25 to 66 for over the air viewers

[fairbankshockeypuck]

On December 10th, NBC 25 is moving from channel 25.1 to channel 66.2
Be sure to re-scan your television on December 10th if you watch NBC 25 with an antenna.
Cable, satellite, and streaming viewers will not be affected.

[Harvey]

This is very random. What's going on here?

[MegaHertz]

Wait, what? What's happening to 25 then?

[organman95]

Just saw the FB post...

Seems like it may have been a rather abrupt change, since viewers are only given 8 days notice...

[organman95]

Wait, what? What's happening to 25 then?

25 loses its frequency, and simply uses the 66 frequency.

At least that's what I'm assuming, and wouldn't surprise me if that is the case. Don't be surprised if WBSF is also added soon.

Oh, I wouldn't be surprised if newscasts are canceled soon either.

[tvbobn]

I'm guessing it will still be received on home TV's as channel 25. For whatever reason, it might be broadcast using the WSMH transmitter on what is now received on 66.2. Sharing a transmitter is common. Each station still has the same display channel that it had before the sharing.

I will also guess that the actual channel 25 (18) transmitter will change to 3.0 like WBSF channel 46 (23) is now. That's the only reason that I can think of for them to do this channel sharing thing. Sinclair is really pushing into 3.0.

[hb2]

My first guess: like aforementioned, shifting WEYI's transmitter to ATSC 3.0 from 1.0 to make WSMH the 1.0 'lighthouse' at least for Sinclair but maybe ultimately this TV market

2nd guess: cost cutting by powering down a transmitter since WEYI's coverage overlaps both sister stations WBSF and WSMH almost completely

3rd guess: urgent tower or transmitter repair required. Maybe something is failing on the transmitter or transmission lines (or structure itself?) and will require extensive downtime? This is purely speculative.

Time will tell what comes of this...

[organman95]

I'm guessing it will still be received on home TV's as channel 25. For whatever reason, it might be broadcast using the WSMH transmitter on what is now received on 66.2. Sharing a transmitter is common. Each station still has the same display channel that it had before the sharing.

I will also guess that the actual channel 25 (18) transmitter will change to 3.0 like WBSF channel 46 (23) is now. That's the only reason that I can think of for them to do this channel sharing thing. Sinclair is really pushing into 3.0.

Probably money... it's quite expensive to run three towers.

[tvbobn]

I'm guessing it will still be received on home TV's as channel 25. For whatever reason, it might be broadcast using the WSMH transmitter on what is now received on 66.2. Sharing a transmitter is common. Each station still has the same display channel that it had before the sharing.

I will also guess that the actual channel 25 (18) transmitter will change to 3.0 like WBSF channel 46 (23) is now. That's the only reason that I can think of for them to do this channel sharing thing. Sinclair is really pushing into 3.0.

Probably money... it's quite expensive to run three towers.

They are currently only using two towers.

WSMH is on one tower out toward Chesaning near WJRT.

WEYI and WBSF are both on the tall tower on Willard road near Clio.

They still have the former WBSF tower across the road from WNEM near Saginaw, but it's not used for anything these days.

[organman95]

They are currently only using two towers.

WSMH is on one tower out toward Chesaning near WJRT.

WEYI and WBSF are both on the tall tower on Willard road near Clio.

They still have the former WBSF tower across the road from WNEM near Saginaw, but it's not used for anything these days.

Perhaps I should have said 'transmitters'... but if they share with WBSF tower, why not share off WBSF transmitter?

[MWmetalhead]

With Sinclair being a big proponent of ATSC 3.0, I suspect that is what's prompting this change.

If WEYI's ATSC 1.0 signal is moving to WSMH's tower, that is good news for antenna viewers closer to US 127 and bad news for viewers in the thumb.

[hb2]

WBSF since 2022 has been transmitting in 3.0 as a simulcast of all the major networks 1.0 broadcasts. It is probably not receivable on 99% (figuratively) of receivers within range of it due to compatibility constraints between 1.0 and 3.0.

Looking at the Wikipedia, they have additional subchannels on WBSF's 3.0 signal that I don't think are available on 1.0 in the area (quite frankly I'd never heard of them before, check out the WBSF wiki page). Plus these non-simulcast subchannels all appear to be in 1080p HD as well

Edit: As for signal losses between 25 and 66, they are substantial. Looking at the longley-rice maps on rabbiteats.info for these stations, WEYI has at least marginal coverage all the way to Lake Huron and a trace signal into Sarnia, Ontario. Only a small 'dead zone' in the far northeastern thumb. WSMH, on the other hand, the signal is pretty spotty along M-53 (Van Dyke) and drops off to the east around M-19. NBC and The CW OTA is going to get very challenging to impossible in St. Clair, Sanilac, and Huron counties

[statmanmi]

Hi All,

I don't have inside information, but I am an avid reader of posts regarding Over The Air TV on the site AVSforum.com.

Frequent poster there with handle KyL416 has noted in many nationwide market threads that Sinclair is doing similar subchannel changes. Sinclair is arranging to have the "Big 4" network affiliation (NBC in this case) become a subchannel on the station that Sinclair directly owns. Versus currently how NBC is on the "not technically owned" "sidecar" company transmitter, with Sinclair having a Joint Services Agreement (JSA), Shared Services Agreement (SSA), or Local Marketing Agreement (LMA).

Reason being so that the retransmission agreements with cable and telecom companies will be made directly by Sinclair as the owner of the Big 4 network affiliate. Cable and other companies negotiate with the station owners, so with WEYI being officially owned by Howard Stirk Holdings (HSH), Comcast and Charter Spectrum are in agreements with HSH and not Sinclair directly.

Kyl416's post today in the Flint market thread of AVSforum: https://www.avsforum.com/threads/flint- ... t-64338306

"25.1 WEYIDT is switching to ROAR. I'm still waiting for Gracenote to update the schedules for the rest of the subchannels to see if Antenna TV ends up on 25.3 or they shuffle more of them like they're doing in the Tri-Cities, Gainesville and Providence.

"Also, they probably should have cleared it with the cable providers before claiming those viewers won't be affected. Spectrum has a programming notice saying that NBC via WSMH-D2 will be on channel 5/779, while WEYI is keeping the channel 4/780 slot after it switches to ROAR.
(WNEM is on channel 7 on those Spectrum systems, and WJRT is on 11, probably for historical reasons as there was a lot of leakage/ingress in the early days of cable so they couldn't carry VHF locals on the same frequency as their analog signal)"


I honestly don't know how KyL416 becomes informed of channel changes and such. But he's good at it. He has posts in the Mobile, Alabama thread regarding how on Oct. 20th Sinclair orchestrated the move of the NBC affiliation from the Deerfield Media-owned WPMI-TV to the Sinclair-owned WEAR-TV. Sinclair is doing/has done the same this month in Providence, RI and Syracuse, NY.


Given Sinclair's actions in these other markets, this likely won't bring about an additional ATSC 3.0 telecasting station, nor the shutdown of a current ATSC 1.0 transmitter. At least not imminently. (Underlined since I managed to type a wall of text.)


A couple more tidbits somewhat relevant:
* For streaming services (YouTube TV, Sling TV, etc.), the retransmission fees are negotiated by the networks themselves, and not by the station owners. Perhaps Sinclair hopes to leverage more affiliate ownership to get a bigger slice of that pie via the "Big 4" negotiations.
* A common justification that Sinclair has given for why they wish to directly operate the "Big 4" affiliation is that when it's a JSA/SSA/LMA situation the operator (Sinclair) is limited to providing 15% or less of the content being broadcast. Specific to Sinclair's FCC filing to buy WEYI directly from HSH, they noted that they'd provide weekend newcasts that aren't allowed currently because of the 15% threshold.

Cheers! ~~ Statmanmi

[radio_sparty]

Reason being so that the retransmission agreements with cable and telecom companies will be made directly by Sinclair as the owner of the Big 4 network affiliate. Cable and other companies negotiate with the station owners, so with WEYI being officially owned by Howard Stirk Holdings (HSH), Comcast and Charter Spectrum are in agreements with HSH and not Sinclair directly.

So will the ABC affiliation of WGTU and WGTQ move to a sub channel of WPBN/WTOM exclusively?

[edj]

Gray has done similar moves in their small markets.