Although President Obama signed a bill to extend the drop dead date for Analog broadcasting from February 17, 2009 to June 12, 2009, it is NOT a mandate. Broadcast television stations CAN extend their analog broadcasting, but they don't HAVE TO. So what's happening here in Maine? And what's happens beyond the conversion?
The future of Maine's broadcast television stations is in some ways written in stone and in other ways is very "up in the air" so to speak (pun intended).
There is a lot going on that we know about, but as always I am more interested in what we are not being told.
As of February 17, 2009 the following TV stations in Maine will still cease Analog operations and be Digital only. Some listed below have already shut off their analog signal.
WGME - CBS 13
*WPXT - CW - 51
*WPME - MyNetwork - 35
*MPBN - PBS Maine- Channel 10 in most areas except 9 in Orono and 45 in Biddeford
**WPFO - Fox 23
NHPTV - NH Public TV - Several channels
WVII - ABC 7 - Bangor
* Station has already dropped analog signal
** Station will do a flash cut-over from analog to digital on 2/17/09
CONGRATULATIONS, and job well done. I am glad that these stations have a backbone and continue forward on the conversion. The supposed extension to June is plain silliness. Why sign an extension bill if it is non-binding and all it does is cost different people money. It's crazy and unnecessary. The Converter Box Coupon program is not broke. The FCC handed out millions of coupons that were requested, but not really needed by the people who ordered them. And they sent out millions to people who simply let them expire without ever using them. The FCC is accounting for all of these unused and unneeded coupons as if it's money out the door and then claiming they are in the red. It's a bunch of crap. I don't know the percentages because the won't tell me but there must be a huge number of coupons out there that have never and will never be used. So I'd like to see the FCCs books to see if they moved those dollars back into the "cash available" column.
Now these are the TV in Maine stations who don't have a backbone and are using this fake extension as an excuse to hide their sub-standard technological abilities.
WMTW - ABC - 8 - Portland
WCSH - NBC - 6 Portland
WLBZ- NBC - 2 Bangor - owned by WCSH
WABI - CBS - 5 Bangor
The CW - used to be 56 Bangor, now just digital and only standard definition as a sub channel of WABI - The WABI/CW partnership is the most confusing and screwed up setup I have ever seen. I don't even think this CW entity has its own channel number anymore.
So there you have it, the winners and losers. Or is that the whole story?
The real truth is that NOT ONE MAINE TV STATONS is producing any programming in High Definition or even Standard Definition in 16:9 widescreen format. Not ONE. In Boston all three of the big three local affiliates produce their local news in High Definition. And they use Standard Def widescreen cameras for many of the field shots. WCVB even produces the only New England based non-news programming in High Definition. It's called Chronicle and they do an unbelievable job with production values.
Now in my area, WCSH, WMTW, and WGME all produce their news in digital, but standard definition. So all of us with HD televisions have to put up with two black bars on the side of the picture (called pillars). Many HDTV can't streth the picture to fit the screen easily because said black pillars are broadcast as part of the picture. The pillars exists only to fill up the screen. You would think that the people at these TV stations would be EMBARRASSED at this point. Hell, even Oprah and Ellen are in High Definition now, but Maine's crack TV technical directors can't quite figure out how to broadcast these programs in HD to Maine viewers. If Boston can do it why can't Maine? Is it about the money?
Of course it is. But they will blame in on the "economic downturn" or "reduced advertising revenue". The bottom line is that these stations are all owned by some corporate conglomerate. So until Maine's population demands High Definition local programming and refuses to watch the existing, ridiculous 1980's-style "news", then our TV stations will continue to offer sub-standard programming. If they aren't losing viewers, they have not reason to change anything.
Isn't it time we spoke up? Haven't we had to deal with enough with the digital conversion? WE WANT OUR HDTV!!!
Here's the big picture. A lot of people in Maine rely on over-the-air TV broadcasting. They have been forced to buy a new digital TV (and maybe a new antenna) or a converter box (and maybe a new antenna). When they have completed this, and hook it all up, they most likely receive fewer channels than they did before, because digital signals aren't as strong. The FCC promised that consumers would receive the same stations they did before. THIS IS NOT TRUE. The FCC had NO IDEA what they were talking about and did not know how many consumers would be affected by a reduction in the number of channels received. Now add on top of this all of the public service announcements and TV crawlers and news articles that have been going on for almost 2 years. The whole thing has been a major production and in my opinion, since the government started this whole thing, it was bound to be a mess, and it is.
So after all this don't we deserve to have high definition programming all the time, not just digital. Digital TV by itself isn't "better" than high quality analog broadcasting, not to the human eye anyway. So if you're not going to make a real difference and go HD all the way, then why bother. It's like in the old days if they had started selling color TVs and then no programming was in color, wouldn't you be a bit upset after you spent the money on a new set?
The Maine TV stations who are so behind the curve should be ashamed of themselves; I am ashamed and embarrassed by them. Thank goodness I can get the Boston channels from my house.
14 comments:
I live in Portland, and this is what Joe Riley of MBPN stated in his recent response:
-----
It is true that a significant number of off-air viewers in the Portland
area (and in the Bangor area) are having difficulty picking us up since we
turned off our digital transmitters. We had no way of knowing ahead of
time how many people would not be able to get our digital signal, although
we knew some would have a problem. We did blanket our breaks (on both TV
and Radio) with spots alerting our audience of the switch. We also ran an
in-depth half-hour program over the two weeks prior to the switch that
detailed steps to take to find our signal -- and acknowledging that some
would not get us at all.
Our signal to Portland is provided by a VHF transmitter in Litchfield
(channel 10) as well as a UHF transmitter in Sanford (channel 45). We are
required to keep our transmitters close to their cities of license;
however, Portland is not the city of license for either station -- WMEA-DT
45 is licensed to Biddeford; WCBB-DT 10 is licensed to Augusta. We have
petitioned the FCC for an increase in power to WCBB, and we hope this will
be implemented by late February.
We wish everyone could receive a perfect signal from us, but this isn't
possible with current technology. We do broadcast our signal with the
best quality and highest power allowed within the guidelines of the FCC.
We have great hopes that consumer technology (for converter boxes and
digital TVs) will improve significantly over the next year. In the mean
time, short of purchasing cable or satellite service, finding the most
appropriate antenna is your best bet. You can find more information at
antennaweb.org or tvfool.com .
I hope this is helpful. I am very sorry you cannot receive our signal
now.
Thank you for your years of support for public broadcasting.
--Joe.
Joe Riley
VP Director of Television
Maine Public Broadcasting Network
1450 Lisbon St.
Lewiston, ME 04240
Phone: 207-783-9101 or 1-800-884-1717 ext. 5116
Fax: 207-783-5193
www.mpbn.net
First of all, the converter box coupon program is run by the NTIA, a part of the Commerce Dept, not the FCC. And yes, the funds from expired coupons go back into the pot and immediately are used to send out coupons to those next on the list. Hence, although the program is "broke", they are still sending out around 100,000 coupons per day.
Anyone who starts a comment with FIRST COMMA, must have a bone to pick. This is an open forum and there is no need for attitude. One of the first people I ever contacted when I started this blog was a man named Richard Wiley, the guy who fathered the rules and regulations about digital TV at the FCC so to me, it's all FCC. Now while you are correct that the NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration) is in charge of the coupon program (and if you're going to use an acronym, at least tell the readers what i means). However I will quote this from the Department of Commerce web site "The NTIA's Office of Spectrum Management is in charge of regulating use of spectrum allocated to the Federal Government. It serves in a manner equivalent to the Federal Communications Commission for this purpose". So the NTIA is closely linked to the FCC and I don't think most American's are worrying about which government agency or commission is screwing things up, let's face it, it's all just "the government".
So what is your vested interested in splitting hairs and sticking up for the NTIA, are you a member. Are you getting a government paycheck to scour web sites in an attempt to find the dissenters? Did you forget that GWB isn't in power any more?
How are you so sure about what the NTIA accounting practices are?
The mere fact that you are saying the NTIA is sending out coupons, then accounting for unused coupons, then resending out coupons at a rate of 100,000 per day WREAKS of inefficiency. And as we all know inefficiency equals wasting money when we're talking about any government agency. So I just plain don't get your point other than to correct which agnecy is handling the coupons, which I accept as an inadvertent error on my part. It could have been done like this: "Just one minor comment, the agnecy handling coupons in the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and in my opinion they are doing their best. In all fairness I do work for them".
There was that so difficult? If you had written that I would have just approved the comment with not further action.
Is this your first blog?
I'm not done. The FCC didn't define what an eligible household is so the NTIA thought one up. The NTIA also imposed a 90 day expiration date on the coupons. WHY?? I'll tell you. The expiration date causes more chaos and more back and forth with the NTIA. While some of the poorest households need time to come up with the additional funds needed to buy a converter box over and above what the $40 coupon will cover (like taxes and the fact that I have never seen a converter box for $40 or less), the NTIA still needed a way to eat up the $1.5 billion initial budget. Nobody thought the program would go on so long so the NTIA needed a way to use up all the money whether or not it was needed. As it turns out, it was needed, but if the program had been run efficiently from the onset, the NTIA wouldn't have run out of money. Do yo see where this is going?
(I hope I'm not sending this twice. I fear my session may have timed out due to my slow typing!)
I certainly meant no offense by how I started my comment, sorry.
I don't work for the government or the media and never have. I just enjoy reading whatever info is out there about the media in Maine. I particularly find the transition to digital only TV fascinating. I'll probably never see anything like it again in my life.
I agree 100% about the people who are ending up receiving fewer stations in digital than they did in analog, it is inexcusable. It will be summer up here in Bangor before all the stations are at their final post transition configurations so we can't yet tell how everyone will be affected. MPBN (which is at post-transition power, etc.) abandoned the eastern portion of their Bangor coverage area for greener pastures to the south. Of course, their next transmitter to the south is in Litchfield, so they filled some prior coverage gaps in the central Maine area. But that dosn't make the people in Hancock County any happier. Personally, I hope that if the stations get enough complaints, they'll see what changes they can make. WLBZ successfully applied to raise their antenna higher on their tower, for instance.
I have no idea how many resources it takes the NTIA to issue coupons as the old ones expire. I'd assume the process is heavily automated and is simply monitored for quality control purposes.
All I know about how the NTIA runs the coupon program is what I read. And I did watch the last FCC commissioners meeting online.
I understand the problems coupon expiration has caused. But someone was correct in predicting that many would go unused. The program has finite time and money and they needed to keep some kind of handle on their budget. If instead of expiring all the coupons were kept outstanding the apparent funding burn rate would have appeared to be even higher than it did with expirations. You must think I'm some sort of government apologist, but actually my political views trend closest to Libertarianism. But in this case I see lots of competing problems and few easy answers. I don't think the FCC and NTIA are doing that badly with the hand they've been dealt by the Congress we elected (shudder).
I believe Congress considered and decided against means testing for the coupon program because of the difficulty and expense of setting up and enforcing such a program and getting it to work accurately as intended. Maybe it could have worked OK, but I think they did have a point.
As for the transition in general, there has been tons of publicity, it wasn't as effective as it should have been. And it seems like it was late fall before the ad blitz really took off and that was too late. And too many people didn't know that their coupons expired until it was too late. Whether or not they should have known, it was still a failure of the process. I think a lot of people, even while hearing the words, found it hard to believe that TV as they've known it for 50 years was simply going to stop working, since so many previous enhancements (color, stereo, closed captions) were backward-compatible. I still find it a little hard to believe.
One thing's for certain, it will continue to be interesting to watch how it all unfolds over the next four months.
Thank you for your comments Scott and you have allayed my fears of pro-government watchdogs :)
I am really just one guy who took on this thing called "the media" and "the analog transition" almost 2 years ago now and I don't make a dime doing it. I do a lot of research and talk to so many people I can't even count. So when someone visits solely for the purposes of criticizing what I am doing, I get a little offended by that. So I thank you for revisiting and restating your opinion in a non-threatening and cohesive fashion. I appreciate your insights very much and your second attempt is exactly the kind of dialogue I hope for on my blog. Honest and throughful. And we can disagree without being hateful about it. I like to learn from everyone who visits as I know I am not the last aurhority on any of these topics.
In some ways I think that the NTIA and/or FCC would have done better to just stay out of the coupon business. How many people who applied for a coupon couldn't afford the $55 dollars for a converter box, nobody knows. It would have been better to go through the State of your local town office. I don't know, I'm just playing devils advocate.
The public has to take some of the blame here. After 2 years of public service annoucements they still don't have a clue. It's as if they simply tuned it out because, you're right, they didn't want to believe that television was changing. The problem is that most people don't know why. They don't know about freeing up bandwidthc to help 911 systems across the country. Or because the frequencies being freed up by the conversion will be put to use in other meaningful ways. All they hear is "It's changing so deal with it by this date". In my opinion, you can't tell the masses to do something without telling them why and expect a good outcome. Because people will ignore you and won't act when they should.
I'm not really looking to point fingers, that is not he goal of this site. While I do have a lot of personal opinion mixed in, my goal is to disseminate as much information as possible and let the viewership decide for themselves what to do.
Thanks for the kind words!
So many of the choices that were made as the transition plan was laid out had to be made on the basis of assumptions just because no one's ever done anything quite like this before. As things have gone awry, Congress has been slow to respond, and they decide what the FCC does. The Democrats blame President Bush and conveniently forget to mention that they've been in charge of Congress for two years. If there's any silver lining, all the other countries that haven't yet switched are watching us intently and it will hopefully go more smoothly for them.
I'll keep an eye on your blog and see what you're up to. I'll be glad to offer what perspective I can as a Bangor area TV viewer.
Wow, two people with opposing viewpoints on politics find common ground and something we can work together on. If only Congress could learn from us :)
I've been looking for someone, since the inception of this blog, to be a contributor. Even those who have been extremely vocal with their opinions haven't been committed enough to participate in the process. If you are interested in contributing posts from your point of view, your own research (or shared research), and your perspective from Bangor (since I tend to cover Southern Maine) I would be thrilled. I have contacts that are willing to work with me and provide information from MPBN, NHPTV, and The CW and MyNetwork (both run by the same company here in Southern Maine). If you are at all interested, please let me know your email so I can contact you directly. nI could really use the help. Actually I'll give you an email address where you can contact me directly, outside of this blog so we can talk about it. grygse@aim.com is a good one to use. This issue is not going to go away anytime soon. We have at least 4 months and beyond to cover this stuff. And you are right, it is fascinating.
Thanks Scott, and if you are not interested in submitted posts, I certainly understand, we all have busy lives and it's hard to fit more into our lives unless you have an undeniable passion for it.
A new article has been posted where WPXT in Portland asks for the public's opionion. Please visit the post and provide feedback if you can. Thanks,
All UHF signals are line of sight and the signals will not bend with the small valleys as VHF would.
I've been telling alot of people that live in valleys that they are not garantee to receive the UHF signals and maybe some VHF.
If those that don't get the digital tv channels don't want to pay a monthly fee, then they should look into the FTA Satellite channels.
If you live in a valley and willing to pay a monthly cost, then cable or satellite tv would be the way to go. But most of the OTA receivers won't pick up the new channels.
Thanks for your comments and perspective. To demonstrate how the laws of physics don't alwasy apply equally to this problem I'll share my situation. I live in the very botton of a vally. The kind of valley where it is a lot hotter in the summer and a lot colder in the winter. I live in an apartment building. I have an indoor antenna that sits right next to my TV. And I have buildings all around me. I have so many things going against me. But I can receive, with my UHF/VHF antena, every stations available to me in the Portland DM;, a total of seven. ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, MyNetwork, the CW, anf FOX. So even with everything being equal. it's not. I am VERY lucky. Others won't be. Even though I receive all of the channels I am supposed to, and I can get a few more in New Hampshire like NHPTV, and the ION Netowrk that has a tower in Concord, I am still fighting for everyone out there who is NOT getting the TV reception that they are entitled to.
I'm not sure what you mean by OTA receivers won't pick up the new channels. Are you talking about the Digital Converter Boxes? And if so, why would a Digital TV pick up channels with an antenna but a Digital converter box in the same spot with an analog TV won't. I am asking because even with all my research, I don't know the answer to that. Is it the quality of the converter box? The technical capabilities of the converter box? I do have a digital TV but to me, it's the quality of my antenna, which I have touted over and over again on this blog, that makes the difference. I can't even remember how many antenna's I tried but it was a pile, all returned until I found the TERK.
It is still unacceptable that MBPN have a position like that about television reception due to the digital switch.
It's not my responsibility to pay for cable now or buy a house just for the sake of an an outdoor antenna.
MBPN's policies sound like the my road or the high road former administration.
R
[QUOTE].... even Oprah and Ellen are in High Definition now, but Maine's crack TV technical directors can't quite figure out how to broadcast these programs in HD to Maine viewers.[/QUOTE]
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Actually WGME does broadcast Oprah in 16x9. However WMTW has not figured out how to broadcast Ellen, Wheel or Jeopardy that way.
WGME does broadcast Oprah in HD now, but they did NOT at the time I wrote the post. I even communicated with WGME at the time who said they were working out some "kinks". The kinks have obviously been worked out for this program. Ther are other HD shows like Entertainment Tonight, for example, that WGME still does not broadcast in HD. I'm just stayin'
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