Random Musing - TV Channels


Ironhold
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For those who don't know - 

A few years ago, the US government ordered all over-the-air television stations to transition from broadcasting their signal via analog to broadcasting their signal via digital. One side effect of this is the advent of the "digital sideband" channel or "diginet". What this means is that each individual over-the-air broadcast television station can have as many as eight additional stations broadcasting on allotted side frequencies. 

As an example:

6.1 local major network affiliate

6.2 diginet dedicated to classic programming from the 1950s - 1980s

6.3 diginet dedicated to regional sports programming

6.4 diginet dedicated to Spanish-language programming

6.5 diginet dedicated to crime dramas

6.6 diginet dedicated to Westerns

6.7 diginet dedicated to local, regional, and state news programming

6.8 diginet dedicated to home improvement and lifestyle content

6.9 diginet dedicated to travelogues and documentaries

 

I grew up in the 1980s and 1990s. 

I remember that, even with cable television, there were times where we had only a handful of channels on television. ABC. CBS. NBC. Perhaps a local or regional independent station. A few cable channels like TBS, TNT, USA, Nickelodeon, The Family Channel, The Disney Channel and perhaps CNN, C-Span, ESPN, and The Weather Channel. I think it was well into the early 1990s before I lived in an area that had more than 20 or 30 channels available via cable aside from "premium" networks like HBO or Cinemax.

Well, I got to looking at the various over-the-air television networks that broadcast in my media market and their assorted digital side band stations. 

If I was to put up a strong enough outdoor antenna (think a 1950s - style aerial) then I could potentially find myself with 30+ channels just coming in through the air for free... possibly more because I'm actually at the border of two media markets and so can sometimes pick up their signals as well. 

We're in a day and age where someone like me can - for just equipment and labor - pick up more total channels than I could have gotten with a cable television package 30+ years ago. 

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I ditched Satellite back in 2018 and will never go back. No point in paying for 180+ channels when you only watch 10 or so of them...and you can only watch one at a time anyways. I picked up a digital antenna for 20 bucks  online and currently have 87 channels, including all network TV and their subsidiaries, as well as PBS kids. (approx. 25 of those channels are a mix of Spanish and shopping channels)

It's nice having an extra $75-80 each month.

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Each year, I try to do a Thanksgiving message in my weekly newspaper op/ed. Not only do I do this to encourage gratitude, it's also so that I myself can work on it (given everything I've been through in life, that's somewhat hard for me). 

I'm thinking of having this, the variety of content now available these days, be what I'll be talking about. 

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We cut the cord finally when they increased the price (yet again, it was beginning to become a yearly thing and they were wanting over $200 for our package finally) and said that they were "improving" the cable and so had to drill holes in our home to get the new cable in.  I would have been okay with the price but drilling homes in my house from someone who really wasn't a contractor and was just a kid trained by the cable company...no way.

So now we have this new fangled internet stuff that comes with the new TVs you buy (the new smart TV's...I'd actually opt for a "dumb" TV but I can't find them anywhere anymore) them.  We only have subscriptions to Disney+ (though I have been wanting to cut it after I've seen some of the new stuff they've brought out over the past two years, but my wife says we have to have it for the grandkids) and the Amazon channel because I suppose we get it automatically because we have Amazon Prime.

I find the thing I actually watch the most is news from this Pluto thing we have, and the limited FoxNews channel that the TV it has on it. 

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On 8/30/2022 at 5:23 PM, Ironhold said:

A few years ago, the US government ordered all over-the-air television stations to transition from broadcasting their signal via analog to broadcasting their signal via digital.

Heh.  I stubbornly held on to my old analog TV for years after the switch.  Got myself one of those Obama free converters so my antennae would still work.

My earliest memories of TV was cruising into the kitchen and clicking the black and white TV on, then jumping up and down anxiously as the tv warmed up and the picture came on, worried that I'd clicked too late and would miss the first 2 minutes of my show. 

A few years later, as the Carter stagflation had inflation and interest rates at 12-14%, banks were vying for business by offering a free TV with a new account.  My dad took great advantage of this, and we had our main living room tv, then free ones in kitchen and every bedroom.  The kitchen TV had the Atari hooked up to it.  10 years later, those free TVs were also my first computer monitors.

I remember when cable appeared.  My parents thought they were rich because they could afford basic + HBO + Showtime.

Now I have a folder on my PC with links to all the free streaming services I can find:

image.png.7f49c07fbc257a6d1a60bbd9ff6af615.png

 

I dumped Netflix like the hot turd it was, when they started showing Cuties.  A show that pressured and sexually exploited children in order to show how children are pressured and sexually exploited in shows.

 

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3 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

Heh.  I stubbornly held on to my old analog TV for years after the switch.  Got myself one of those Obama free converters so my antennae would still work.

My earliest memories of TV was cruising into the kitchen and clicking the black and white TV on, then jumping up and down anxiously as the tv warmed up and the picture came on, worried that I'd clicked too late and would miss the first 2 minutes of my show. 

A few years later, as the Carter stagflation had inflation and interest rates at 12-14%, banks were vying for business by offering a free TV with a new account.  My dad took great advantage of this, and we had our main living room tv, then free ones in kitchen and every bedroom.  The kitchen TV had the Atari hooked up to it.  10 years later, those free TVs were also my first computer monitors.

I remember when cable appeared.  My parents thought they were rich because they could afford basic + HBO + Showtime.

Now I have a folder on my PC with links to all the free streaming services I can find:

image.png.7f49c07fbc257a6d1a60bbd9ff6af615.png

 

I dumped Netflix like the hot turd it was, when they started showing Cuties.  A show that pressured and sexually exploited children in order to show how children are pressured and sexually exploited in shows.

 

RetroCrush is another free service that specializes in anime, but you have to closely watch the age ratings in each movie's and show's individual descriptions as it's a rather random mix of kid-friendly and not-so-friendly (although anything they think to be truly TV-MA or equivalent is age-gated). 

 

Edit - 

Sinclair Broadcasting also maintains the STIRR app, which is a mix of live channels (including Sinclair's digital side band stations) and on-demand content. The last time I tuned in, this included content like "Joy of Painting with Bob Ross" and "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson".

Edited by Ironhold
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1 hour ago, JohnsonJones said:

The biggest channels I miss from cable are the ones that show classic shows, such as MeTV.

MeTV is a digital side band station, and so check what TV networks you have in your area to see if any of them are broadcasting it. If so, you can get it through over-the-air antenna.

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