Hey, there! Log in / Register
The signal for the new NBC 'Boston' doesn't even reach Boston, but so?
By adamg on Fri, 01/08/2016 - 7:47am
Steve Safran analyzes the NBC decision to smack WHDH upside the head and create its own station in Boston, using an antenna in Manchester, NH (a city that has so little going for it it has to keep pretending it's near Boston):
What we have in NBC Boston now is a cable and web-first product, a true 21st century operation that is no longer concerned primarily with what the antenna-only crowd is doing. It’s not longer about the WXXX or KXXX branding. It’s the network and the city. Smart. The changeover won’t happen until 2017, and Ansin is vowing to sue. But this kind of structuring will happen more as networks start to operate more like cable channels.
Topics:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Local TV news on the Web. Channels 4, 5, 7, 25
How are local TV news organizations, Channels 4, 5, 7, 25 making their broadcasts more readily available on the web? The current mechanisms used don't give instant access. Inappropriate commercials interrupt as the news would begin
http://boston.cbslocal.com/show/cbs-boston-live-video/
http://www.wcvb.com/nowcast
http://www.whdh.com/category/273179/7news-live-streaming-video
http://www.myfoxboston.com/live-stream
Why should they?
TV news makes its money off of advertising, so why shouldn't they include ads at the start of any news story you want to view online? It's just like when you're sitting on your big puffy couch with the reclining feature waiting for that story they've been teasing throughout the newscast about the heroic dog. You have to sit through a bunch of ads for cars with big bows on them and cheap furniture before you see the story, which always turns out to be slightly disappointing (turns out the hero dog just barked really loudly when the neighbor house caught fire and it woke them up).
Until online ad revenues can come close to matching television revenues, I'm afraid you will have to put up with the ads. :-/
www.wcvb.com
Channel 5 live-streams its broadcast on the station's web site.
Roku, too
The News On app on Roku streams WCVB's local news shows, among others from around the country.
Re: Local TV news on the Web. Channels 4, 5, 7, 25
Why do streams from WBZ-TV, WCVB-TV, WHDH-TV and WFXT-TV operate so bad? Channels 4, 5, 7, 25 links could be setup to begin without the usual long delay
http://www.radiodiscussions.com/showthread.php?691692-No-TV-available-Ho...
Would it be better for the front page of each local TV station to immediately display their news stream when the news broadcast is live? Why are the web site designs so bad for local TV stations?
Oh, Manchester
I arrived way too early to pick someone up at the Manchester airport years ago and figured I'd wander around downtown for a little while. It was 7 pm on a Sunday, and by 7:15 I actually started assuming that the world had ended and I was the only survivor based on the activity on the streets.
ManchVegas
So you're saying the "ManchVegas" nickname might not be 100% accurate??
I was on Elm Street in
I was on Elm Street in Manchester in January of 2008, sometime late in the evening, and I thought to myself, "Man, this is a ghost town, I have to find out where downtown is."
Turns out I was standing directly in front of City Hall, and that *was* downtown. And this was in the middle of primary season, when you would expect the largest city in the state to be overrun and buzzing with journalists and campaign staff and the like. But...nothing. The only business I remember being open was a run-down pool hall with the classy name of "Raxx". No idea if it's still around.
Unfortunate because I feel
Unfortunate because I feel OTA broadcasts are increasing in popularity because of cord cutting. But no surprise since this is a Comcast operation, they have an interest in selling us cable packages.
People are ditching cable TV
People are ditching cable TV for Internet-only, not going back to 1950s technology ("television").
You can have both, or neither
If you can't afford cable or Internet, at least the regular TV gives you something. Or, you can watch OTA and pick up some things on the Internet if that satisfies you and still save some money.
Oh well...
I guess this means no more Vamp News before SNL (truthfully, I don't know if that's the case anymore, I haven't watched much local TV news in well over a decade). Unless NBC hires its own Cassandra Peterson wannabes to do the news..
What local news is best at
Parking their vans on the sidewalk and having a hair-sprayed know-nothing tell us what happened at this spot 3 hours ago.
You forgot the part about
You forgot the part about "sensationally", "with a lack of accuracy or facts", and "interspersed with air-headed banter which adds nothing to the story".
WTMU-LP?
I wonder if the new NBC Boston will leverage WTMU-LP as part of their plan to cover Boston. Currently it's a low power analog translator of WNEU on channel 46 that is located Malden (though admittedly I can't tune it in in Cambridge either...) though it has plans to switch to digital eventually and transmit from what appears to be Newton.
This is going to be an odd arrangement having such a large DMA rely on a low power translator in order to receive one of the large networks.
Another potential complication is that it isn't owned by NBC/Universal like WNEU is.
great move
Great move by NBC in the era of the cord cutter. I guess 2016 is the last time I'll be watching any live NBC programming.
Which means
No Sunday night football.
honestly
I guess that means less Collinsworth for me. Win-win.
"Cord-cutting" doesn't mean
"Cord-cutting" doesn't mean people are breaking out their buggy whips and going back to RF-based television. It means people are moving to Internet only, and cable TV is joining terrestrial TV as a quaint historical technology.
I have an antenna mounted to
I have an antenna mounted to the wall and use high speed internet for Netflix and sometimes HULU (I will subscribe for a bit then stop) and have no intention of getting cable. Regardless of how much the Comcast corporation tries to force people like me.
If NBC is going to rip its affiliation away from WHDH the least they can do is make an attempt to reach the Greater Boston market.
At what point does the Comcast Monopoly on information access become too much for the Feds?
Yeah wasnt the agreement that
Yeah wasnt the agreement that Comcast could buy NBC as long as it didnt impact OTA access?
Of course one of their first moves was to take the free OTA channel Universal Sports and make it cable-only, and Obamas friends did nothing about it
Comcast didn't take Universal
Comcast didn't take Universal Sports off of OTA. NBC only owned 8% of the channel for a start (a private equity company owned the other 92%), and the other owner decided they wanted to go for cable distribution before Comcast bought NBC. The other owner then demanded so much money that only DirecTV was interested in paying for it, with even Comcast dropping the channel.
Of course, Universal Sports stopped broadcasting after the Rugby World Cup and NBC ended up picking up what rights were left, mostly for cable channel NBCSN.
Re: >"...[i]antenna mounted to the wall[/i]"
>"...antenna mounted to the wall"
How does it get a connection to the net?
The antenna is for TV. I also
The antenna is for TV. I also have high speed internet.
Does EarthLink Cable Internet save customers a little bit?
Does EarthLink Cable Internet save a little bit on the charges?
http://www.earthlink.net/access/cable.faces