the president with your glass of milk - and it was Ike, at the time! Honestly,
I was too young to remember much of that, but I DO remember being on Rex Trailer's
Boomtown, and Bozo, on the old channel 5...

Network One (N1) on the old TV62 - they had a total of 40 hours of programming.
I'm no math wiz, but if you run it, say, 6 hours a night, you have soon seen
everything they have. There were alot of bare butts, in thongs, close to the camera -
when things would progress to topless, they would cut away, or show only from behind
(pun intended). Miss Las Vegas Show Girl "competition" comes to mind, as does bimbos
wrestling in a big bowl of salad, in skimpy bikinis. Real high-brow stuff, eh? ;D
 
Remeber we used to go to break at work at the early 90s when 62 has Craig Kinnear's late Nite show from NBC . if we came late to break would see some 'soft porn" after. For awhile 62 carried alot of NBC that BZ would not clear in the 91-94 period.
 
That would be Later, with Bob Costas from NBC, while WBZ ran
repeat of that night's 11pm news. (we also ran the NBC early morning
show that came on before the Today Show...) The smut that came afterward -
that would be N1...
 
WLYNgm said:
No, I began working for WLYN when MRBI put the station on the air from Woburn,
Dec., 2002...That said, I am a Boston-area local guy - I made my TV debut, as a
little kid, on the Big Brother Bob Emery Show on WBZ. You would toast a photo of
the president with your glass of milk - and it was Ike, at the time! Honestly,
I was too young to remember much of that, but I DO remember being on Rex Trailer's
Boomtown, and Bozo, on the old channel 5...
Click to expand...

I was also toasting Ike, from in front of the Motorola black-and-white. Last Republican I ever toasted. I envy your being on all those shows, especially "Boomtown." The only local TV institution I was ever part of as an audience member was a taping of "Bay State Bowling" at Channel 27 in the '70s, although I did get to meet Major Mudd at a live appearance in Stoughton when I was a kid.
 
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