As of April 22, basic and standard Comcast cable subscribers found nothing but a
blank screen on channel 8 — the former analog home of WSEC/PBS Springfield. The local station went digital,
requiring patrons to sign up for digital cable service or install compatible
equipment in order to view its programs.
Dr. Jerold Gruebel, the president and CEO of Network Knowledge, WSEC-TV’s parent company, didn’t decide on the sole switch to digital. He says Comcast, operating under a
recent agreement between the National Cable & Telecommunications Association and the Association of Public Television
Stations, made the decision for him.
According to the Public Television Digital Cable Carriage Agreement, cable
providers commit to “carry up to four streams of free non-commercial digital broadcast programming
from one public TV station in the market, in addition to its analog signal.” Brian Dietz, NCTA vice president of communications, says this means that public
television can “multicast” their main channel, as well as subchannels with specialized programming.
Local cable providers that carry multiple public television stations must
designate one as the primary Public Broadcasting Service affiliate. As outlined
in the agreement, the primary station continues to transmit both analog and
digital signals, while secondary stations transmit only digital.
Dietz points out that digital offers greater programming flexibility, while
analog cable capacity is limited.
“Cable operators can’t carry every channel that exists,” he says. “They’re all competing for space.”
Comcast carries WSEC-TV, along with WILL-TV, based at the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign, and WEIU-TV, based in Charleston, in its
Springfield-Decatur-Champaign market. Rich Ruggiero, the cable provider’s regional vice president of communications, says Comcast picked WILL-TV as the
local primary PBS station because it already functioned in analog and digital
formats across the entire market. WSEC-TV was available in Springfield and
Decatur, but not in Champaign. WEIU-TV was only available in Champaign.
Comcast gave WSEC-TV the choice, Ruggiero says, to either keep its analog spot
or transfer to digital. The local PBS affiliate went the digital route and can
now multicast WSEC-TV; WSEC-Create, its how-to, travel and cooking channel; and
WSEC-World, a global news and public affairs channel, across the
Springfield-Decatur-Champaign market.
“We’re obviously committed to providing customers a tremendous amount of PBS
content,” Ruggiero says. “This agreement allows us to do that.”
Gruebel has objected to his station’s secondary designation, arguing that WSEC-TV should be the primary station in
Springfield, its city of license. He also says Comcast could multicast both
WSEC-TV and WILL-TV in analog and digital formats. While his local PBS
affiliate offers popular programming like Illinois Stories and Capitol View, the Champaign affiliate provides complementary university content.
“They don’t have to switch us with WILL-TV,” Gruebel says. “This is not a competition. They have the capacity to run both at the same time.”
Gruebel worries that many of his station’s 130,000 viewers — especially low-income and elderly — won’t have access to WSEC- TV’s digital channels without upgrading their cable package, buying a digital TV
set or installing a cable box.
Ruggiero contends that most Springfield customers already subscribe to digital
cable service and won’t notice the change. He can’t reveal local data, but says that 70 percent of Comcast customers nationally
have digital access.
“If they’re Comcast customers and already have digital cable today, this will not affect
them,” Ruggiero says. “Other than more channels.”
Comcast will provide free digital cable boxes for one year to customers who
currently subscribe to basic or standard cable, but want access to WSEC-TV
channels.
This article appears in Apr 16-22, 2009.
