Question for those in the Charleston-Huntington, WV Market

2760 Views 27 Replies 10 Participants Last post by Dolly, Aug 17, 2008

catsports

Discussion Starter · Jul 28, 2008

I thought I read on another forum that DTV had reached an agreement with all of the stations in the market to broadcast the HD signals. Is this true and if so does anyone know any of the engineers at the stations that can tell us what the time frame with DTV is to start transmission of the HD signals. It looks like we will not be in the first wave.

1 - 20 of 28 Posts

Herdfan

· #2 · Jul 28, 2008

There are corporate blanket agreements for WVAH and WCHS (11 & 8) through Sinclair Broadcasting Group. A blanket agreement for WSAZ (3) through Gray Television and Bray Cary, CEO of WV Media Holdings has indicated an agreement is in place for WOWK (13) as well.

So what the holdup? It seems that even though we are in DMA #65, our penentration of both DirecTV and DirecTV subs with HD receivers is low. This is not surprising given a few facts: 1) Most residents in the Charleston/Huntington corridor (the majority of the DMA's population) can get HD locals via cable, 2) D* has lower satellite penetration due to E*had locals 8 months before D* and E* generally costs less.

So it seems that we will continue to wait. On a side note, the Roanoke, VA DMA #67 isn't getting them either.

Dolly

· #3 · Jul 28, 2008

Herdfan said:
There are corporate blanket agreements for WVAH and WCHS (11 & 8) through Sinclair Broadcasting Group. A blanket agreement for WSAZ (3) through Gray Television and Bray Cary, CEO of WV Media Holdings has indicated an agreement is in place for WOWK (13) as well.

So what the holdup? It seems that even though we are in DMA #65, our penentration of both DirecTV and DirecTV subs with HD receivers is low. This is not surprising given a few facts: 1) Most residents in the Charleston/Huntington corridor (the majority of the DMA's population) can get HD locals via cable, 2) D* has lower satellite penetration due to E*had locals 8 months before D* and E* generally costs less.

So it seems that we will continue to wait. On a side note, the Roanoke, VA DMA #67 isn't getting them either.

Yes D* is always stating it likes affluent customers and sadly there isn't as much affluence here as there is in other places

On a more positive note, "LETS GO HERD" :sunsmile:

Herdfan

· #4 · Jul 29, 2008

Can either of you get locals via OTA. I can so it is not a huge deal for me, but my parents are pretty much in a line between the two tower locations so they are getting one set or the other. I may need to add a second antenna for them.

catsports

Discussion Starter · #5 · Jul 29, 2008

I live in Williamson so ota is not a possibility because of the terrain. In this area as well as most of southern WV and eastern KY, DTV has a much larger saturation of subscribers. The area covered by C-H locals is actually quite large but like you said the greatest concentration is in that corridor. In this area you can see house after house with a DTV dish, but there are not many slimline dishes so the HD subscribers are a small percentage. I guess the bottom line is that we will get it when we get it. On a side note, do you know if there is an uplink facility to transmit the HD signal for our locals.

texasbrit

· #6 · Jul 29, 2008

catsports said:
I live in Williamson so ota is not a possibility because of the terrain. In this area as well as most of southern WV and eastern KY, DTV has a much larger saturation of subscribers. The area covered by C-H locals is actually quite large but like you said the greatest concentration is in that corridor. In this area you can see house after house with a DTV dish, but there are not many slimline dishes so the HD subscribers are a small percentage. I guess the bottom line is that we will get it when we get it. On a side note, do you know if there is an uplink facility to transmit the HD signal for our locals.

No, there is no Local Receive Facility listed for HD for the DMA.

catsports

Discussion Starter · #7 · Jul 29, 2008

I know there is none listed, but other locals received the HD and there was no facility listed until after they were turned on. Some posters have connections to engineers at the stations and they are more up to date about the HD possibilities.

Herdfan

· #8 · Jul 29, 2008

catsports said:
On a side note, do you know if there is an uplink facility to transmit the HD signal for our locals.

texasbrit said:
No, there is no Local Receive Facility listed for HD for the DMA.

We don't have an uplink facility. As TB pointed out, it is a Local Receive Facility (LRF). Ours is located just down the road from me at the old WVAH studio. As of now, it is not listed as the HD facility although I can't think of any reason it won't be. There is plenty of fiber in the area to provide the signal from the LRF to the uplink facility.

Given that 3 of our stations are owned/operated by large media corporations (Sinclair/Gray) I would have expected them to have been in this wave, but it seems we don't have the numbers yet.

catsports

Discussion Starter · #9 · Jul 29, 2008

Thanks for the info herdfan. I hope it will not be much longer after the initial wave.

Dolly

· #10 · Jul 29, 2008

catsports said:
Thanks for the info herdfan. I hope it will not be much longer after the initial wave.

It took us forever to get our locals on D* in SD so I'm expecting it to take the same amount of time to get the locals in HD. So I'm not holding my breath

Paul E Fox II

· #11 · Jul 30, 2008

Hey guys...

I'll see if I can get a poll up on the stations websites tomorrow at some point asking how many people in the area actually HAVE HD sets and are capable of seeing High Def programming. In the past, our questions have had a place for comments so feel free to leave one but remember...civility is a good thing

!

Not that it will do a lot of good...since we left the building, we don't have much to do with the little mini-uplink facility at the new animal hospital.

For those of you in the Charleston-Huntington Market that can see HD...take a peek at the WCHSTV website tomorrow evening and answer the question (if I do manage to get it done).

Herdfan

· #12 · Jul 30, 2008

Dolly said:
It took us forever to get our locals on D* in SD so I'm expecting it to take the same amount of time to get the locals in HD. So I'm not holding my breath

It seemed like it took forever, but we were served off 7S. Now it could be that we were in the pattern of a spot beam and they might as well serve us. But there are many markets that are much lower than us that were served off the 72.5 and were way down the SD food chain that are getting their HD locals.

Maybe they just don't like us.:eek2:

morgan79

· #13 · Aug 3, 2008

heres what i found out from the engineer at wchs & wvah..................... Mr. Morgan,
I have been given no specific info regarding details of our HD signal
being placed on satellite. I believe there has been some activity and
surveys regarding HD signal pick up by Directv at the Teay Valley
location. They are working to install local HD TV pick up antennas.

Regards,

Raymond Beckner, Dir Eng/OP WCHS/WVAH

Dolly

· #14 · Aug 3, 2008

morgan79 said:
heres what i found out from the engineer at wchs & wvah..................... Mr. Morgan,
I have been given no specific info regarding details of our HD signal
being placed on satellite. I believe there has been some activity and
surveys regarding HD signal pick up by Directv at the Teay Valley
location. They are working to install local HD TV pick up antennas.

Regards,

Raymond Beckner, Dir Eng/OP WCHS/WVAH

This sounds somewhat encouraging :up: For all the money I have paid D* over the years especially in recent years they should give us our Locals just for that

SamC

· #15 · Aug 4, 2008

It is important to remember three things about the H-C market:

- It is the second largest geographical market east of the Mississippi, and located in a signal killing mountain region.

- The "big 4" networks are split between the two cities, 50 miles appart.

- The rural coal producing areas outside the cities are (still) very populated contrasted to timber or farm regions.

This means that DBS penetration rates are huge, and the number of people that can get even the big 4 OTA is tiny.

There is really no reason that the market should not be among the first in the size group to get HDLIL.

BTW, the SD receive facility is in the old WVAH studio. Since the illegal Sinclair duopoly has moved the studio to town, it is being convered into a vetenary clinic.

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Dolly

· #16 · Aug 4, 2008

It's the same old story. West Virginia is always last to get anything

A lot of people in the U.S. don't even know we are a State :eek2: You mention being from West Virginia and people will say things like I have an Aunt that lives in Richmond! That is VIRGINIA not WEST VIRGINIA

I wish when we became a state a different name would have been choosen

Sorry for the rant, but this is a sore issue for me :rant:

bsbuskirk

· #17 · Aug 5, 2008

Still hoping for SD locals in Parkersburg DMA. I literally live 1 mile from Charleston DMA, but no locals for me:nono2:

Spending a bundle for GamePlan, FullCourt and Sports Pack just so I can watch WVU games.

On top of that, WTAP and WOWK won't approve my HD waiver requests, so I can't get NBC or CBS in HD via distant networks

SamC

· #18 · Aug 5, 2008

Parkersburg should have never been a market. The original intension was that the two stations in Clarksburg (5 & 12) would combine with Parkersburg's lone station (15) to form a market, just as the Charleston and Huntington stations do. However its 70 miles of bad terrain and it just never worked. Leaving Parkersburg with a single UHF station covering a single city that, no offense, is just not big enough to support a TV station or its news operation.

Now that Grey Television has control of both Huntington's NBC (WSAZ) and the single Parkersburg station (WTAP, also NBC), the smart thing to do, IMHO, would be to make WTAP into a repeater of WSAZ. Adding the 3 counties of the Parkersburg DMA moves H-C up 6 spots in the list of DMAs. On the ground cable has always carried the H-C stations anyway. Really its a shame that all of the WV stations are not under common ownership and repeaters of the H-C market (the situation that exists in New Mexico for example). Making the DMA more significant and bringing news with a production value above zero to the rest of the state.

On a side note, the few people in WV that can get OTA can now, via digital, actually get all the networks for the first time. In the Wheeling market (7-CBS, 9-NBC) 7 now has Fox and ABC on "sideband" channels. In Clarksburg (12-NBC, 5-CBS, Fox-46), 12 has ABC as a sideband, and 46 has the CW). In Beckley (4-ABC, 6-NBC, 59-CBS) 6 has CW on the side and 59 has Fox.

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Brian Hanasky

· #19 · Aug 5, 2008

Not to make the Charleston-Huntington DMA feel bad but did anybody notice that Zanesville, OH DMA is on the list to get HD LiL. They are listed as DMA 202. while you guys are 65. That is a kick in the head.

Keep up the fight.

Herdfan

· #20 · Aug 5, 2008

Brian Hanasky said:
did anybody notice that Zanesville, OH DMA is on the list to get HD LiL.

What list? Not this one: http://dtv.client.shareholder.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=324647

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