Winter Storm Knocks WCBB-TV Off-Air (Maine Public Broadcasting Network press release)

http://www.mpbn.net/press/wcbboffair.html

Thursday, February 14, 2006:
Winter Storm Knocks WCBB-TV Off-Air


Central and Southern Maine viewers affected;

MPBN will rebroadcast Wednesday's

America's Ballroom Challenge, African American Lives 2 over the weekend

A powerful winter storm that knocked out power to tens of thousands of homes in central and southern Maine on Wednesday has also knocked out MPBN's central Maine transmitter, located in Litchfield.

Power was lost to the transmitter that sends out over-the-air television signals from WCBB-TV. This transmitter also feeds a signal to cable companies, so even those viewers with cable TV are also without MPBN television in many area of the state.

MPBN is in contact with CMP and is working diligently to restore television transmissions as quickly as possible -- however, at this time no specific timetable is available for when repairs might be complete.

MPBN plans to rebroadcast Wednesday night's episodes of America's Ballroom Challenge and African American Lives 2, both of which were affected by the power failure. Rebroadcasts are set for Saturday, February 16 at 4:00 pm in the cxase of America's Ballroom Challenge and African American Lives 2 will be rebroadcast Sunday, February 17 at 1:00 pm.

if anyone noticed.

outside of a small circle of friends.

We were very surprised as we have cable.

...and found the signal totally black, the sound out of synchronization by about five minutes, every two out of three frames being black (wonderful strobe light effect fromthe TV), etc. Outages aren't anything new for this station. If it was a commercial station it would probably be bankrupt by now.

a commercial station, MaineWatch might be worth watching. As it is, they seem to go out of their way to avoid anything truly controversial. I was hoping that hiring Jennifer Rooks meant things would change, but if anything it has gotten more lightweight.

I'm just happy that I don't have to see Jennifer Rooks blinking anymore on WCSH.

I miss the old, low budget morning talk Maine show what was on Fox a few years ago. I forget the name of it, but it had a liberal guy with a conservative guy and they'd go at it. Both guys kind of had screws loose, but it was very entertaining nonetheless.