Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Bit More on the CET/ThinkTV merger

We have a little more on the CET/ThinkTV merger that we reported on over the weekend.

As we said before, viewers won't see any changes to the TV schedule. (That is, except for CET viewers getting the "Connect" mailings...more on that in a moment.) And viewers of Dayton's WPTO/16 won't see any changes to their digital channels, as there isn't much overlap to the coverage/viewing areas of that station vs. WCET/48 in Cincinnati.

How this could impact ThinkTV's outlet closer to Cincinnati, WPTO/14 Oxford, is another matter. (All information from this point forward, unless noted, is via the Kiese Blog.)

WPTO is licensed to Oxford, which is, by our estimation, 30 miles northwest of Cincinnati. (Or about 11 miles northwest of Your Tri-State Media Watcher's birthplace in Hamilton. But we digress.) But...its transmitter booms their now digital-only signal into the city, and in fact into much of the area, from the WXIX/19 tower at the western end of the Western Hills Viaduct. (The first link, which should lead to a look at the tower in question, was taken from Google Maps' handy drive view feature which we forgot the name of presently. And indeed, we found this coverage gain/loss map on the FCC's DTV.Gov site that shows the signal of WPTO reaching possibly as far south as Harrison County, Kentucky!)

WCET, meanwhile, covers most, if not all, of the same area. (Again, the link leads to the gain/loss map from the FCC, this one for WCET.)

Now...WCET is planning on adding 48.3 to their multicast in July. CET could theoretically restore World to their menu...but WPTO already has it as a subchannel. On the other hand, it's likely all five of WPTO's subchannels would probably be duplicated anyway, as having those, plus the 5 of WPTD and the soon to be 3 of WCET, under one management would work to Public Media Connect's advantage...we'll see what happens.

Back to the Connect program guide...we're hearing that the guide will now begin featuring listings for WPTD and WPTO in addition to those of WCET.

1 comment:

Josh said...

WPTO's signal comes in very strong here in Owen County KY, or at least in the northern part of the county toward the Carroll/Gallatin Co. lines. In fact, the signal is sometimes stronger than local Owenton KET affiliate WKON's signal! Many people I've talked to around here who have recently hooked up their DTV converter boxes are very curious about who ThinkTV is and where they're broadcasting from!

I for one will be happy to see World returned to the CET listing. Create's cooking and DIY shows just don't appeal to me that much and ThinkTV's World on ch. 14.5 doesn't quite have all the programming of the mainstream PBS's World.