WBIN-TV 18?

[Matthew Osborne]

Garrett's explanation below must be the reason why all of the cable systems in Plattsburgh NY, Burlington VT, and the surrounding areas put all the local network affiliates on locations different than their actual air channel.  Back in 1998, WPTZ (channel 5) was (and probably still is) on cable channel 2, WVNY (channel 22) was on channel 4, and WCAX (channel 3) was on channel 8.  I always though that was odd, and never understood why this was done until now.  Those channel locations were  (and probably still are) the exact same ones used on cable systems in Montreal; the stations must've wanted consistency across cable systems and simply requested that local US-based systems use the same lineup as the much bigger Montreal market.

Matt Osborne
Rotterdam, NY


<<On Sat, 20 Oct 2012 22:25:41 -0400, Bob Nelson <raccoonradio@gmail.com> said:

>> Years ago when staying in the Burlington VT area I would see IDs for
>> WVNY-TV 22 and
>> it would say "WVNY TV 22, Cable 4" which seemed to be where most cable
>> systems placed
>> it. The latter not part of an official legal ID of course, more of
>> impressing it in people's memories.

<<On Saturday, October 20, 2012 11:23 PM Garrett Wollman<wollman@bimajority.com> replied:

The rule in Canada was (and so far as I know still is) that stations
*must not* be placed on the same channel on cable systems as they are
over the air.  In the days of analog cable, there was a lot of
leakage, and broadcast stations (particularly VHF stations), if placed
on their broadcast channels, would receive objectionable ingress
interference from their over-the-air transmitters.