The October 25, 2009, broadcast of "60 Minutes" was not in high definition on WGME Channel 13 out of Portland, Maine. I wrote to the General Manager, Tom Humpage, who told me "it must be that switch thing again".
Tom is referring to a switch on the console in the TV Control room at the station. It is literally a switch on the control board that can toggle the broadcast between High Definition and Standard Definition.
The person at the console must "flip the switch" in order for HD to go out over the broadcast antenna. In my experience, when I call a local TV station to let them know that somebody forgot to "flip the switch", I usually get (and I've used this analogy before) a guy named Chad munching on a Kit-Kat bar and a drinking a Red Bull who says, "Huh?".
It's not rocket science. When a TV show you are broadcasting should be in HD, and you don't have sophisticated equipment that will flip the HD switch automatically, then FLIP THE SWITCH!
WGME is Portland, ME, seems to be the one TV station in the area that consistently has this problem. I admit that the incidences of the switch not being flipped are much less often than they used to be, but it bothers me that it still happens.
3 comments:
Why don't the broadcast stations just leave the switch on and stop playing with it.
People have bought the new HD TV's so they can watch the shows in HD.
I personally don't understand why TWC insist on showing the TV shows in analog. Why not just let subscribers watch TV in HD and for those with old TV's should get a converter box from the cable company since they pay enough to TWC for cable TV.
As you may have guessed, it's all about money. When an over-the-air TV broadcaster uses bandwidth and tower-time for HD, it costs them money. So the more they can get away with not flipping the HD switch, the less money they are spending. So sometimes, these "accidents" are all about saving a few bucks and hoping nobody will notice.
WGME still uses a manual process. According to the GM they are working on automating it like most other TV stations in the area but it will take a few months.
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