No HD Super Bowl if your local affiliate and cable company can't agree
by Richard Lawler 
posted Jan 18th 2006 at 4:11PM
We've seen it noted in a few of the
comments here, some HDTV cable subscribers having to go antenna or not at all if they want to watch the Super
Bowl in high definition while their provider and the owners of local stations squabble. We know a lot of HDTV owners are
sports fanatics, and so do advertisers and television companies who are determined to get every dollar they can.This article notes a typical battle currently going on in North Carolina and other areas. We recently posted about the owner of this affiliate, Sinclair, reaching a deal in Columbus, Ohio for HDTV broadcasts. Unless someone bends unexpectedly it doesn't look like Greensboro residents can expect the same.
Is there anything customers can do when stuck like this? Switching to satellite or using an antenna isn't always feasible or desirable. I think local sports bars are at the bottom of a massive conspiracy, you heard it here first.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
monkeypox @ Jan 18th 2006 5:44PM
the deal was only reached with insight and wide open west in columbus. the rest of us on time warner still get the shaft.
zelig2 @ Jan 18th 2006 6:39PM
I've been meaning to get around to a letter writing campain towards the advertisers on Sinclair's stations here in Columbus.
I doubt I'll even watch the super bowl. At least the tennis US Open was in HD on CBS which I can get.
Don Moore @ Jan 18th 2006 10:33PM
I live in Greensboro and have been watching Sinclair's WXLV for several years in High Definition - for FREE!. They have one of the best HD signals in the market. To get HD on cable (if Sinclair and Time Warner made nice), it would cost me close to $70 a month.
All the press articles takes the cable company's view. As an early adoptor - RCA DTC100 HD Receiver, I was watching HD long before the cable company even offered it. (I bought the receiver on eBay.) To read the articles, it would make you think that you could not watch a Free Over-The-Air television signal.
kurt htuchinson @ Jan 19th 2006 11:39AM
The sinclair group is screwing us in Saint Louis too... The only reason I use my OTA ATSC tuner is so I can get ABC over HD.