Last week, several Massachusetts politicians sent letters to Comcast questioning the over-the-air signal of NBC Boston.
Last week, several Massachusetts politicians sent letters to Comcast questioning the over-the-air signal of NBC Boston.
Senators Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren voiced their concerns, and over the weekend Representatives Joe Kennedy and Stephen Lynch added their voices to the issue.
They were concerned that the signal would not reach a lot of people in the market, leaving people without cable with no NBC station when the network leaves current affiliate WHDH on January 1.
Comcast NBCUniversal responded to Senator Markey's letter today announcing that it does have a plan in place to increase the OTA signal in the market.
In the letter sent to Senator Markey, obtained by New England One, senior executive vice president David Cohen says “We have just entered into an agreement with another full-power Boston station (WMFP) to rebroadcast the NBC Boston signal on its available digital channel until we can acquire another full-power station in the market.” That signal will be up and running before the start of the new year. "As a result, NBC Boston will now deliver interference-free over-the-air service to approximately 275,000 more viewers in the Boston DMA than WHDH on January 1, 2017" he continued.
Using the most conservative FCC analysis of outdoor coverage, NBC Boston will deliver an interference-free signal to 274,597 more viewers within the Boston DMA than WHDH. Based on the most robust indoor reception standard, NBC Boston will deliver interference-free indoor coverage to at least 231,645 more viewers in the DMA than WHDH.
Cohen said the NBC's silence on the matter was due to the FCC's broadcast spectrum incentive auction, and they were just following the mandate for the "quiet period" even though they have been in talks about buying another full-power station.
NBC had been in preliminary discussions with station owners to acquire a full-power station in the market, but had to stop those discussions once the mandated quiet period started on January 12, 2016.
“Because the incentive auction is taking longer to conclude than anticipated, with Stage 4 commencing on December 13, station owners have been precluded from negotiating transactions for the last 11 months,” said Cohen. "Most observers anticipate that the auction will conclude during the first quarter of 2017, at which point NBC will be able to pursue an acquisition strategy. We are confident that a suitable full-power station will be available for purchase at the end of the auction."
WHDH's last argument against the network yanking its affiliation from them was the OTA signal, and who would be left out once NBC moved to NBC Boston - and this was the argument that local politicians were taking up.
The final argument seems to have been put to bed by NBC announcing the signal expansion to WMFP, the "SonLife" station based in Lawrence, which has its full-power transmitter in Needham.
Senator Markey responded to NBC's letter with a statement on Monday afternoon. He said “I appreciate Comcast-NBCUniversal taking additional steps at my urging to temporarily expand the reach of its signal to cover most residents in Massachusetts and its stated intention to find a permanent solution to ensure full coverage of the market as soon as possible,” said Markey in response to the letter. “I will continue to urge Comcast-NBCUniversal to ensure that all residents throughout the region can enjoy the same quality and reliability of free, over-the-air NBC content as soon as possible.”
The signal from WMFP will be mapped to channel 60.5 and broadcast in high definition, it will be available by December 21. Over-the-air viewers will have to rescan their channels to receive the new channel once it is live.
For more information, you can visit NBCBoston.com.
View the full response from NBC here.
WHDH reported on Senator Markey's letter to Comcast last week, in what seemed to be a self serving report based on old information - for example the signal map included in the report only showed the signal of WNEU, and left out the signal reach of WBTS (which as of this writing, I can receive in Providence, Rhode Island.) You can watch WHDH's report below.
