With DTV delay likely, some stations to switch anyway

[davepc]

http://broadcastengineering.com/news/dtv-delay-likely-stations-switch-anyway-0202/

Take WTVP-TV in Peoria, IL. Chet Tomczyk, general manager of Channel 47, the area’s only public TV station, said he wants to stay with the original transition date because of the extra costs for a second transmitter. The station’s analog transmitter will save $7000 to $10,000 a month in power costs, he told the “Peoria Journal Star” newspaper. That’s the same story with many television stations across the nation.

WEEK-TV, Channel 25, and WHOI-TV, Channel 19, also of Peoria, will also shut down before June 12, their management said. “Assuming the FCC authorizes us to do so, it would be our intention to shut down our analog transmitter on Feb. 18,” said Mark DeSantis, general manager of WEEK-TV.

KDLT-TV, of Sioux Falls, SD, shut down its analog operator even earlier — after its late Sunday newscast following the Super Bowl Feb. 2. Mari Ossenfort, the station’s generation manager, said “There are many reasons why we are making the change early, the first one being a lot of stations in the United States are going to be shutting off early and so we’ve also decided to shut off early.” KELO-TV, a competitor of KDLT, said it will shutdown analog on Feb. 17.

KEEE-TV, Channel 24, and KVPT-TV, Channel 18, both of Fresno, CA, will also shut down their analog signals on Feb. 17. Executives with Fresno’s KGPE-TV, Channel 47; KMPH-TV, Channel 26; and KFRE-TV, Channel 59; said they hope to stop broadcasting analog signals on or about Feb. 17. However, KAIL-TV, Channel 53 in Fresno, said they will go along with the extension until June 12.

In Tampa, WEDU-TV, Channel 3, is considering turning off analog early. Dick Lobo, the station’s general manager, said “I’m weighing seriously stopping the analog signal on the original date, Feb. 17.” Lobo has laid off four workers at WEDU, cut the remaining staff’s pay by 5 percent, and slashed the public television station’s budget by $500,000 to meet the challenging economic times.

Good for them. The faster this all happens the better for everyone.

As the article notes, June 12 is less then two weeks before the official start of Hurricane season for the South East US. Hopefully the weather will corporate as people who couldn't or wouldn't adapt their home TVs finally get dragged into the 21st century.

[wtbymark]

1. yea, the average monthly cost to power a 25k watt Klystron

tube transmitter is between $10-12,000, plus the fact that most of these stations have contracted and scheduled crews and trucks and cranes to dismantle these transmitters. You don't just cancel these dates without paying a heavy cost, and then pay more to reschedule. To keep these dinosaurs working for 5 more months could mean the death for a lot of stations. Which means more people out of work, a lot of stations are already cutting their sports coverage completely as a cost cutting measure, just go out and buy the equipment. Television is not a part of the commons.

-Senior Broadcast Engineer

[davepc]

2. 10k a MONTH?

[Rosco T.]

3. Easily.. if not more...

takes a lot of juice to power the old analog transmitters.