Local HD newscasts coming to Youngstown
Youngstown: Just when you thought it would take years for a TV market the size of Youngstown to produce local High Definition newscasts, guess again. New Vision Television has been putting all of the pieces together since 2007 in order to produce and air HD newscasts on WKBN, WYFX and WYTV. In fact, upgrades for HD are being made on the WYTV set in addition to the power increase we reported on earlier for the ABC affiliate. The WKBN / WYFX set was completed last fall in anticipation of the HD upgrades. The stations currently have eight HD cameras for field reporting but may have to resort to some SD cameras for heavier newsdays. Also laptop computers will be used to edit news stories out in the field. The HD newscasts are expected to begin on April 19th. Another upgrade will be similar to the HD upgrade WKBN DT 41 (27-1) did by also adding WYFX on 27-2. WYTV DT 36 (33-1) will begin broadcasting its MyYTV station on 33-2 in HD before April 19th. It's unclear if the "My Valley Weather" channel on 33-3 will be eliminated since two HD channels will be on WYTV. This will leave WFMJ's CW affiliate "WBCB" on 21.2 (20) as the only network in the Valley in SD. You can also check www.wkbn.com/ or www.wytv.com/ for more details on the upgrades.Readers’ Forum
I don’t think the weather channel on 33-3 will go away, as there are a few stations with the “dual HD” signal that have a third SD channel. Hell, some stations are even carrying FIVE subchannels (all in SD). But upgrading 33-2 to HD will be good, considering all of the sporting events they cover. This just shows that NVT, which has already attacked the mom-and-pop operations of WFMJ-TV despite going bankrupt in the process, is going after them even more. Ratings in Youngstown have shown that WFMJ-TV’s ratings have started to erode to the competition. Wonder how much longer the Maag family will hold on before possibly selling the station to outside interests.
My question here is that it’s starting to become apparent that HDTV is becoming obsolete to 3DTV. I don’t think such a technology will pan out in the future (see 3D movies in the 1950’s), but networks like ESPN already plan on launching a 3D specialty channel for it’s programming this year.
Joseph Gerard (URL) - March 31, 2010 at 09:59 am
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