Rabbit TV

No free image available.

With cordcutting on the rise (like credit cards using the shears doesn't close your account of course.  You must notify them!), people are looking for ways to cut back.  This USB device lets you see many channels online legally (the pirate sites are likely being issued writs by the solicitors).  Until my new internet service arrives I had to put mine aside.  I hope to have it by New Years so I can watch American Dad! when the latest series commences.  Like Hulu and Netflix, this can eat up data which I go through like water as it is!
Rabbit TV are a division of Freecast.

ClearTV review

My own ClearTV antenna in the window.

Put this on eBay but it was too good not to put here too.  Picks up where I left off six months ago:

I bought this as I have an antenna installed upstairs to save on having satellite on all three TVs (lucky there's no such thing as a licence fee in the US like there is in most of the Commonwealth if not EU).  I have the old school aerial on the chimney but it has to be taken off my house soon due to damage and the dish moved over to the roof.  If you're looking to cut the cord you should have this for local programmes at least as not all terrestrial programming is streamed like some cable ones are these days with Amazon Prime, Netflix or Sling.  Much of what I watch is on Fox (FNCs sister) and PBS so this is all I need right now.  My TVs are older so they have converters I bought with FCC-sponsored gift cards when they came out several years ago.  However if you live in an area that doesn't have a network affiliate of its own like one I go to which used to get CBS on cable from my town and another that still does the same with NBC and you're on your own for MyNetworkTV, then maybe this isn't gonna be enough if you wanna watch something that's carried on an out of town station on cable or satellite.  Also even adding the amplifier may not help if you live too far from a TV market or there's nature in the way like hills outside the Midwest and Steppes for that matter.  Also this is more for NTSC DTV and HD signals in North America.  I saw this on TV in an informercial but it's better value for money to order from here and I will get another in the foreseeable future.

Cutting the Cord: How do I get started?

Cutting the Cord: How do I get started?

loobobilly: Charter Digs This Whole Cable Merger Thing, Plans ...

Will still merge so far unlike their competitors.

loobobilly: Charter Digs This Whole Cable Merger Thing, Plans ...: In cable, merger mania isn’t just for the biggest players. The next tier down wants to play, too. And so we have the announcement this mor...

The Future of TV: Learn How You Can Protect the Future of Free, Local Television and Keep the News, Emergency Information and HD Programs You Love

The Future of TV: Learn How You Can Protect the Future of Free, Local Television and Keep the News, Emergency Information and HD Programs You Love

Warm-Air-Fund

Warm-Air-Fund: Trying to escape New Siberia!

Commercials

Remember when commercials were more folksy and not all dross?  Pepperidge Farm remembers!

The idea of commercials go all the way back to the Depression days of radio when Oxydol sponsored what we call soaps hence the name (mainly Ma Perkins).  They weren't as long by the time TV came around.  Over time they have varying quality.  For me if I don't like a commercial I will boycott the advertiser if possible until it's pulled if it's something I'd buy otherwise it does what it's intended for me to do; make me give into their dross message and validate it.  There are those who would avoid a product if it sponsors a show they protest and this has happened.  PBS are the antithesis of commercial TV and the closest thing to a commercial sponsor would be when a company contribute what would be construed as a tax write-off like the Chubb Corporation.

Is AT&T DirecTV Acqusition a Big Mistake, a Clear Win, or a Deal of Unknown Ultimate Impact? | IP Carrier

Is AT&T DirecTV Acqusition a Big Mistake, a Clear Win, or a Deal of Unknown Ultimate Impact? | IP Carrier

Mergermania continues!

YNN: The return?

The name for right now. No relation (anymore) to CNN or HLN.

If Comcast were to buy Time Warner Cable, obviously TWC News would have to change their name.  I mentioned this the other week but it could go even further.  If the name Comcast News Channel isn't brought up maybe Your News Now could be revived as I said before.  Before YNN it was called R News in Monroe County, Capital News 9 in Albany County, and News 10 Now in Onondaga County.  Even those names could come back yet CN9 would probably need a new logo as Bay News 9 in the Tampa Bay/St Petersburg, FL area uses one like it and is now owned by Bright House whose systems were spun off of TWC there and four other states yet keep a CNY office in East Syracuse.  Comcast already have NBC, CNBC and MSNBC.  TWC News may focus on Upstate more yet it loops all day just in case you miss a story.  As YNN the slogan was that it was only on TWC, not FiOS or satellite.  Now it's a given though the new slogan could be, "Only on Comcast, not on fibre optic (NewVisions are available in some CNY communities instead), DTV, satellite or any other provider (TWC as I've said earlier don't have all of Upstate covered north of Greene County)".  Existing Charter systems in areas like Centre County, PA could get their own YNN channel if it comes down to that.  As some towns aren't close enough to the main cities they can otherwise be overlooked for general news stories so regional channels such as RNN in the Hudson Valley can help inform people there.

UPDATE: Merger is off yet one with Charter and Bright House may happen instead which may lead to this or something like it in the weeks to come.  More to come.

UPDATE 2: It has now been confirmed that TWC News will be renamed Spectrum News after all.

TV listings then and now

Not the actual logo but I had the TV Quick one saved and decided to work with that.

TV Guide had launched back in 1953 when people were just starting to buy television sets here in the US.  Newspapers would have listings of their own.  Of course technology changed over the past three generations and counting and then some.  There would be more options and competition.  TV Guide would have a local edition for each cluster market (where I used to live would have one for the local cable system as it was between two markets yet was part of the big one).  The paper would have a poor mans version on Sunday (most still do though mine has been pared down in recent years) which listed what channels were offered in each town.  Many in the '90s provided codes for VCR+ remotes which eased programming the VCR which has now gone the way of the Telex machine thanks to DVD and DVR!  An obscure magazine called Happiness (a cheap cross between Guideposts and Readers Digest that used to be in the free section at the cornershop) even used to have truncated national monthly listings.  Large listings magazines geared towards satellite subscribers were available on newsstands.  On TV there was the Prevue Channel (later TV Guide Channel and now Pop), Zap2It or something else though digital receivers with interactive guides have made the older kind available only on non-digital standard lineups.  As for papers some may not have the listings during the week anymore with the decline of print media when most people can just go online anyway to see what's on.  A lot of them now aren't even in circulation all week long or you have to pick one up yourself like in my area.  Meanwhile, TV Guide about a decade back became a full size magazine and since then only have national listings for print and I stopped buying it as it was no longer what I grew up with, although the local bookshop used to have back issues but I doubt they do today due to a change in ownership and possible lack of interest.  Still Homer Simpson can remember when TV Guide was the few things he ever bothered reading!

Sweeps

30th Anniversary this fall. They brought in the ratings and cheesecake back then!

3-4 times a year it's Sweeps when the Nielsen Ratings are on the scene especially during Watershed (Prime Time).  Scripted shows, reality shows and the news alike will all seem to have an "If it bleeds it leads" mentality geared towards sensationalism hoping to lure more viewers in. February has the Super Bowl, awards shows, mid-season and more while in May it's Season Finales (on terrestrial anyway).  July is quieter as it's summer and not everyone wants to be home so much yet cable has their new seasons.  November is getting closer to the festive period and the new season has everyone settled in.  If you ask me every month now seems like Sweeps and 25% of the year Double Sweeps.
Some may argue that the meter and print survey method of gathering Nielsens is getting dated.  PBS can seem exempt from ratings even though Downton Abbey (from commercial ITV in the UK) will bring them in anyway.  There must be technology now that can tell if people are tuning in even with their DVRs or devices.  Some shows are fish in a barrel while others they're not biting and lead to the axe.  If almost no one's watching anymore then it's better to cut their losses though some people will always complain.  Otherwise, if it pays, it stays.

Cable choices

De facto for most of Upstate and Downstate.

By FCC regulation there can only be one cable company per community though there are other methods to receive service.  However there are more ways nowadays with satellite (DirecTV and Dish) and wherever available Verizon FiOS.  In CNY you can even choose NewVisions over TWC although both have their offices in East Syracuse (local ones for national monopoly TWC).  In some areas though you'd be lucky to get the one, or even have an old school antenna on the roof (I still have mine).  Comcast are still looking into getting TWC so that can change things around too.  There used to be large satellite dishes and I've seen a couple in the county but I would think now you'd have to be rich to own one and the TV listings in the paper used to have coordinates listed for cable channels like Lifetime or USA (owned by Comcast now).  With carriage disputes popping up a lot in recent years (there was one with Cablevision as early as the late '80s over MSG which they later bought and spun off), if your favourite channel is gone for a while it makes you want to switch though the provider will say it just tells the channel you're settling for their rise though they all work out eventually.

Cable in Syracuse

The Enron of cable!

While the scope of cable TV in the US has changed over the decades, I decided to focus on my own backyard.  The earliest system I can remember Syracuse having is CableSystems (their old satellites remain at the Chimes Building downtown but may no longer even be operational).  In the suburbs there were NewChannels covering Onondaga County except Skaneateles, Jordan and Elbridge which were under whatever they may have had in Auburn (Newchannels and later TWC CNY's old headquarters in East Syracuse by Wegmans were just torn down).  CableSystems became Cooke Cable by the late '80s and the Adelphia by the mid-'90s which went down in scandal a decade later.  Time Warner Cable already absorbed Selectavision in Cazenovia, NewChannels and then Syracuse and much of Upstate New York north of the Catskills.  Comcast bought other Adelphia markets, though merging with TWC would have brought it all full circle.

Hotel TV

Motel in Mesa, AZ which gets HBO and Fox 10.

Whether you stay at a nice hotel in the big city or even a cheap fleabag motel in the middle of nowhere there will always be a TV in the room.  Many motels will say if there's HBO.  Used to be lucky to have colour TV or even cable in the old days!  When I go somewhere I don't go often I like to see what the local lineup is ahead of time unless it's somewhere I know well enough that I have it committed to memory but the varied nature of national TV means it's like the lottery machine as to which numbers go where for both terrestrial and pay-TV networks,  They always used to say and still do, "Check your local listings" (a rule of thumb with domestic syndication in laymans terms).  I get settled for the night and a list of what's available can be out of date if something changed its name (it could say Court TV instead of TruTV as it's called today) or the lesser known ones are missing (like the CW or myNetwork TV while CBS, C-SPAN or PBS are a given).  Of course you book a hotel 'cos you're on holiday, business, going to an event or what-have-you.  It can give you a sense of home if you like (within US soil anyway, but abroad, you may get a bit of culture shock if you don't find something familiar straight away).  Some hotels will have cable, but others I've gone to have satellite (one had DirecTV and another I think Comcast).  Usually pay-per-view and a looping tourism video channel will also be offered.  I just notice patterns over the years.  For countries with licence fees like the UK I wonder if they pay one per set or hotel and what the HMRCs (the UKs IRS if you like) policy on write offs are but that's another blog!  I just hope I can catch some Corrie again next time!

Planet Fitness

Columbia, SC location where they get NBC 10, CBS 19, ABC 25, and Fox 57.

For a few years I've gone to Planet Fitness and there are a number of TVs on mute that you can only hear through a few types of equipment on headphone.  They will have the first four along with Fox News (sister to Fox), CNN and HLN (ex-sisters to TWC), ESPN (sister to ABC), MSNBC and CNBC (owned by Comcast; you see the pattern), MTV and VH1 (ex-sisters to CBS), A&E (Duck Dynasty are the flagship show there now much to Morrisseys ire), and in the case of Time Warner Cable in Upstate NY, Time Warner Cable News; all depending on the franchise.  Other gyms may do this too as far as I know as there was a report on TVs in a publicly run community gym mainly used by pensioners the other week.  Back at PF sometimes a TV doesn't work right or at all. Some locations have Cardio Theatre which has a TV on each individual machine with a remote attached which will get all the channels provided by the cable company there.  As I posted earlier the future Cortland, NY location will have two stations each of CBS and Fox being roughly between Syracuse and Binghamton.  The existing one near Ithaca in the next county will have Onondaga County ones with one each for Broome and Chemung/Steuben County (both Twin Tiers).  Once my gym exists I can write off TWC and other business expenses on my taxes.  TV like the Tannoy (PA) can become part of the furniture however when people go to the gym to keep their figure!  Better than being at home on the settee all day!

No news is good news?

Fox 68/My 43 Studios in Syracuse

    Not all affiliates of the big four broadcasts get a newscast at 12 Noon and 10 PM or at all. I know ABC 20 WUTR in Utica didn't have news for a time but now even sister station Fox 33 WFXV has news at 10. Fox 68 WSYT along with sister station my 43 WNYS have changed hands recently so they may bring back news in the near future having carried NBC 3 WSTM and CBS 5 WTVH provided news (before they merged as part of CNY Central). However CNY Central no longer have 12.00 News on either channel anymore but have it on CW 6 WSTQ at 10 PM. Unfortunately with competition from Time Warner Cable news for local and regional stories and CNN and MSNBC for national and international coverage, local news operations struggle in the ratings and not many people are home at lunch time anymore for that. Smaller areas may also have limited news staff if any or have a simulcast from a sister station which is the case with ABC 50 WWTI in Watertown carrying Syracuse counterpart NewsChannel 9 WSYRs news two counties away sharing owners and network franchise with some central-casting. As if morning shows weren't cutthroat enough, trying to keep news departments running in low-rated markets can be an uphill battle.

ION Television

Positively Entertaining.

ION, formerly PAX and i, has had a unique yet underdog history going from airing family and religious shows to police procedural crime dramas and sitcoms.  However they have the least affiliates of all the commercial networks that existed before the DTV revolution in recent history.  ion 56 WSPX in my area have the largest digital tier with six subchannels yet have a small studio in East Syracuse near Walmart.  ion 51 WPXJ in Genesee County serves much of Western New York.  For areas that don't even have a low-power station over the air with ION cable or satellite should have it on their lineup.  Due to the vast size of the nation it'd take an eternity to come up with over a hundred markets that could use ION which could be why they could have lower ratings than my Network TV or the CW.  Upstate NY I know so I could just go from there and a few select other states just to get an idea.  Here's where ION could charge up:

Utica
Watertown
Binghamton
Elmira
Tallahassee (Floridas capital)
Philadelphia (even there)

Just several examples without going out on a limb.

NY Retail Roundup: The New Melody Maker: Contact information

NY Retail Roundup: The New Melody Maker: Contact information

UK in the US

Recently deceased Corrie star Anne Kirkbride.

Since the '60s a number of UK comedies and dramas found their way across the pond to the US and Canada (both Commonwealth and via the US) mainly on NET the predecessor of PBS until 1970 when NET were absorbed by flagship WNDT in New York to become WNET.  The BBC launched Lionheart Television (now BBC Worldwide Americas) which handled distribution and syndication with PBS member stations as PBS are technically the pubcaster for the US though not a de facto per se like Auntie (BBC).  Monty Pythons Flying Circus, Butterflies, The Good Life (as Good Neighbours to avoid confusion with another show), Are You Being Served?/Grace and Favour (AYBS Again US), A Fine Romance, Prime Suspect, Absolutely Fabulous, Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, Only Fools and Horses, To the Manor Born, Eastenders, The Vicar of Dibley, Last of the Summer Wine, Keeping Up Appearances and Waiting for God (the last two I watch) just to name a few are or have been on participating affiliates but as an extra package as they're not network package shows like Downton Abbey (from ITV) and Call the Midwife are which give PBS ratings on par with their commercial competition yet air in North America several months after the UK depending on the show.
In markets bordering Canada or other select areas, if you can get the CBC on cable or over the air Coronation Street from ITV airs Sunday Mornings. Supernanny, Jeremy Kyle, Trisha Goddard and even Ant and Decs Wanna Bet? have all had brief US editions.
Ex-pats and diehard fans alike who can afford it can subscribe to an expensive satellite service which allows one to receive BBC 1-3, Channel 4, Five, itv, BSkyB and other UK networks but will still have to pay the licence fee and have equipment to rent to convert PAL signals to NTSC I would have to believe.
Some have had mainstream success Stateside while others have a cult following compared to back in Britain.  On cable BBC America only has a handful of Beeb programmes in order to appeal to US tastes making it BBC in name only if you ask me.

Not so Big Cable

What would baby watch? (Rogers are a big one in Canada though)

In most small towns, it's not always the big boys running the cable junket despite its roots as CATV providing out of town stations to far flung places (especially in higher elevations).  Several regions of Upstate New York alone have indie service.  In Cazenovia there used to be Select-a-Vision but that was absorbed into Time Warner Cable.  South on NY 13 in Cortland County, while the city has TWC, within the zip code in the hamlet Virgil in the ski belt there, Spencer-based Haefele Cable, which I mentioned before covering some of the Finger Lakes and Twin Tiers, have the rights.  Southern Cayuga County Cablevision is based in Locke.  Mid-Hudson Cable south of Albany I just may have heard of before when I lived down the river some that now even offer a digital converter for older sets (I had MediaOne then which went the way of TCI one town down).  The Cleveland Show had one called Waterman Cable which is in a small town in Virginia called Stoolbend between Washington and Front Royal.  Even Ireland have a handful of small ones and a licence fee like the UK.  Back in the States there are over 800 mini-cable companies amidst the megas.  However there are still spots where you'd be lucky to sign up for DirecTV or Dish.  With the carriage disputes domino-ing nationwide the small cable companies like ImOn Communications in Cedar Rapids, IA just decide to let go (Viacom in ImOns case) rather than get into a David and Goliath type tug of war that their conglomerate counterparts can solve in a matter of days if not weeks.  Indies may sacrifice lower-rated yet A-list cable channels but fight for broadcast ones.  Even those in one-horse towns can find other ways.  ACA represent the interests of the mini-telecoms.

Comcast-TWC merger

To xfinity and beyond?

There has been a lot of talk about Comcast buying Time Warner Cable.  They have been slated for net neutrality, customer service and anti-trust concerns.  Even if Washington allows this something will have to give.  Some systems could be going to Charter.  Central New Yorks may possibly go to Bright House based in DeWitt but spun off TWC in Tampa Bay and Orlando in Central Florida (take me there!).  Then there's the issue of TWC News (formerly YNN; previously News 10 Now in CNY/NNY, R News in Rochester, and Capital News 9 in Albany) as to what it could be called but YNN could come back (Comcast already have CNBC and MSNBC).  Everything's still up in the air so we'll see where this goes.  (UPDATE: In a twist of fate, Charter and Bright House are now looking into a merger of their own, which could affect Bright Houses office in the town of DeWitt if cleared.)
(2ND UPDATE: No Comcast-TWC merger.)

Branding

The way it ought to be and where I wanna live until April!

Fox helped start a trend in the broadcast business with branding to show where the network is in each area.  While there's my43 in my neck of the woods and CBS 2 in LA, not every station has caught onto this pattern. Take WSVN in Miami.  It should be called Fox 7 especially as it's a larger area.  Up the east coast in New York City ex-indie superstation WPIX is called PIX 11 Home of the CW rather than just being CW 11 despite being the flagship.  Sister station WGN in Chicago isn't referred to officially as CW 9 either and has a cable channel for the rest of the nation.  For a less populated region WYOU in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area could be CBS 22 being all UHF over the air being surrounded by two larger markets and a few small ones with the risk of overlap on VHF (there's also ABC 16 WNEP).  For convenience they're within the first dozen channels on cable and FiOS.  Closer to home, NewsChannel 2 WKTV (NBC) in Utica (another common practice) is on channel 4 on Time Warner Cable in Oneida, Herkimer and Hamilton counties.  Sometimes the number isn't featured, such as Fox Rochester WUHF (31).  This is mainly an American phenomenon as it's not the same everywhere else, so you may never think of CBC affiliate CKWS in Kingston, ONT (also on TWC in the Mohawk Valley yet far from Canada) as CBC 11 but TV there is a whole other matter as most stations are O&Os with translators outside the big cities and have to follow Canadian content regulations enforced by the CRTC, north of the 49th Parallels answer to the FCC.  In my backyard if I tell a TWC customer that I watch channel 24 on Saturday nights I have to tell them that I mean WCNY (PBS) not ESPN!  On the road I sometimes know the local lineup in a nutshell.

Identity crisis

The ABCs (Australia) studio in Sydney, NSW

I put a similar post on the sister blog so I'll put this here now.
ABC - Australia (pictured), the Philippines and USA
Fox - network and FNC which are related yet different in scope
BrightHouse - former US cable service HQ in CNY and UK retailer
Cablevision - NYC, Service Electric Cablevision in NE PA, Cooke CableVision (sold in 1992 to Adelphia), early name for Bright House, and Southern Cayuga County Cablevision in Upstate NY.
Time Warner - cable and conglomerate (ex-parent company of TWC)
NBC - USA, the Philippines and Namibia
Dish Network and Dish Nation
Yes - UK, US (sister to Fox) and Canada
Ghostbusters - Filmation and Sony (you get the idea)

Double trouble?

One of two Fox stations serving Cortland County

Many small towns and even states fall between two viewing markets but mainly belong to one.  Upstate New York has a few instances of straddling the proverbial fence.  I wish to open a Planet Fitness in Cortland which is 30 miles south of Syracuse but over 40 north of Binghamton.  I'll have several TVs in the gym as they all do so I would have two of them with Fox; Fox 68 from Onondaga County back home and Fox 40 from Broome County in the Twin Tiers (logo pictured).  I'd get both on TWC and I know who to call.  As you head towards the Finger Lakes wine belt and the PA state line, two small cable companies, Southern Cayuga County Cablevision (more on that later) and Haefele have the Elmira and Rochester markets featured along with mine but only so much overlap because of retrans fees (see petition).  It'd be too far to have an antenna in these small towns.
I lived in the mid-Hudson Valley for a period between Albany and New York but it's mainly the vast flagship tri-state market but the northern part has some of the Capital Region stations too.  The cable company I had then was Freeview compared to what they have now.  I used to be able to see a syndicated show on a local station and then on a then-indie superstation right after until SyndEx caused blackouts.  Not sure if something would be blacked out on one or the other as maybe the FCC makes exceptions for double dipping areas.  New Jersey isn't too big so they're split between NYC and Philadelphias lineups.  Once Jefferson and Oneida Counties get the stations I proposed earlier, either room could be made for them on TWC, or the CNY Central ones would have to go.  The pensioners will likely tell you they grew up with just three channels and a dial!

The little networks that could

Not yet available in CNY.

There have been several upstart networks appearing on digital tiers around the country this past decade but not all of them are in every city.  MeTV, ThisTV, TheCoolTV, RTN, AntennaTV, Bounce and others are among those who weren't meant for the analogue period and some have reruns of classic series of a simpler time.  Some major markets like Philadelphia have room for them but have yet to act upon that opportunity.  Earlier digital networks like The Tube and PBS spinoff ThinkBright went the way of DuMont and the WB but at this rate there could almost be as many terrestrial networks as pay-TV ones.  Just be glad we don't have an annual licence fee like some countries do!

Cordcutting alternatives

No endorsement implied.

The recent blackout of Fox News and Fox Business from Dish that lingered for three and a half weeks left some subscribers either moving to another provider or if they're stuck in a contract plan B being going online to an unauthorised feed which appears to alternate between Cablevisions Optimum on Long Island, NY and Bright House Networks in Tampa Bay/St Petersburg, FL (although the company are based in my area).  Another one is out there but I only put them here as an example though those into cord-cutting apart from using Hulu and Netflix.  A briefer carriage dispute between my area local affiliates for FNCs sister networks Fox and myNetworkTV vs FiOS got me looking for another Fox station but more because the weather affected my DTV signal and I found Fox 45 from Dayton/Springfield, OH and flagship Fox 5 from the tri-state area.  However if you do ditch cable or satellite and live close enough to the transmitters then a good antenna is needed for local stations.  I have an old school one on the chimney so I only have to pay for Dish downstairs though Clear TV has had mixed reviews.  The posts on Utica and Watertown show that not all networks are easily available over the air in all areas though being able to find out of town stations can fill the vacuum there too but the varied nature of syndication (chat shows and reruns for a start) can add to the challenge when trying to do broadcast on a budget.  I've even been told by someone he was able to watch TV from the US and UK through a MMORPG online via XBox but I think I'll just keep Dish!

Cable Act Petition

What looks like INXS on this snap I happened to have.

I started a petition to change a generation-old law that is long overdue for a change.  Click, read and sign today!  I explain more there.

Mary Whitehouse

The queen of the clean screen on the scene!

Mary Whitehouse may not be as well known in the US as in the UK but for three decades she led a crusade against what she saw on TV and heard on radio that caused her offence as a card-carrying member of the Church of England.  She frequently wrote to the BBC about something she wanted banned.  Her campaigning slowed down by the late '80s to early '90s as her health declined and passed on in November 2001 but if she were around today she would be livid by the continuing signs of X certificate language and violence during watershed (Prime Time) or anytime, social media, or just about anything pushing the envelope.  She's turning in her grave by half of what's on now!  Not saying I agree with her on everything.

CBS in Utica

Can be started?

CBS have never had a station of their own in the Mohawk Valley.  Towards the west they get CBS 5 WTVH from Syracuse, CBS 6 WRGB Albany towards the east, and CBS 7 WWNY as you head north.  The Tiffany networks newest affiliate could start a whole new tier, or have WFXV DT2 on 33.2 coming after Fox 33 owned by Nexstar who also have ABC 20 WUTR and my11 WPNY.  WTKO LP 15 in Oneida is dormant but that's a county away.  Watch this space.

Update: Long overdue, NBC affiliate NewsChannel 2 WKTV added CBS to DT 2.2 making it one of the newest affiliates of Americas Most-Watched Network in the nation and one of the few without a legacy analogue signal.  Their half sister the CW moved to DT 2.3 and MeTV to DT 2.4.  Now there may be hope up NY 12 in the North Country for NBC et al but more on that later.  Since it's a small town this blog must be working somehow.

WLOT/WBQZ NBC 34.1/my34.2 Watertown

I'll just let someone else design a more polished professional logo.

As a small but border community market, Watertown in has been behind in catching up with the bigger cities.  CBS 7 WWNY used to be the only station on the US side of the St Lawrence Valley and then there was CBC 11 CKWS in Kingston, ONT which is even on cable down NY 12 in Utica. One of the owners of WLOT has passed on a decade ago while affiliated with UPN and his partner went to court but the station had gone dark and awaits a new FCC licence as NBC has to be brought in by NBC 3 WSTM in Syracuse who may boost their signal but myNetworkTV isn't even on Time Warner Cable there yet (the carriage dispute the former owners had with them makes recent ones pale in comparison).  Once these stations are on air, they also have to make sure Dish Network (given what they just went through with myTVs sister station), DirecTV, and FiOS in the US and Cogeco, Vidéotron, Bell TV, Shaw Direct and Rogers in Canada (eastern Ontario) will all be willing to carry them.  They'd also have to see which programs in syndication haven't already been picked up by CBS 7, ABC 50, Fox 28, or the CW.  A tower in Rutland, NY may still be standing but one will have to be closer to Landsdowne or Cornwall across the seaway.  A property on county route 100 near Salmon Run Mall west of I-81 may still be vacant and could even hold a small studio yet something better in Jefferson County may be available.  More as this develops.  WLOT obviously stands for Watertown Lake Ontario Television or Watertown Lake Ontario Thousand Islands (small town so I know) while WBQZ refers to the WB which they were supposed to have but that was merged with UPN into the CW already near 10th Mountain.  QZ can mean Quick Zone!  I'd get onetime resident Viggo Mortensen to film a station ID promo if he's willing to do so.