Thursday, September 4, 2008

The Maine HDTV Forum needs your help - WMTW is not keeping up with HD

During the Democratic National Convention ABC decided to make the move on both its nightly evening news cast at 6:30 and on its late night new magazine "Nightline" to high definition.



I get WCVB, Boston's ABC channel, as well as WMTW, ABC in Portland, Maine so it is easy for me to compare the two.



First, WCVB does air the ABC World News Tonight show in high definition. WMTW does but only when it remembers to to do, essentially, remembering to flip the switch to go over to HD. It's not rocket science.



As for Nightline, WCVB broadcasts it in high definition; WMTW does not.



One more thing, Nightline is a live network feed. It is considered network programming, not programming that is or can be recorded by affilaites and played back later. Nightline is broadcast to you at the same time the network is uplinking it to the affiliates.



I have written to WMTW and asked why Nightline is not in high definition and have received no response. I am asking that the visitors/viewers/members of the Maine HDTV forum write to WMTW at the following addresses and ask why Nightline is not in HD. I would also request that you ask when Nightline will be in High Definition:



Bill Greep is the lead engineer, his address is BGreep@hearst.com.

The main email address for WMTW is wmtw@wmtw.com.

The main phone number is 207.782.1800.



I don't ask for help from the visitors of this site unless I feel there is a real need. I am hoping that we can pressure WMTW into meeting their obligations to the community by supplying High Definition programming whenever possible. And this one should be a no brainer for them, it is a simple network feed translation.

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