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WPRI attemping to remove WBZ from Bristol County cable systems

S

sonicdoommario

Right now, Bristol County, Massachusetts, is in the Providence DMA and NOT Boston, to the dismay of several residents across Bristol County.

The Boston/Providence dispute in Bristol County is getting worse....WPRI has petitioned to the FCC to attempt to remove WBZ off of Bristol County's "Significantly Viewed" list for South Easton and Fall River. If this petition is successful, Comcast would be required to black out CBS network programming in Fall River and South Easton.

WNAC, the little sister of WPRI, has had WFXT blacked out across all of Bristol County during FOX programming, and this blackout has been in place going back to 2007.

Earlier this year, WLWC was able to exempt Fall River from significantly viewed status for WLVI. Because of this, WLVI is blacked out on cable systems during CW programming in Fall River.

The Providence affiliates are basing this on over the air ratings, which are horribly inaccurate.

WBZ has since countered to this petition, and they (including their owner CBS) are fighting to stay sigifnicantly viewed across all of Bristol County.

If we can switch Bristol County into the Boston DMA we would never hear from Providence again...

Right now, the major Boston affiliates (4, 5, 7, 38, 56) are able to be carried on cable systems without any blackouts because of being significantly viewed. This is why FOX 25 in Bristol County is blacked out every day during FOX programming.

If you want any additional information on this be sure to email [email protected]. Right now I have the documentation from WBZ countering WPRI's decision to remove WBZ from these Bristol County communities. If I had a web site to host this document on I would be sure to show you guys.
 
The fact that WPRI is trying to remove WBZ is foolish, there's room for both the Boston and Providence stations. And remember that the Boston TV stations have a strong signal in most parts of the Boston and Providence TV markets to be received off the air should this scheme of WPRI's occur.
 
alg2468 said:
The fact that WPRI is trying to remove WBZ is foolish, there's room for both the Boston and Providence stations. And remember that the Boston TV stations have a strong signal in most parts of the Boston and Providence TV markets to be received off the air should this scheme of WPRI's occur.
Click to expand...

I just measured distances.

South Easton to Boston is 25 miles
South Easton to Providence is 28 miles.

Yet... WPRI wants to yank away WBZ from South Easton residents even though those residents are closer to Boston. That's an intersting one. I bought two indoor antennas just for this type of garbage that stations try to pull. If WPRI is upset that people 28 miles away in Massachusetts are watching WBZ, than they would really be pissed if they knew where I watch WBZ from. ;D
 
Also, here's the email I got when I heard about this announcement:

Folks,

Save Boston Channels has been dormant for a while because the major Boston affiliates have been back on the HD systems of cable. But WPRI-TV is roaring back to make the issue more relevant than ever. The Providence affiliate is using archaic trickery to eliminate Boston's WBZ-TV, channel 4, from the cable line-up in Easton and Fall River, and they're likely to add more cities and towns soon.

This time WBZ-TV, and its owner, CBS itself, is fighting back...please see attached documents.

Friends, this a big sea-change in our fight to do one of three things:

1) Pass the TV Freedom Act in Congress to make sure Massachusetts-based TV stations are available to Masachusetts cable viewers

2) Change Bristol County to the Boston DMA thereby eliminating any Providence dictate on our viewing choices

3) Change Northern Bristol County to the Boston DMA leaving Fall River and New Bedford in the Providence DMA.

I will be asking the general managers of other Boston TV stations to now take up this issue, just like WBZ has and I will work with our local selectmen and city councilors, cable advisory groups, etc. to get this moving once and for all.

WPRI is trying to force change using strictly over-the-air antenna ratings, from an FCC regulation enacted in 1972. As you know, all of us gave up our lightning-inducing house roof antennas long ago and to use this as the ratings standard in 2010 is absurd. I will also make this known to the entire FCC in a specific letter to the commission very soon.

Join the fight. Tell others, including your congressman, to search for Save Boston Channels on Facebook and get organized.

Let me know if you have questions,
Jerry Gibbs
Raynham Cable Advisory Board
 
WPRI must not like the looks of finances lately. It seems to me they are trying to force more pople to watch. Probably to raise their advertising rates. Afterall it's always about MONEY.I'll be watching WBZ for Network programming for now on. The sound quality is better anyway. I've watched Letterman on WPRI and the audience sounds like it's in a bathroom. WPRI uses some kind of weird compression that just plain sucks. WBZ sounds 10 times better.

Don't even get me started on the picture quality of Wheel of Fortune. If WPRI thinks that people don't notice their frame rate trickery, than they've got a surprise coming. Either they drop the frame rate or they slightly increase the speed to fit in another commercial. All I know is that something doesn't look right during Wheel of Fortune. Once 7 PM hits WPRI's picture doesn't look like fluid motion anymore. Is this to recapture the commercial time they lose by broadcasting the lottery drawing? I'm sure someone at the station knows. However I fully expect everyone over there to keep their mouth shut and pretend like they don't know what I'm talking about.
 
Here is an email sent to all of the GMs in the Boston affiliates from savebostonchannels:

Hello Gentlemen,

I wanted to congratulate WBZ-TV and CBS Corp. for responding to the FCC regarding WPRI's attempt to remove WBZ-TV from Easton's cable system.

We are hoping this move will also help trigger WBZ and other stations in the market to finally petition the FCC to add at least part of Bristol County into the Boston DMA.


The reasons that WBZ so eloquently stated in their response to WPRI's move are the same that any of you could make on behalf of us--your viewers. You simply cover our news and local stories more frequently and in more detail. Think back to the election season alone, and you can show how much more coverage you gave to our issues than any of the Providence stations.

We are tired of having the Providence stations use "over the air" antenna ratings as their basis. We are tired of the FCC allowing a 1972 standard to still be used in 2010 to determine DMAs or "significantly viewed" stations. And we are angry that we, the viewers, have no say--the only ones who can petition for a DMA change are broadcast owners or cable companies. The viewer cannot do this, no matter how big our group is.

Let's work together to finally fix this issue once and for all. I continue to keep hundreds of viewers and media reporters informed on this issue, and will continue to do so.
 
This kind of sliminess has to stop. LIN Broadcasting and WPRI need a legal b*tch slap so that an example can be made of them. They (and others) have already succeeded in removing all Boston signals (save WGBH) from all cable systems in Rhode Island despite decades of Rhode Islanders watching Boston TV in addition to Providence. Now they're going after the southwest suburbs of Boston based on a technicality? This is absurd.

One thing that's abundantly clear is that all such proposals need to be fought tooth and nail - everywhere. When the owners of Fox 64 went after WFXT, people in Bristol County should have put up a much bigger stink. Their failure to complain loudly enough eventually led to LIN thinking that they could pull this sleazy move. If there's one thing that certain politicians in Washington have taught us, it's that you have to fight like Hell against even modest steps in the wrong (to you) direction. Though it may seem unreasonable at times, standing every little bit of ground seems to discourage others from taking bigger chunks later. In the future every such proposal needs to be fought like crazy.

Very best of luck to savebostonchannels! Let's hope that it leads to a change in the way that these matters are decided - for all areas in question.
 
PaulRAnderson said:
If no WBZ content is being removed, and it's just CBS programming being removed--which can just as easily be seen on WPRI--what's the issue?
Click to expand...

Well like I said earlier, one issue is sound quality. WPRI doesn't have as good sound quality as WBZ. Especially noticable on any show that has an audience. I've switched back and forth between WBZ and WPRI while watching the same program. There is a definite difference. WPRI sounds like crap.
 
Are you talking about a network show while flipping between the two stations? The only other CBS affiliate I can flip between here is WFSB and their "CBS 3" channel for Springfield, MA. However, they're both being fed from the same studio in Rocky Hill, CT, so there should be no sound difference. The exception might occur that WFSB 3-1 would likely be in HD while WFSB 3-2 ("CBS 3") would not.

I wonder if this type of thing has ever occurred in Hartford County, CT? Enfield, CT, which is on the Massachusetts border, lies closer to Springfield than it does Hartford. However, it's in Hartford county. The local NBC affiliate would be WVIT-TV channel 30 of New Britain. WWLP-TV channel 22 of Springfield, albeit in a different market, is actually closer. I would imagine that they'd be significantly viewed there over-the-air. Checking the COX lineup for Enfield (06082) shows WGGB-TV (ABC) channel 40 being carried both on the analog cable band and the digital tier. I didn't see WWLP-TV listed anywhere.
 
As far as the sound issue goes I am talking about no cable connection. Just my own antenna switching between the over the air signal of WPRI and WBZ during network programming. Since it's over the air there is no cable company to blame. The only one to blame is WPRI for their sh*tty sound processing. They must encode their processing in some strange way to save bandwidth. Holy cow it sounds like crap. Most people won't complain because they probably won't even notice. But as soon as you turn to a good station who processes sound nicely, it becomes very obvious that WPRI sounds awful. It doesn't really make a big difference with speech. But as soon as there is audience applause, that is when you can really tell WPRI has a problem.
 
KML-224 said:
I wonder if this type of thing has ever occurred in Hartford County, CT? Enfield, CT, which is on the Massachusetts border, lies closer to Springfield than it does Hartford. However, it's in Hartford county. The local NBC affiliate would be WVIT-TV channel 30 of New Britain. WWLP-TV channel 22 of Springfield, albeit in a different market, is actually closer. I would imagine that they'd be significantly viewed there over-the-air. Checking the COX lineup for Enfield (06082) shows WGGB-TV (ABC) channel 40 being carried both on the analog cable band and the digital tier. I didn't see WWLP-TV listed anywhere.
Click to expand...

Cox pulled the "significantly viewed" plug on WWLP back in the early 2000's. From what I recall, WVIT tried to get rid of the station a couple times and eventually got the move approved. I can honestly say I don't miss it. WWLP and WGGB used to cover Enfield-area news when I was growing up, but now they never cross the state lines anymore. Can't imagine either station would pull much in any significant demos these days.

Cox carries WGGB in SD and HD, and WGBY in SD as a letterboxed HD down-conversion. I really wish they'd pick up WGBY's native HD signal since they actually have loads of decent local HD programs on there.
 
There's been another thought I've been wanting to get off my chest.

I was skimming through the FCC's significantly viewed list and the Boston stations have significantly viewed protection across northern and central Rhode Island. This means that if Cox/FIOS wanted to carry the Boston stations across these areas, then they would be able to without having to blackout duplicate network programming.

Yet the Providence stations have been constantly trying to strip out-of-state Bristol County viewers of Boston TV, rather than trying to make sure cable companies in Rhode Island (you know, the state where the Providence DMA is based) cannot carry Boston stations.

Could it be that there is a much stronger preference towards Boston stations in Bristol County than there is for Providence stations? You know, because Massachusetts residents want Massachusetts news and politics?

Also, I wanted to mention that the only people who can formally file for a DMA change are cable companies and TV stations. So our efforts for a DMA change lies at their feet right now. If Bristol County wasn't in Massachusetts, Comcast would've surely dropped the Boston stations here in a heartbeat. But even they know that those channels are watched very frequently here.

Oh, and BRNout, there was not a whole lot that WFXT could've fought about. They were never considered significantly viewed in Bristol County (or anywhere else in Massachusetts, even in the Boston DMA), most likely because they were owned by a religious company when significantly viewed lists were assembled, which means WNAC was able to exercise their nonduplication rights. However, there are individual communities across southern Bristol County (Acushnet, Dartmouth, Fairhaven, Fall River, New Bedford) that HAVE WFXT as significantly viewed, which means that Comcast can carry the station without any network programming blackouts in those communities. But Comcast claims that they can't lift the blackout in those areas because of the way the network signal is sent out. Yet they are able to individually black out WLVI in Fall River.

WFXT could help their cause out by petitioning for their significantly viewed status, but have decided against doing so. I really think the reason for that is because WFXT is most likely the most financially troubled TV station of the big four in the Boston DMA. If they had a little more money to work with, I'd think they'd go for the significantly viewed status. I think the ratingd across Bristol County would support any petition for them, but that's totally up to WFXT right now.
 
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