Mailbag Potpourri

Our first email comes from Ryan who asks, ” Eric, Since Rebecca Hower left KDKA TV to go back to her home town of Erie will KDKA get someone new to replace her or not? To be honest I’d like to see Dennis Bowman get the morning gig. Ryan”

Ah yes Ryan, I think we’d all like to see Dennis on TV on a regular basis. However, I don’t think that Dennis is all that interested in persuing that career full-time again. In fact, he now goes to schools and other community groups to teach folks about the weather. Check out his website – www.dennisbowman.net. It includes his schedule of KDKA appearances through the end of the year.

For those who may not know or remember, Dennis was chief meteorologist at WPXI-TV for 16 years ending in 2000. When his position there was over, he went to WIBW in Topeka Kansas for a few years before returning to Pittsburgh to focus more on ventriloquism.

Our next email comes from an Anonymous person in Connecticut who writes, ” you seem to be the one to ask if KDKA is the local pittsburgh station that shows the Steelers ? I am in Connecticut and checking the satilite TV companys to see if i can get that station thanks in advance jay”

Not being all that sports minded I can’t say that I am positive on this one, but most of the local stations don’t carry games anymore. They do, but they don’t. It’s all from the network (CBS, NBC, etc.) So you’ll probably get most, if not all of the games wherever you are.

Talking about satellite TV, there was a very short period of time where you could order TV stations from a particular market. That idea was nixed very quickly after the ratings people (Nielsen) got all up in arms about that. They claimed that it would take viewership away from the local stations, give more viewership to the stations people ordered and ratings would be totally inaccurate. (While that may be, the idea was there and it’s possible to do…just not happening!) So to ask a service, whether cable or satellite, to carry a station from another market is usually a waste of breath.

Perhaps someone out there knows better than I, but I am pretty sure that’s how all this works!

 That’s going to do it for this installment of Mailbag Potpourri. 

First, I would like to remind our readers that with PBRTV’s recent “format change,” one other thing has changed. The mailbag format that you came to know and love is a thing of the past. While we will continue to keep the messages posted, we will no longer be adding to the mailbag like we used to. We encourage our readers to post responses to the individual stories posted on the main site. Just click the link below the story if it’s provided…and it usually is.

 Secondly, I still welcome emails to PBRTV@aol.com, and if your emails seem worthy of a post, I will answer them in a “Mailbag Potpourri” article much like this one.

Let’s see what we have in our mailbag today, shall we?