WBBH-NBC2 and WZVN-ABC7 in Fort Myers will flip the HD news switch by August 8 when the Beijing Summer Olympics begin.
Waterman Broadcasting owns WBBH and operates WZVN via a local marketing agreenment (LMA).
Both stations currently broadcast in 16:9 but not in high definition, they’ve broadcast network programming in HD since October 2002.
/hat tip Anonymous tipster for sending the link/
Here’s the headline: “Miami/Ft. Lauderdale – Last To Go All Local HD”. Herald or Sentinel?
Back to on-topic, I don’t know what cable outlet those channels are on, but 7 and 2 are the cable channels, not the OTA channels. If that provider is anything like Comcast, once those stations start broadcasting local HD, viewers will still be watching good ol’ SD analog on cable 7 and 2. The HD counterparts will probably end up on channels somewhere in the hundreds. So much for those stations’ branding…
Hope they have good make up artists!
Over the air/cable channels for the Fort Myers-Naples news stations… to clear up any confusion.
WBBH… OTA: 20; Cable: 2… viewers see the “NBC 2” branding.
WFTX… OTA: 36; Cable: 4… viewers see the “FOX 4” branding.
WZVN… OTA: 26; Cable: 7… viewers see the “ABC 7” branding.
WINK… OTA: 11; cable: 5… viewers see the “WINK-TV” and “WINK News Now” brandings.
WINK is already in high-def… It would appear that WBBH and WZVN may be poised to become the 2nd (and 3rd) stations in the market to make the high-def transition… no word yet on WFTX.