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Post by CAwasinNJ on Oct 7, 2008 21:07:34 GMT -7
NBC's WeatherPlus (locally on KSL 5-3) will be shutting down by the end of the year. With NBC Universal buying a stake in The Weather Channel, I don't think that was exactly a shock to anyone. What's interesting is that according to Steve Capus (the president of NBC News) the service would have been shut down even without the TWC acquisition. It just wasn't making money.
The question now is, what happens to the KSL subchannel bandwidth? As of now, it's still business as usual. If you were KSL, what would you do with it? Increase bandwidth for the main channel? Put another service there?
One idea I've heard in other markets is doing a continual rerun of the last newscast. KSL is pretty big on the whole news thing, so that could make for nice brand enhancement and the programming is free.
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Post by dxstuboy on Oct 12, 2008 19:14:57 GMT -7
The other night they had the RSL soccer game on the subchannel. I think it would be cool to see a loop of the traffic cameras around SLC area including Provo and Ogden, with music running in the background. Maybe they could stream 1035 on it since its in the same building.
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Post by CAwasinNJ on Oct 12, 2008 22:10:09 GMT -7
I'm not sure what the provisions for audio only subchannels on ATSC stations are, but they could probably put all of their stations on there without much fuss. I'm not sure what the advantage would be though. A lot of TV stations used to put co-owned radio stations on their SAP on the NTSC channels. I don't think there's much of a difference.
The traffic cameras are an interesting idea. I think it was KSL that used to have its own set of cameras that they used in addition to the UDOT cameras, right? There's something similar that The Hive (the KTVX subchannel) uses sometimes, but it's a fairly long shot and it never identifies what we're looking at. I never understood that.
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Post by dxstuboy on Oct 21, 2008 0:52:55 GMT -7
The Hive also never identifies what is playing or what is coming next, it just says "The Hive." I'd like to know what old movie I am watching.  KBYU has some radio stations on the SAP and Francais channels on some of its subchannels. KSL I think has KSFI on the SAP portion of their weather plus channel. I know it promotes their station more, but I'd like to see KRSP on there instead  . That's just me though. On a side note, can anyone in the Salt Lake area receive a digital signal from KCBU or any other station other then the locals? All I have is rabbit ears so I get about 23 channels (including the subchannels etc.). |
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Post by CAwasinNJ on Oct 21, 2008 21:46:17 GMT -7
The Hive doesn't even list their movies on their website (http://www.thehivetv.com/content/program_schedule/default.aspx) so having it on the DTV stream might be a bit much to ask right now.
I get exactly 23 channels from the TUR Worldwide Headquarters near Ogden. Unless KCBU turned off their analog signal on ch3, they aren't in digital yet. They have a license to flash cut (just switch from analog to digital) on ch3 and a construction permit to go digital on ch11 which is currently being used by KBYU analog. All of what's gone on so far with them has all been transmitting from near Price. As kenglish pointed out in another thread, they have an application in to move on ch11 to just outside Payson. That would give excellent coverage of Provo, very good coverage in Salt Lake itself and decent coverage up in Davis and Weber Counties. Since there isn't a city of license change involved, it's likely that the move will be approved.
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Post by dxstuboy on Oct 23, 2008 23:36:25 GMT -7
Cool, that would mean I will get 24 channels (or more?) in February. I am actually anxious to see what happens.
Another probably dumb question but, why are the digital channels reading like they are the analog on my converter box. For example, I tune to channel 13, and get fox, but it should be on 28 right? Is my converter box reading it wrong? KSL DT is on 38, but my box says channel 5. etc...
Am I just having a blond moment?
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Post by CAwasinNJ on Oct 24, 2008 21:29:34 GMT -7
No, that's intentional. Average Joe Sixpack would get confused with a different number, so the virtual channel mapping just makes it look the same as what they're used to. (I guess nobody's ever heard of cable companies putting channels on numbers different from the over air channels.)
I'm wondering what's going to happen when marketing figures out that it's easy to play with the 'lower number is better" game and put a lower number than where they really are in the map. I wonder what happens when more than one virtual channel shows up with the same number.
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Post by CAwasinNJ on Oct 30, 2008 22:02:49 GMT -7
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Post by CAwasinNJ on Nov 4, 2008 22:02:04 GMT -7
I've been watching KSL 5.3 over the past week or so and it's being scaled back slowly but surely. Starting last week the live cut-ins both from the national Weather Plus people and locally from the KSL folks went away. Now it looks like the locally generated content is gone as well. Both the maps in the main part of the screen as well as the forecasts on the left and bottom are generic national information. The right sidebar with local events is gone completely.
I think the deathwatch is officially on. How long before it disappears?
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Post by dxstuboy on Nov 6, 2008 9:54:52 GMT -7
I too have noticed the decrease in quality of KSL 5.3 (i.e. it still says the high today to be 70, which is anything but right). Question now is, what will replace it?
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Post by Terry on Nov 6, 2008 11:44:48 GMT -7
I also get exactly 23 channels on my digital TV receivers.
I would love to have news programs repeated on 5.3. Some stations around the country are already doing it. I understand that Boise, Phoenix, Portland and Seattle among others have 24 hour digital news channels.
Since any additional subchannel somewhat decreases the quality of the main HD channel, I'd guess that it's most likely that KSL will just shut off 5.3 at year's end.
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Post by CAwasinNJ on Nov 8, 2008 23:50:34 GMT -7
Odd. 5.3 seems to be back to normal. Maybe whatever computer runs the thing crashed and had to be fixed? (That's just a WAG.) The really weird times of the events on the right side of the screen remain though. Why would an event run from 6PM to 9:16AM anyway?
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Post by Terry on Dec 2, 2008 14:16:01 GMT -7
When I turned on my DTV converter just now, it did an automatic scan and told me that there was a new channel, 5.2. I took a look and it's just a static screen saying "Universal Sports, coming soon! 5.2 KSL". And 5.3 is still there with the weather stuff.
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Post by seattlefollower on Dec 2, 2008 20:21:31 GMT -7
When I turned on my DTV converter just now, it did an automatic scan and told me that there was a new channel, 5.2. I took a look and it's just a static screen saying "Universal Sports, coming soon! 5.2 KSL". And 5.3 is still there with the weather stuff. Universal Sports was where the paralympics aired as part of NBC's coverage. I don't think it was a digital subchannel at the time, but perhaps that's what they think is the best revenue model now. |
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Post by CAwasinNJ on Dec 2, 2008 22:51:16 GMT -7
I've heard a lot of rumblings about Universal Sports, but everything's in flux. It's been on the NBC O&O's for a while. I believe it's been a few months now, since the Olympics. There was supposedly a deadline for affiliates to sign up of Dec 1, but that's now being called a "soft deadline". (Translation: not enough people were interested, so we're giving them another chance.) Apparently Bonneville is on board. When I did a new digital scan early Monday morning it wasn't there, so it must have just come up.
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. That's just me though.
