I'm sorry you had a bad experience with our HD service on Saturday night and appreciate your email and comments. Please know that the conversion to digital is fraught with details, high in expense and difficult to manage as we run both analog and DT services. I suspect we'll continue to have issues because it is far more complex than simply flipping a switch. Typically, each transmission incident or failure has multiple issues surrounding it. When these happen outside of regular business hours it is even harder for the few people who are on duty to respond.
First, thanks for noticing the phone message problem. Our telephone vendor is now aware of it and they are working on it. The use of the "5" prompt is intended exactly for people like you who have questions, comments or problems outside of our M-F business hours. It has been worked on unsuccessfully over the past week and was thought to be solved.
As to this week's SNL broadcast, NBC master control messaged our local master control just before 11PM on Saturday night to tell us that SNL would be sent as 4x3 centercut on the HD service. Apparently this particular show was shot in 4x3 (not 16x9) and up converted to HD in which case you would see pillars on each side. We do not know why this was the case but that really doesn't matter as it was not available to us in 16x9.
For future reference, our point person on our DTV conversion is VP of programming and marketing, Mike Marshall. He usually responds to voice mail or email regarding DTV issues but is on vacation. You can reach him at this email address mike.marshall@wcsh6.com or you can leave him a voice mail in box #214, or in the "5" prompt as he'll be the one checking on those messages. In late night hours there is not usually more than one or two news staffers on duty, sometimes in edit booths working on the morning newscasts.
Thanks for the communications. I hope you notice improvements, albeit slow, in our various HD offerings in the coming months.
Steve Thaxton
President/General Manager
WCSH 6
One Congress Square
Portland, ME 04101
direct: 207-828-6605
station: 207-828-6666 ext. 301 - with voice mail
fax: 207-828-6653
cell:207-653-6666
email: steve.thaxton@wcsh6.com
--read next post for my response to this email
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