Yesterday the old pbs affiliate in Orlando WMFE stopped being a PBS station and a new station took over the pbs affiliation WUCF on channel 68, Can someone from DIRT please find out when is dish going to discontinue the WMFE HD channel and give that bandwidth to the new Orlando PBS WUCF in HD instead. Currently you only carry WUCF 68 (formerly called WBCC 68) in SD.
PBS no longer carried in HD in Orlando market after affiliate change.
- Thread starter r10fret
- Start date
- Latest activity Latest activity:
- Replies 33
- Views 7K
I'm betting the contract is with the station, not PBS. If Dish has a deal with WMFE, they they will probably have to keep it for a while.
I thought Dish signed a deal with PBS that required them to carry x amount of markets in HD.. (thats why they carry 2 HD PBS stations in NYC)
Does Orlando now have a PBS HD Channel? I'm not in Orlando at the moment and I have Directv. My wife said they don't have any PBS HD as of now.
I was just going to ask that. When I saw the press release, it said the HD guide for Satellite and UVerse will be coming. Is that a way of saying they are not in HD on those providers? I do believe they are in HD on Comcast there, on channel 1, so perhaps others for whatever reason don't have the HD feed yet.
Directv told me Orlando has no PBS station in HD as of now. That includes all of the stations we get . We get WDSC from Daytona , that's not in HD. And Channel 68 , that's not in HD either.
Channel 441 shows as HD for Comcast. (Typo Corrected from my post of channel 1) and the press release referred to it.
Here, found it online.
New PBS affiliate WUCF debuts Friday | FLORIDA TODAY | floridatoday.com
Comcast: WUCF TV will be carried in high definition on channel 440. For non-digital subscribers, it will be found on channel 99 in Orange, Osceola and Polk counties and Celebration and on channel 21 in Lake and Sumter counties and in DeBary and surrounding areas of Volusia County.
Satellite providers: WUCF TV will be shown on channel 68 on DIRECTV, Dish Network and U-verse. High-definition channel listings for those satellite providers will be posted as soon as they become available at http://wucftv.org.
Here, found it online.
New PBS affiliate WUCF debuts Friday | FLORIDA TODAY | floridatoday.com
Comcast: WUCF TV will be carried in high definition on channel 440. For non-digital subscribers, it will be found on channel 99 in Orange, Osceola and Polk counties and Celebration and on channel 21 in Lake and Sumter counties and in DeBary and surrounding areas of Volusia County.
Satellite providers: WUCF TV will be shown on channel 68 on DIRECTV, Dish Network and U-verse. High-definition channel listings for those satellite providers will be posted as soon as they become available at http://wucftv.org.
I never understood the PBS contract. I sound selfish, but why wasn't Boston included? Many PBS programming comes from WGBH.
The new PBS WUCF 68.1 is in 1080i HD via OTA, so both satellite providers could take the OTA feed at the LRF/POP using the same HD equipment /bandwidth back to the uplink site they were using for WMFE. The old PBS WMFE 24.1 for the next 30 days is now showing VME on 24.1 in 480i SD upconverted to 1080i before the deal to sell to daystar is finallized by the FCC. A complete waste of HD bandwidth.
Last edited:
Obviously from what I posted, they are going to. Since neither have yet, (Nor Uverse) I would say there is more to it than just what you describe.
Tampa8 said:
My understanding was that there was a deal between Dish and PBS to have some affiliated stations in HD.
I understand what you are saying now, I see WGBH is not in HD, or the other PBS there. The Ct PBS station is in HD, the two Tampa PBS channels (Where I also live) are not. Maybe because they have to carry two stations in those markets?
Yes but that deal does not specify that a particular station has to be carried in HD and the fact that WGBH producesa lot of PBS content is not relevant to whether it might be carried in HD>
No, but, it is probably one of two or three of the premiere PBS stations, and does have many of the best programs on PBS, in a very large market. I would have thought it would be in HD. I know it can depend on Sat/transponder space of course but still.......
wucf is the new pbs station. wmfe dropped television and has a pending sale to a religious broadcaster. wdsc in daytona can't afford pbs anymore and is showing educational shows.
This is what happens when a provider is completely disconnected from the happening in a particular market. Unlike a cable company which is here and on the ground dish and directv are not even aware that there has been an affiliation change to WUCF and that the old channel WMFE is now a complete waste of HD bandwidth. WMFE announced back on April 1 that they would be selling to daystar and abandoning PBS. WBCC now called WUCF stepped up and went HD in time to take over PBS from WMFE on July 1st. But don't try to tell Dish this since they might as well be on Mars. Dish is still calling KTLA a WB affiliate even though the CW took over 5 or six years ago.
