Heads Up: NBC no longer on WHDH in Boston, now on WBTS

[bbobbo]

i remembered reading about this awhile ago but i completely forgot about it until i realized the SNF game wasn't on my schedule to be recorded. NBC has moved from WHDH to WBTS as of january 1st (happy new year).

if you get TV OTA like i do, it sucks because WBTS is a low power station, and i don't seem to be able to get it from where i am (only 8 miles away according to AntennaWeb.org):

New studio? Check. New copter? Check. New NBC station goes live Sunday - The Boston Globe

Where you can find NBC Boston is a bit complicated. That’s because the network did not buy a full-power station, so viewers without cable or satellite may need a cheat sheet to figure out where they can watch their favorite NBC shows.

NBC’s plan involves sharing signals with three stations: New Hampshire’s WNEU, which is also owned by Comcast and broadcasts Spanish-language Telemundo; Boston station WMFP, which airs a network owned by televangelist Jimmy Swaggart; and low-power Boston station WBTS.

That means over-the-air viewers, depending on where they live, will need to tune into channels 8.1, 60.2, or 60.5. (For cable customers, NBC Boston will be carried in high definition by Comcast on channels 810 or 710, by Verizon’s channel 516, and by DirecTV and Dish on channel 10.)

i'm glad that the patriots game isn't on sunday night. i'll have to figure out what i'm going to do going forward.

 

[fourhour]

And Directv didn't reach an agreement with WCVB so we lost Channel 5 too!

 

[Bill Lee]

Yes, I am screwed by this change too.

F*** the corporations!

 

[Two Eight]

oh man that's going to mess me up too...do you know what the new # is?

 

[AtomicDawg]

oh man that's going to mess me up too...do you know what the new # is?

Here are all the listings...

 

[Rob0729]

And Directv didn't reach an agreement with WCVB so we lost Channel 5 too!

Those hold outs usually last a week or two. You will get that station back.

 

[Two Eight]

Bonus! I actually get 60.5 with 80% signal strength and 90% signal quality here in Framingham

 

[PatsDeb]

And Directv didn't reach an agreement with WCVB so we lost Channel 5 too!

We dumped Directv when we had to miss most of the Olympics. Had to go back to the Evil Empire Comcast, but at least we don't get shut out of anything any more. Maddening!

 

[Bill Lee]

i remembered reading about this awhile ago but i completely forgot about it until i realized the SNF game wasn't on my schedule to be recorded. NBC has moved from WHDH to WBTS as of january 1st (happy new year).

if you get TV OTA like i do, it sucks because WBTS is a low power station, and i don't seem to be able to get it from where i am (only 8 miles away according to AntennaWeb.org):

New studio? Check. New copter? Check. New NBC station goes live Sunday - The Boston Globe

i'm glad that the patriots game isn't on sunday night. i'll have to figure out what i'm going to do going forward.

Here are all the listings...

View attachment 15380

Bonus! I actually get 60.5 with 80% signal strength and 90% signal quality here in Framingham

I did a little research and found:

• WBTS-LD (8) is in Needham, MA and transmits with 11.2 kilowatts of power.

• WNEU (60) is in Goffstown, NH and transmits with 80 kilowatts of power
  
  
• WHDH (7) is in Needham, MA and transmits with 1,000 kilowatts of power

My antenna is in my attic and points at Needham. I get WHDH 7 with no issues at all, but I can only get a weak signal for WBTS 8, not strong enough to lock in the digital channel, so I'm screwed for tonight's game. Clearly the difference between 11.2 kilowatts and 1,000 kilowatts matters in my location. I have a Verizon cell phone so I can watch on that, but I don't think I'm interested enough to sit there with the phone for three hours.

Where you can find the new NBC Boston on your remote - The Boston Globe has some interesting content:

“We have come a long way. We continue to look for how we can improve over-the-air service,” he said. “When the spectrum auction finishes, there will be more options available to our company for that.” The FCC has been conducting an auction this year to buy back local TV signals from stations. During this period, stations that put themselves in the auction faced restrictions on outside bids. St. Peter said once the spectrum auction is done, NBC could look at buying a station or reviewing additional channel-sharing options.

This gives me some hope that we'll have better options next year for any OTA content on NBC, but for now, I'm screwed.

 

[rochrist]

Here are all the listings...

View attachment 15380

This is wrong in regard to Charter. 787 is the OLD number. NBC is now on 777.

 

[alamo]

You can blame Comcast's greed for this. They own NBC and refused to renew Channel 7's contract.

 

[Bill Lee]

You can blame Comcast's greed for this. They own NBC and refused to renew Channel 7's contract.

And before that, you can blame the FCC for allowing networks to buy more stations. Before a fairly recent rule change I think each network could only own four stations (from memory, I could be wrong on that). Then of course the FCC chose to do what gave the big corporations the most money and power possible and ignore consumers rights: they dropped the limit on the number of stations the networks could own.

And... We all can be impacted sooner than I thought, because NBC has rights to various playoff games. The details aren't set yet (AFAIK), the best link I could find is -> 2017 NFL Playoffs TV Schedule — Sports Media Watch

 

[Hammer of Thor]

And before that, you can blame the FCC for allowing networks to buy more stations. Before a fairly recent rule change I think each network could only own four stations (from memory, I could be wrong on that). Then of course the FCC chose to do what gave the big corporations the most money and power possible and ignore consumers rights: they dropped the limit on the number of stations the networks could own.

And... We all can be impacted sooner than I thought, because NBC has rights to various playoff games. The details aren't set yet (AFAIK), the best link I could find is -> 2017 NFL Playoffs TV Schedule — Sports Media Watch

Comcast actually attempted to buy Channel 7 at first. Channel 7 said they only offered half of what they wanted. There was also some past bad blood between them that hurt things (channel 7 refusing to air the 10 pm Jay Leno show, Channel 7's owner also owns a Miami station that had a bad break from NBC 25 years ago). Who knows who is in the right in this battle.

Comcast says this isn't a huge deal because 95% of MA has cable or satellite. Yet having a valid over the air option was a condition of Comcast's purchase of NBC. For whatever reason, no one has chosen to pursue this yet (except Channel 7, but a judge threw the case out because they aren't the harmed party).

 

[AtomicDawg]

Comcast actually attempted to buy Channel 7 at first. Channel 7 said they only offered half of what they wanted. There was also some past bad blood between them that hurt things (channel 7 refusing to air the 10 pm Jay Leno show, Channel 7's owner also owns a Miami station that had a bad break from NBC 25 years ago). Who knows who is in the right in this battle.

Comcast says this isn't a huge deal because 95% of MA has cable or satellite. Yet having a valid over the air option was a condition of Comcast's purchase of NBC. For whatever reason, no one has chosen to pursue this yet (except Channel 7, but a judge threw the case out because they aren't the harmed party).

And the Miami station that WHDH's owner has was a long-time NBC affiliate just like it, and NBC wanted to own a station in Miami seeing as though CBS was getting its own O&O (owned-and-operated) station there around 1989. Kinda seems like deja vu because when HDH first affiliated with NBC it pre-empted a ton of its daytime programming for local news (which has become a standard for both his stations) and back then NBC had a problem with affiliates deviating from the daytime schedule (KRON in SF did the same also, pissing off NBC who eventually started an O&O up there as well).

Makes me wonder how long this situation will last before they get sick of it. Maybe they give it a college try for a few years.

 

[rochrist]

Comcast actually attempted to buy Channel 7 at first. Channel 7 said they only offered half of what they wanted. There was also some past bad blood between them that hurt things (channel 7 refusing to air the 10 pm Jay Leno show, Channel 7's owner also owns a Miami station that had a bad break from NBC 25 years ago). Who knows who is in the right in this battle.

Comcast says this isn't a huge deal because 95% of MA has cable or satellite. Yet having a valid over the air option was a condition of Comcast's purchase of NBC. For whatever reason, no one has chosen to pursue this yet (except Channel 7, but a judge threw the case out because they aren't the harmed party).

Well, Channel 7 is up the creek now. Currently, their week consists of game shows 8-9, and then replays of the news over and over til midnight.

 

[Hammer of Thor]

Well, Channel 7 is up the creek now. Currently, their week consists of game shows 8-9, and then replays of the news over and over til midnight.

News is cheap to produce; they're hoping they have a loyal news audience who'll stick around and watch their station and be appreciative of getting news at any time that there's nothing else on TV. We'll see if it works.....

I wouldn't be surprised if Channel 7's long-term (and/or backup) plan is to acquire the Fox affiliation from WFXT channel 25; their lack of daytime programming fits well with WHDH's news focus and their Miami station has had success with Fox after losing NBC. And to go with that, I wouldn't be surprised if Comcast/NBC's backup plan is to try to buy WFXT from Cox Communications. That would pretty much give both sides what they want, and for the viewer, lead to a simple switch of NBC to Channel 25 and Fox to Channel 7.

 

[rochrist]

News is cheap to produce; they're hoping they have a loyal news audience who'll stick around and watch their station and be appreciative of getting news at any time that there's nothing else on TV. We'll see if it works.....

I wouldn't be surprised if Channel 7's long-term (and/or backup) plan is to acquire the Fox affiliation from WFXT channel 25; their lack of daytime programming fits well with WHDH's news focus and their Miami station has had success with Fox after losing NBC. And to go with that, I wouldn't be surprised if Comcast/NBC's backup plan is to try to buy WFXT from Cox Communications. That would pretty much give both sides what they want, and for the viewer, lead to a simple switch of NBC to Channel 25 and Fox to Channel 7.

Yeah, that's good and all, but people are only going to watch the same newscast once. There's no way to put lipstick on one day running network primetime programming, the next day running local news re-runs.

 

[bbobbo]

And before that, you can blame the FCC for allowing networks to buy more stations. Before a fairly recent rule change I think each network could only own four stations (from memory, I could be wrong on that). Then of course the FCC chose to do what gave the big corporations the most money and power possible and ignore consumers rights: they dropped the limit on the number of stations the networks could own.

And... We all can be impacted sooner than I thought, because NBC has rights to various playoff games. The details aren't set yet (AFAIK), the best link I could find is -> 2017 NFL Playoffs TV Schedule — Sports Media Watch

looks like we're okay this year. the patriots divisional game will be at 8:15pm on 1/14 on CBS, the AFC championship is at 6:40pm on 1/22 on CBS, and the super bowl will be on Fox.

2017 NFL Playoff Schedule: Postseason dates, times and TV for each round

 

[Bill Lee]

looks like we're okay this year. the patriots divisional game will be at 8:15pm on 1/14 on CBS, the AFC championship is at 6:40pm on 1/22 on CBS, and the super bowl will be on Fox.

2017 NFL Playoff Schedule: Postseason dates, times and TV for each round

Thanks for the good news!