NBC Boston info

[Scott Fybush]

On 11/1/2016 9:36 PM, Garrett Wollman wrote:
> <<On Tue, 1 Nov 2016 21:30:42 -0400, Scott Fybush <scott@fybush.com> said:
>
>> There are rules for that, and my read of those rules is that:
>
>> (a) Because WTMU/WBTS was on analog 32, it should be virtual 32
>
> Except that they haven't been on analog 32 in a long time: they were
> on analog 46, under STA, before flash-cutting to digital when NBC
> offered to pay for it.  My read of the filings is that they never
> intended to build this digital facility, and were just waiting for the
> auction proceeds.

I don't see a loophole in the rules for "they haven't been on analog xx 
for a long time" or for "they used this channel under STA"; the 
procedure under the A/51 standard, as incorporated into FCC rules, 
simply looks at "what was the analog channel assignment pre-transition?"

And the fact remains that "32" is an available major channel number in 
both the Boston DMA and all adjoining DMAs, so it really was the logical 
place for WTMU/WBTS to go, at least until Comcast's lawyers got involved.

(I do not understand AT ALL why Comcast didn't then shuffle its lineups 
so that NBC Boston would be 8 both OTA and on cable. That puzzles me. 
The local access channels could easily have shifted from 8 to 10 without 
any regulatory problems, at least AIUI.)