RE: WMTW to drop 5 and 5:30 newscasts

["Kevin Vahey" <k-vahey@attbi.com>]

WCAX and WPTZ can not afford to be dark too long because they do not 
want to upset the sleeping elephant to the north Videotron cable in 
Quebec province. Videotron has switched to US network feeds from Boston 
in the past and to lose access to the Montreal market would be a huge 
hit. I don't know if Videotron now gets 3 and 5 via satellite instead of 
microwave but the signal on 3 has never been better.


On Wed, 22 Jan 2003 12:31PM -0500, Aaron Read wrote:
> At 12:17 PM 1/22/2003 -0500, Garrett Wollman wrote:
>> <<On Wed, 22 Jan 2003 05:00:47 -0800 (PST), Cooper Fox 
>> <fox893@yahoo.com> said:
>>
>>>  I didn't realize that TV Tx's had to be manned 24
>>>  hours a day.  Or, for some reason, do they have their
>>>  main control at their Tx site?
>>
>> They don't (not any more, anyway).  However, stations with relatively
>> inaccessible sites such as these view the full-time staffing as an
>> insurance policy.  If no personnel are stationed on the mountain, it
>> might take several days to restore service if a transmitter fails
>> during bad weather.  (It still might -- but with personnel up there,
>> diagnosis and recovery can proceed immediately, whereas without
>> full-time engineers it could take a day just to get someone up the
>> mountain to identify the problem!)  Particularly in the case of a
>> small broadcaster (Mount Mansfield Broadcasting gets all of its
>> revenue from its one and only broadcast station), it's a prudent step
>> to take.
>>
>> -GAWollman
>
>
> In rough terms, isn't it more cost-effective to have an alternate 
> broadcasting/backup site that is at a "safer" location (even if it 
> doesn't cover as much territory, signal-wise) than to pay what must be 
> a decent salary (plus benefits and all the other costs of having an 
> employee) for someone to be at the primary site all the time?   Even if 
> the guy is only paid $40000/yr, it probably costs the company more like 
> $60-70000/yr by the time you add everything up...that adds up pretty 
> quick over the years, no?
>
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Aaron "Bishop" Read             aread@speakeasy.net
> FriedBagels Consulting          AOL-IM: readaaron
> http://www.friedbagels.com      Boston, MA