For everyone: cable companies (satellite, too?) blocking some CW channels

[Lord Nimon]

As most of you know, the WB and UPN merged into CW. This means that if you used to get both WB and UPN via cable TV, both of these channels are now CW.

I have Time Warner cable in Austin, TX, and I just saw a message on channel 23 (formerly UPN) that Time Warner is blocking it. Obviously, it's not really a problem because they still transmit channel 12 (formerly WB), and the same shows are on both channels.

HOWEVER! I had a couple season passes for shows on channel 23. Since season passes are channel-specific, I had to delete those passes and make new ones for the same shows (at the same days and times) on channel 12.

My guess is that this issue may affect everyone, or at least most people, who used to get both WB and UPN. The only way to find out for sure is to tune into the channels and see if either of them is blocked.

[Lee L]

That is strange. In most areas, only one station changed to CW. The other either went indy or some changed to the My Network TV thing.

[Lord Nimon]

Well, Austin used to have our own UPN station, but it closed down. So for about a year, we didn't have any UPN. Then the cable company somehow managed to pull in a UPN station from a nearby town. Now that both stations are CW, whatever justification Time Warner had to offer it no longer applied.

The message that I see when I switch to channel 23 says something about the FCC.

[Stylin]

Yes, in my area(NY), we now have "My 9 (network)" on the old UPN channel. It has different programming, mostly repeats of old UPN shows.
I definitely had to change my SP's at the beggining of the season to reflect the channel change. It wasn't hard to do if sing "view upcoming episodes" in the old SP.

[Lord Nimon]

In my case, the guide data still shows Veronica Mars as being on channels 12 and 23, at the same day and time. Technically, that's correct, except that I don't really get channel 23 any more. And the only way to know that is to tune into channel 23 and see the banner.

I'm sure it won't be long before TW Austin drops channel 23 altogether, and I get a channel lineup change on my TiVo.

[gschrock]

Generally that's an indication that they're bringing in an out of market channel for some reason, and basically they're being required to block certain programming on the out of market stuff. For the brief time I had cable here, we used to get both the local UPN station and the one out of detroit (I'm guessing that one was carried because it frequently had detroit sports programming). Whenever prime-time programming was running on both channels, the detroit station would be blocked. It's all about those silly rules on only being allowed to watch your local affilliate.

(Here the local UPN and WB went to I think My and CW respectively. The local broadcast CW is actually a subchannel of the I think ABC channel's broadcast, so no chance at HD for it ).

[TonyD79]

I'm a bit confused. Are these cable channel numbers or OTA numbers you are citing in the original post? Cause when I go to wikipedia to look at stations, I get that WNVA-54 is the CW/MNTV station in Austin. They also list San Antonio's KCWX-2 as being within the Austin market (and it is a CW station).

I am assuming that the secondary market station is blacked out due to local rights to programming. It happens all over with cable companies that bring in distant or neighboring or out of market stations like New York City stations into Pennsylvania or even Pittsburgh stations into the Altoona, PA, market.

[joellyn]

Count yourself lucky. They took away the WB channel out of Baltimore and we have nothing currently. No CW channel at all. I'm still trying to fight with Direct TV about this.

[Amnesia]

Originally Posted by Lord Nimon

In my case, the guide data still shows Veronica Mars as being on channels 12 and 23, at the same day and time.

Just go the "Channels I Receive" and remove channel 23.

Problem solved.

[jrock]

On a plus note 2 days ago I got a message on my S3 that I have a new channel and its CW HD!!! Wooooo one more HD channel.. Hmm only thing I watch on there so far is Friday Night Smack Down. Hope they start doing HD soon, I know they did an HD test last month to see how it would look at Mohegan Sun here in Connecticut. I never heard how it turned out or if they will be airing it on CW in HD anytime soon.

[gamera87]

On CW, "Smallville" in HD looks superior to how it looked on WB last year. My CW is on my old WB station, so I am not sure if they are just using better cameras or if the network change really assisted in the improved reception.

[Lord Nimon]

Originally Posted by TonyD79

I'm a bit confused. Are these cable channel numbers or OTA numbers you are citing in the original post?

Cable channel numbers.

[Magnolia88]

Originally Posted by joellyn

Count yourself lucky. They took away the WB channel out of Baltimore and we have nothing currently. No CW channel at all. I'm still trying to fight with Direct TV about this.

There is a CW channel in Baltimore. It's WNUV Channel 54, which was formerly the WB station. It should definitely be accessible OTA. DirecTV doesn't carry it?

[retrieverfalcon]

On my DirecTV Series 2, I see both Channel 54 in Baltimore (the new CW station) and Channel 24 (which now carries MyNetworkTV). These are the old WB and UPN stations.

Actually, I was suprised how simple the transition went. I simply had to setup a few replacement Season Passes for the shows that moved from Channel 24 to Channel 54.

These are the DirecTV and OTA channel numbers for anyone who is interested.

[trainman]

Originally Posted by Magnolia88

There is a CW channel in Baltimore. It's WNUV Channel 54, which was formerly the WB station. It should definitely be accessible OTA. DirecTV doesn't carry it?

They do carry it in Baltimore, but they used to also carry it in portions of the eastern half of the country that had local channel service but didn't have a local WB affiliate. Once it switched to CW, they dropped it from the out-of-market areas. (In the western half of the country, they carried the WB affiliate from San Diego, which also got dropped everywhere but, of course, San Diego.)

[jeff125va]

Originally Posted by gamera87

On CW, "Smallville" in HD looks superior to how it looked on WB last year. My CW is on my old WB station, so I am not sure if they are just using better cameras or if the network change really assisted in the improved reception.

Hmmm, we have the same situation in D.C. (CW=former WB) but I haven't noticed any difference in Smallville, I've always thought that show looked especially good in HD.

However, I never watched Veronica Mars when it was on UPN-20 here, partly because up until this summer, their HD signal was extremely weak. So we finally got around to watching the first two seasons on DVD starting in August, and just watched the new season premiere last night. And I have to say that it actually looks worse in HD than it did on DVD. I should mention that I have an upconverting DVD using an HDMI connection and my HD-TiVo uses the component, but I really don't think that explains it. I just got that DVD player recently and I'd had the HD-TiVo connected with the HDMI and didn't notice any difference in picture quality with other shows after switching the connection.

Btw, does anyone know when DirecTV is going to start carrying channel 50 in HD (if they're not already, I haven't checked in a couple weeks)? I didn't get my HR20 until after the network switch, so I don't actually know whether they had the HD channel when it was WB. But they have the CW logo (and previously had the WB logo) on their "local channels in HD" page, so I assume they carry it in some markets, and D.C. is always among the very first markets to get new local stuff.

[Mike20878]

I'm pissed that CW has dropped Dolby 5.1 from Smallville. And lately the broadcast has had multiple problems. Last week it was lipsynching problems and this week the audio dropped out frequently and warbled for several minutes. The video froze a couple times too.