ABC Affiliates on Ku-Band (1998)

[JosephHolloway1998]

well speaking of the newsfeeds from affiliates, wouldn't the news reports and special features be shown during the local commercial break?

 

[harshness]

well speaking of the newsfeeds from affiliates, wouldn't the news reports and special features be shown during the local commercial break?

The stations punch in their local commercials over national commercials as appropriate. The news reports and special features came down from the network as they were made available by through a downlink. If you think about it, the station isn't typically airing the national network feed while they're preparing or airing their own news.

I don't see what any of this has to do with Ku uplinks and how or why the affiliates might have used them.

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

I don't see what any of this has to do with Ku uplinks and how or why the affiliates might have used them.

several Ku birds transmit newsfeeds from the affiliates & the network itself, although most of them are from the newstrucks. (SBS6/T4 Ku/GSTAR4/SATCOM K2)

 

[harshness]

several Ku birds transmit newsfeeds from the affiliates & the network itself, although most of them are from the newstrucks. (SBS6/T4 Ku/GSTAR4/SATCOM K2)

Are you talking about what they're doing today or what you imagine they were doing in 1998? A lot of our ENG was done over microwave at that time.

Why do you believe that the affiliates were so actively sending stories out? Do you remember seeing a lot of your local news on the national news?

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

Why do you believe that the affiliates were so actively sending stories out? Do you remember seeing a lot of your local news on the national news?

I was only born in June that year and my parents didn't have Ku-band, they only had Time Warner Cable so I could only get what was within my range (Northridge, CA) which was my local affiliate (KABC), as mentioned earlier it was also being uplinked on Primestar (GE-2 Ku/W7) as the west coast ABC affiliate (Yes, they had their own version of Primetime 24 (PT24)). Though several national news stories would sometimes pop up on the local affiliate, but I don't remember watching it (I was too little).

 

[harshness]

Primestar was history by 1998 (it was closed down not long after it was acquired by Hughes in 1992) so you should leave it out of the discussion of what was the order of the day in the year of your birth as nothing was left but 2.3 million used dishes.

I think if the truth were known, most of the "local" packages that were shown on the network news were actually produced by the networks themselves through their regional bureaus. They may have used footage from the affiliates but that doesn't mean that the affiliates were using satellite to deliver the footage. Half-inch tape was a very popular medium back then.

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

+harshness Well other than the sats I've mentioned ("SBS6", "Telstar 4 Ku", "GSTAR4", "Satcom K2", "Anik E2 Ku" (KOMO/KXLY/WXYZ/WKBW/WCVB) and "GE2 Ku"(WSB/KABC)), were there any other Ku birds that had ABC feeds? (the C-Band birds used "W1" (WKRN), "W2" (West/East Leitch Backup), "T3", "T4" (West/East Hot backup), "T5", "S4" (KOMO), "E2" and "F1" (KMGH) for the ABC feeds), the Echo 3 and Echo 4 birds were for Dish Network customers only (if I'm not mistaken).

 

[harshness]

+harshness Well other than the sats I've mentioned ("SBS6", "Telstar 4 Ku", "GSTAR4", "Satcom K2", "Anik E2 Ku" (KOMO/KXLY/WXYZ/WKBW/WCVB) and "GE2 Ku"(WSB/KABC)), were there any other Ku birds that had ABC feeds?

Have you established that those birds carried ABC feeds? Did you establish which direction those feeds went (net to station or station to net or station to station)?

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

+harshness Yes, those feeds went from station to station via ABSAT and Conus Communications, and transmitted news feeds (ENG and SNG).

 

[harshness]

+harshness Yes, those feeds went from station to station via ABSAT and Conus Communications, and transmitted news feeds (ENG and SNG).

Were the feeds frequent enough to warrant monitoring the birds in question or would catching one be a complete accident and give you a relatively short jump on those watching OTA?

History is only really useful if we can learn something from it to make better choices in the future.

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

Were the feeds frequent enough to warrant monitoring the birds in question or would catching one be a complete accident and give you a relatively short jump on those watching OTA?

the news feeds were transmitted on Ku-band (since that's what the feeding ground was for), C-Band had the "ABC NewsOne" feeds on these transmitter birds ("Telstar 303", "Telstar 4 & 5").

 

[harshness]

the news feeds were transmitted on Ku-band (since that's what the feeding ground was for), C-Band had the "ABC NewsOne" feeds on these transmitter birds ("Telstar 303", "Telstar 4 & 5").

You didn't answer my question. If there was only occasional use of these paths, they perhaps weren't significant enough to worry about then and certainly not now.

If what was being transmitted hadn't been edited into a package yet, this could have been dangerous.

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

You didn't answer my question. If there was only occasional use of these paths, they perhaps weren't significant enough to worry about then and certainly not now.

Ku-band birds were occasional video feeds (as was C-Band).

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

the occasional Ku birds that are mostly associated with news feeds (B6, T7 (ABC), R4, K2 (NBC/ABC) etc...) could also be used for sports backhauls (NHL, MLB, NFL (including preseason games), NBA, horseracing etc...)

 

[harshness]

But you must remember that the word "could" should not be in any way confused with the word "were". That something could have been done is not really historically important.

Just as it is now, a lot of the sports feeds were handled by the production companies that created them using their gear and their transmission channels. Few (if any) affiliates had the capacity to produce an athletic event.

Reasoning that something must have been taking place because it could have happened is not a basis for historical fact.

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

Well isn't this what the ABC Ku feeds were like?

 

[harshness]

Well isn't this what the ABC Ku feeds were like?

16x9 color bars were something brand new in November 1998. I'd imagine that many of the affiliates weren't actively doing HD yet (although they would certainly need color bars for testing).

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

At least those screenshots might go to show that the "ABC NewsOne" channel feeds were basically C-Band only:

(screenshots courtesy of vidiot.com)
The last one is from the Denver slate (KMGH-TV) which was fed on T5/22, whose offices closed down the same year. the Ku side of T401/T4 was typically reserved for the Alphastar DBS services (which went out of service and discontinued in August/September 1997 and was in the process of moving to T5).

 

[Brct203]

SatcoDX does list ABC feeds on C-Band on T401 in January 1997. But looks like the Ku side was mostly used by PBS.

SATCO DX Satellite Chart: ITU Region 2

I think Alphastar was on T402 @89W, not on 401.

 

[harshness]

So the answer appears to be not a significant component in the day-to-day operations -- whatever those might have been.