Someone tipped me to this last week or so, but I forgot to post about it, sorry for which.
Adelphia Cable is the provider in Palm Beach County, and up to Boynton Beach their system had WSVN and WPLG on channels 22 and 23 I believe.
Well recently WSVN dissapeared off the channel lineup and someone wrote a letter to Sun Sentinel’s Tom Jicha asking what happened:
Q. I live in Boca Raton. One of the stations we always had was WSVN-Ch. 7. Recently it disappeared. My cable company told me that WSVN no longer wanted to be carried by them. I miss WSVN’s local news in the morning when the other network affiliates are doing national shows. I would be the first to say WSVN might be the National Enquirer of news, but at least it was our news. Can you please tell me what happened? — E.K., Boca Raton
A. Everyone should sit down for this answer, lest you collapse from shock. It appears a cable company has not told the truth to a customer. When I contacted WSVN, the response was, “Oh my God, no!” Miami-Fort Lauderdale Fox affiliate WSVN did not ask to be taken off the system, according to the station representative. Your cable operator decided to give market exclusivity to WFLX-Ch. 29, the Fox affiliate in Palm Beach County.
Tom Jicha TV Q&A (bottom of the page)
Why? Probably because for a long time forever WFLX-FOX29 have been the last station in the ratings. They are so bad, even American Idol can’t help them. I’ve heard thru the grapevine WFLX people have complained that having WSVN on the channel lineup steals from their ratings. They are right, a lot of people like me never thought of tuning WFLX simply because there is nothing to see there but reruns or infomercials. Their only claim to fame is 10pm news, produced and staffed by WPEC and 1 hour of morning news from 7a to 8a also produced by WPEC.
I wonder if Adelphia kept WPLG or if they made WPBF market-exclusive as well? WPBF doesn’t exactly shine in the ratings either.
By the way if anyone wants WSVN back, all you have to do is write the cable company and if enough people do it, you just might get your wish.
I do believe that DIRECTV will start providing miami/ft laud stations to WPB and vice versa in the very near future..get the dish
Dish has WPB and Miami, but if you are out of market you have to get a waiver
New FCC regs on “SVA” Significantlly Viewed Areas will allow broward residents to get both Miami and WPB stations…thank heavens i guess
wasn’t aware of this SVA.
Does it apply only for markets next to each other?
Haha, that really sucks for people in Palm Beach.
I have comcast and live in broward so I only get 7, but I’ve watched FLX a few times when I was in the area and was not at all impressed.
The good news is that Adelphia will soon become Time Warner or Comcast. Comcast in LA rocks, while Time Warner is bad. I remember when Bright House was Time Warner, the customer service was crap. That is why my dad switched to Dish. However Dish’s customer service is also crap.
If you ever have a problem with your dish and you have to pay for the repairs, ask them for authorized dealers. They are nicer, cheaper, and they keep their word.
I currently have Bright House and I say they stink so far in customer service.
the FCC website has a whole list of SVA…basically means that if you can get it with rabbit ears yu should be able to get it from satellite or cable….I think it’s already happened in DC/Baltimore markets and parts of midwest. I looked at list awhile back…Ch29, Ch 5 Ch12 were on the list. Of course the locals stations dont like it one bit
they don’t like it – something related to out of market people seeing ads?
Considering how flawed Nielsen is, and that people use ad-breaks to go to the toilet I don’t think it’s a huge deal. They should pocket some of the money out-of-market people pay to watch their station.
Where I’m from, the Newschorp-owned station is now working with a teleport operator to stream all of their on-air programing on the web, for free or a fee, including the advertising. And so far in the trials it’s a huge hit, they keep adding servers to handle the traffic
I partially take back my comments about Bright House- they fixed my problem but a tad bit slower than I would have liked, but still they fixed it.