Losing local Fox affiliate, can I pick up a national now?

I wonder what's going on with Fox, our longtime affiliate here in Boise is losing their Fox affiliation next month. So now we have musical chairs of Fox going to the CW station, the CW going to a CBS subchannel and the current Fox station going independent.

 

I will bet you that FOX is picked up on D* even though it is a subchannel. Same setup in the Meridian, MS market (WGBC). Two HD feeds on one channel. Good luck with the compression. The picture will look crappy. Hopefully, WISE will provide a fiber optic feed of FOX to D*. That should solve any poor picture issues.

 

FOX is having a lot of disputes with its affiliates over retransmission fees and these are the first two to lose the network. Look for Bismarck-Minot's FOX affiliate to change soon as well.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/ent...all-market-affiliates-over-money-dispute.html

 

People like FOX? Right, Bob's Burgers. I get it now.

I wonder if this is the new normal, in which networks are hitting up their stations for money and dropping them if they don't get it. Then you'll see Direc and DN carry national net feeds for everyone, hoping that US Bell and Shaw viewers will return.

 

Fox Channel 34 will be replacing WFFT is the word I've heard.

 

Here in my market, our CW affiliate is a sub channel of CBS. Directv carries this sub channel. They also carry another subchannel of ours from PBS.
So there is a chance they will pick up your sub channel.

Here is our local line up.

WITN NBC HD 7
WNCT CBS HD 9
WCTI ABC HD 12
WYDO FOX HD 14
WNCT-DT2 CW SD 15(sub)
WUNK UNC/PBS HD 25
WUNK-DT2 UNC/PBS SD 25.2 (sub)

 

And the sad thing is that the current CW station isn't broadcasting in HD on Directv. I am wondering will they upgrade their facilities since FOX is requiring KNIN to broadcast in HD.

 

The way i understand it - if you can recieve a channel OTA, it doesn't matter that Directv doesn't offer it, you won't be eligible for DNS.

 

KNIN has broadcast in HD for several years now, but only OTA.

 

That is sort of ****ty really..... what exactly determines whether you can receive it? You can live inside a OTA area, but not receive anything because there is a big building next door (but none towards the southern sky).

 

so again... the way i understand it, they have this map that shows signal strength, and if you are within an area that has adequate signal strength, you aren't going to get a waiver from the local station to allow you to get a distant network out of LA or NY. It wouldn't matter whether your personal living situation - i.e. your apartment example - prohibits you from actually receiving that signal. You are in the ring of goodness so to speak, and that's what matters.

It's not Directv's decision. You have to get a waiver from the local station in order to allow Directv to give you an LA or NY station. And the station won't give it to you if you are within a strong signal zone. It's an FCC thing meant to protect local broadcasters.

I've personally had no experience with this, so don't shoot the messenger here, but this is what i've gathered from reading other similar posts and threads.

 

Then why have they not provided an HD link to Directv. They provide a HD link to Cable One.

 

Since satellite companies and local stations work out carriage between themselves, I would guess KNIN wanted more for their HD signal than D* was willing to spend, probably since KNIN's only HD programming was CW shows 2 hours a day. I would bet D* will pay up once they switch to Fox.
On a somewhat related note, I learned that the reason D* shows a hideous center cut of 4-2 PBS HD here in addition to the SD 4-1 PBS is because PBS told them to show two channels in SD instead of one in HD. PBS here obviously doesn't care about HD, since they even downres the 1080i signal to 720p for their HD OTA channel.