WPRI dethrones WJAR

[w9wi]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think you are misunderstanding what I am saying...but whatever. I have posted facts based on what I have seen on television, and what I see on Channel 6 in terms of a legal ID is wrong. The station is licensed to New Bedford, not Providence. They are listing Providence as the city after the call letters.

FCC regulation 73.1201:
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2009-title47-vol4/xml/CFR-2009-title47-vol4-sec73-1201.xml

Which says in part:

Television and Class A television broadcast stations may make these announcements visually or aurally.

(emphasis mine)

It's quite possible for what you *see* in a TV station's ID to not be legal, but for the station to broadcast an *aural* ID which *is* compliant with 73.1201.

You have to ID either visually or aurally. You're not required to do both, and it's perfectly legal to list the cities in the wrong order in one ID as long as the other one is correct.

 

[necrat123]

This is where 73.1201 is very poorly written.

WLNE doesn't do an aural ID, Doug. It's just a visual that puts Providence between WLNE and New Bedford.
The rules need to be more detailed regarding visual identification, just like they do for FM HD1 program streams.

 

[w9wi]

(Thanks Mike! -- it's a bit difficult trying to deduce what's going on from 900 miles away )

Agreed, that the rules could use some clarification. (I'm not sure the HD ID regulations could be any more detailed. They could however be clearer!)

_________________________________________________

I would suggest this part of the regulations is to some degree obsolete. The idea is to ensure viewers know WLNE is a New Bedford station, not a Providence station. But in fact, every station in the market is broadcasting to the entire Providence market -- Providence, Pawtucket, Fall River, New Bedford, etc., etc., etc... The public-service rules are loose enough that there is nothing really to tie WLNE to New Bedford anymore.

IMHO a station licensed to a community in a Metropolitan Statistical Area should be regarded as licensed *to* the MSA -- and allowed to ID with any community in that MSA which its signal reaches. (existing principal community contour rules) The FCC has already taken the first step in that direction.

Also IMHO, stations should be relieved of the requirement to run legal IDs *if*:
1) They encode their call letters in their RDS PS field, their IBOC PAD, and/or the PSIP Station Name field for TV, and:
2) They broadcast at least once an hour a phone number, email address, or the URL to a website that contains this information.

Many stations are already doing this, and IMHO it would fulfill the needs that have required the ID in the past -- the need for the audience, and FCC inspectors, to be able to identify which station is in violation of the rules.

 

[Fenway1912]

Can we all agree that WTEV/WLNE's attempt at focusing on the Providence market was an epic fail.

Now could WLNE survive with a newscast that centers on the Southcoast from Brockton to the Cape work? Possibly.

Move the studio to Taunton if need-be but Rhode Island is a dead horse.

Hearst could have bought it for peanuts and said no....which is surprising given their buying WMUR and WMTW.

WJAR/WPRI/WNAC own the Providence news market - WLNE's best shot is the southeastern Mass market.

 

[bmf316nhl]

Can we all agree that WTEV/WLNE's attempt at focusing on the Providence market was an epic fail.

Now could WLNE survive with a newscast that centers on the Southcoast from Brockton to the Cape work? Possibly.

Move the studio to Taunton if need-be but Rhode Island is a dead horse.

Hearst could have bought it for peanuts and said no....which is surprising given their buying WMUR and WMTW.

WJAR/WPRI/WNAC own the Providence news market - WLNE's best shot is the southeastern Mass market.

That's an interesting Idea and it might work.

 

[Jefferson Ward]

WLNE's best shot is the southeastern Mass market.

I understand the point you are trying to make, but there is no such thing as "the southeastern Mass. market" when it comes to television markets. Southeastern Massachusetts (Bristol County) is part of the Providence/New Bedford DMA. The rest of southeastern Masschusetts (i.e. Cape Cod/Wareham, etc.) is part of the Boston DMA. I believe Fall River/New Bedford is it's own market in terms of radio markets, but I could be wrong about that.

Were you trying to say that WLNE would be better off covering southeastern Massachusetts (Fall River/New Bedford areas) instead of focusing on Providence/Attleboro areas for news?

 

[formeraa]

WJAR/WPRI/WNAC own the Providence news market - WLNE's best shot is the southeastern Mass market.

WLNE already tried that from 1963 to 1980 with very little success. In the 1980's, they still maintained a reasonably heavy emphasis on SE Massachusetts with a full-time bureau and reporters there. For a couple of years, they even split their newscasts with one anchor in "Downtown" Providence and one anchor in New Bedford -- which led to a comedic incident one night with the New Bedford anchor mis-identifying the meteorologist on-duty in Providence.

The only hope would have been Hearst buying the station for peanuts and broadcasting Boston news on the station. Perhaps they could have had a "Southern New England" bureau in "Downtown" Providence.

 

[Joseph_Gallant]

WTEV/WLNE (Was: Re: WPRI dethrones WJAR)

In the analog era, WTEV/WLNE had a major disadvantage in over-the-air coverage vis-a-vis WJAR-10 and WPRO/WPRI-12.

Thanks to WCSH in Portland, Maine being on Channel 6, the WTEV/WLNE tower could not be any further north than a line from Tiverton to New Bedford. Any closer to Providence (or to the Rehobeth antenna farm) would have increased interference to WCSH.

As it was, WTEV/WLNE's signal rapidly degraded the further north you went from Providence.

On many TV sets in Boston and it's southern suburbs, you could get an excellent signal from WJAR and WPRI, but not from WTEV/WLNE. You'd get a snowy black-and-white signal (if you had a color set) at best. You'd often need an outdoor antenna to get Channel 6. If you were lucky, your outdoor antenna might be able to give you a picture that (again, if you had a color set) was barely in color.

It's my understanding that WLNE's digital signal is now transmitted from Rehobeth and is now the equal of WJAR, WPRI, and WNAC-64 in the Providence area.

But a 50-year legacy of WTEV/WLNE as "the station with the snowy signal" lingers.

Had the station been able to transmit atop one of the Rehobeth towers with a clear picture from the beginning, the last half-century of Providence-area television would have been very different. We might even be talking about a three-way race for local news supremacy.

 

[Fenway1912]

WJAR/WPRI/WNAC own the Providence news market - WLNE's best shot is the southeastern Mass market.

WLNE already tried that from 1963 to 1980 with very little success. In the 1980's, they still maintained a reasonably heavy emphasis on SE Massachusetts with a full-time bureau and reporters there. For a couple of years, they even split their newscasts with one anchor in "Downtown" Providence and one anchor in New Bedford -- which led to a comedic incident one night with the New Bedford anchor mis-identifying the meteorologist on-duty in Providence.

The only hope would have been Hearst buying the station for peanuts and broadcasting Boston news on the station. Perhaps they could have had a "Southern New England" bureau in "Downtown" Providence.

That is why I am stunned that Hearst didn't pick up given what it finally sold for.

The so called 'Southcoast' has grown over the past 30 years and also the fact that cable TV by dropping the Boston have now cut Massachusetts residents off from news about Mass politics and the state government. Giving it another shot certainly can not make things any worse for 6.

Throw in that there are many in Rhode Island who would like access to Massachusetts news and there is no option left in RI ( except Verizon FiOS ) as COX has never carried NECN.

In the OTA days the Boston's stations came in as strong as the Providence outlets in Northern RI.

 

[Fenway1912]

Re: WTEV/WLNE (Was: Re: WPRI dethrones WJAR)

The Channel 6 analog signal was destroyed from Brockton north not because they were in Tiverton but because of of interference from Boston's channel 5 as you got closer to Newton/Needham. ( 10 and 12 never had that problem )

I happened to drive by the Tiverton tower on Friday - is anybody using it today?

In the analog era, WTEV/WLNE had a major disadvantage in over-the-air coverage vis-a-vis WJAR-10 and WPRO/WPRI-12.

Thanks to WCSH in Portland, Maine being on Channel 6, the WTEV/WLNE tower could not be any further north than a line from Tiverton to New Bedford. Any closer to Providence (or to the Rehobeth antenna farm) would have increased interference to WCSH.

As it was, WTEV/WLNE's signal rapidly degraded the further north you went from Providence.

On many TV sets in Boston and it's southern suburbs, you could get an excellent signal from WJAR and WPRI, but not from WTEV/WLNE. You'd get a snowy black-and-white signal (if you had a color set) at best. You'd often need an outdoor antenna to get Channel 6. If you were lucky, your outdoor antenna might be able to give you a picture that (again, if you had a color set) was barely in color.

It's my understanding that WLNE's digital signal is now transmitted from Rehobeth and is now the equal of WJAR, WPRI, and WNAC-64 in the Providence area.

But a 50-year legacy of WTEV/WLNE as "the station with the snowy signal" lingers.

Had the station been able to transmit atop one of the Rehobeth towers with a clear picture from the beginning, the last half-century of Providence-area television would have been very different. We might even be talking about a three-way race for local news supremacy.

 

[channel99]

The Channel 6 analog signal was destroyed from Brockton north not because they were in Tiverton but because of of interference from Boston's channel 5 as you got closer to Newton/Needham. ( 10 and 12 never had that problem )

Other causes of ch 6 reception problems included the many FM stations in the low end (88-92 MHz) of the FM band. Before the days of SAW filters, TV IF sections included adjacent channel traps to filter out the lower adjacent audio, and upper adjacent video carriers, but were essentially ineffective against the scattered upper adjacent FM signals. This restricted FM allocations in markets where ch 6 was used. WGBH FM on 89.7 with 100 KW from Milton was a prime offender in the Boston area. Another problem was poor image rejection of ch 7 (similar to the reason for the UHF "taboo" ban of stations 14-15 channels apart in a market) and a tendency of older TV's to radiate signals at the first harmonic of their 40-45 MHz IF range , often interfering with themselves and other nearby TV's. Ch 6 was not the most desirable allocation for any station.

 

[KML0224]

That may be so, but when I lived in Old Orchard Beach, ME between 1985 to 1987, I never once had a problem with receiving WCSH-TV channel 6. WMTW-TV channel 8 was decent to well most of the time. It was WGME-TV channel 13 which was marginal for me at times. Thankfully, they were coming in OK the day CBS broadcasted Super Bowl XXI in 1987.

 

[Dighton Rockhead]

Re: WTEV/WLNE (Was: Re: WPRI dethrones WJAR)

The Channel 6 analog signal was destroyed from Brockton north not because they were in Tiverton but because of of interference from Boston's channel 5 as you got closer to Newton/Needham. ( 10 and 12 never had that problem )

I happened to drive by the Tiverton tower on Friday - is anybody using it today?

By the same token...having grown up just outside Fall River (and quite close to the old analog Channel 6 tower)...Boston's Channel 5 literally didn't exist on any of the TV's in my neighborhood...the signal having been destroyed by adjacent channel interference from WTEV/WLNE. All people would get on their TV sets were herring-bone patterns for video and loud buzzing for audio.

Those being the days before cable was widely available, this could be most frustrating at times. WTEV/WLNE didn't need much of an excuse to pre-empt ABC programming, and did so with impunity. That day in either 1977 or 1978 when WTEV became a CBS affiliate was a blessed day for me...knowing that I could rely on Channel 7 as an interference-free back-up.

These days, the old analog Channel 6 tower is being used by a Class "A" Spanish-language FM radio station licensed to Middletown, RI (100.3)...but essentially serving Providence.

 

[Markxxx]

Another problem was poor image rejection of ch 7 (similar to the reason for the UHF "taboo" ban of stations 14-15 channels apart in a market)

I have never heard this, what exactly does this mean? In layman's terms. thanks

 

[channel99]

I have never heard this, what exactly does this mean? In layman's terms. thanks

Analog TV (and also radio) receivers convert the video and audio signal for the particular channel desired within the tuner (first stages following the antenna) to 2 single common frequencies. In TV's, these are 41.25 MHz for audio, and 45.75 MHz for video. (Actually the video spans most of the range from 41.25 to 45.75 - the carrier frequency is 45.75.) These form the IF (Intermediate Frequency) range and then are shaped and amplified greatly in the following IF stages, before being demodulated into video and audio. This method is far more effective than if the whole possible range of TV signals had to be processed from end to end.

The conversion of the incoming frequency is accomplished by mixing a locally generated signal of appropriate frequency with the incoming signals. The result of this is the original frequencies, plus their sum and difference. All but the difference frequencies are discarded in the IF stages. So for ch 6 the video is transmitted at 81.25 MHz, and the audio at 87.75 MHz. When tuned to ch 6, the locally generated signal will be at 129 MHz, with the frequency difference producing the 41.25 and 45.75 MHz frequencies above. Unfortunately, TV tuners are built with cost in mind, and many could not totally keep a strong ch 7 signal from getting mixed in also. Ch 7 is at 175.25 and 179.75 MHz and therefore the 175.25 MHz signal could mix with the local 129 MHz signal producing a difference of 46.25, sufficient to interfere with the ch 6 signal.

This situation was worse on the UHF band - where transmitters separated by 14 -15 channels (approximately the same as the ch 6 - 7 spacing) were not allowed to be sited closer than 60 - 75 miles. Other interactions for IF beat (where 2 stations 8 channels apart could mix with each other), and a few other factors, led to the most common UHF spacing of 6 channels apart - such as in Mass. (32 Greenfield - long gone, 38, 44, 50 (NH), 56, 62, 68).

 

[Fenway1912]

Before cable OTA signals ( rabbit ears ) were strange in Northern RI.
In Pawtucket and Central Falls channels 4 and 7 came in clearer than 10 and 12 and in Woonsocket channel 5 caused channel 6 havoc.

Conversely I can recall a bar at South Station Boston could get 10 and 12 clearer than the Boston outlets.

With the possible exception of Balto-DC no 2 markets overlap more than Boston and Providence.

Back in 1995 when Group W bought CBS there was some thought that NBC would try and make WJAR-TV their Boston outlet via cable as NBC really did not want to deal with Sunbeam again but in the end NBC caved.