![]() | WENS (TV) has been listed as one of the
Media and drama good articles under the
good article criteria. If you can improve it further,
please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can
reassess it. Review: June 25, 2024. ( Reviewed version). |
![]() | A fact from WENS (TV) appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the
Did you know column on 13 March 2021 (
check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
| ![]() |
![]() | This article is rated GA-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The result was: promoted by
Maile66 (
talk)
22:19, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
Created by Sammi Brie ( talk). Self-nominated at 21:44, 15 February 2021 (UTC).
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
GA toolbox |
---|
Reviewing |
Nominator: Sammi Brie ( talk · contribs) 04:46, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
Reviewer: Kusma ( talk · contribs) 15:54, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
Adding to my queue. Review should not take more than a few days. —
Kusma (
talk)
15:54, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
I will comment on anything I notice, but not all of my comments will be strictly related to the GA criteria, so not everything needs to be actioned. Feel free to push back if you think I am asking too much, and please tell me when I am wrong.
More later! — Kusma ( talk) 21:39, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
{{
main|WINP-TV}}
here when WINP-TV is not even mentioned?
The article looks well researched (but will need to check sources later) and fairly detailed. It may be related to my lack of knowledge of American TV, but I have some difficulty understanding the big picture here (possibly this is connected to the UHF/VHF issue?) Making me see the big picture is not strictly in the GA criteria, though :) — Kusma ( talk) 10:58, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
@ Kusma: In addition to all the changes mentioned above, I am putting this down because I think you have finally found the issue. This station's history is very much about being a UHF. UHF television broadcasting#United States needs sources but it provides something of the needed overview. Here's my Cliffs Notes version: Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 17:30, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
When the FCC first authorized channels for television, it authorized 2–13 in the VHF band. This seemed adequate, but there were some issues of interference due to spacing and the early receiver designs. There was also a lot more demand for TV after World War II than the FCC had counted on. In October 1948, it instituted a freeze on new TV stations in order to revise technical standards.
That freeze ended in April 1952 with new channel spacing (some 30 existing stations were given new channels) and the opening of a new 70-channel (14–83) UHF band. Early UHF technology tended to produce clean signals but that did not cover as wide an area as VHF stations. Critically, there was no requirement for TV set manufacturers to make their sets receive UHF stations. This meant that, for almost all people who wanted to see (say) WENS, they had to go buy a converter, the first set-top box, if you will. Convincing people of that was tough work. Even in a large market like Pittsburgh, only a VHF station was certain to be received in all homes.
The coverage area and reception disadvantages made UHF television, except in a few areas where the only regional stations were on the UHF band (e.g. South Bend, Indiana), a losing proposition. UHF stations could get network affiliations, but in some cases, the networks—and sponsors, who in the early days of TV were determinative in where and how a show got seen—held back their best shows for the VHF station in the market, even if there was only one. NBC and CBS each tried running UHF stations (e.g. WBUF-TV, WUVN#WHCT: Hartford's CBS station) and failed. In ending its experiment in Hartford, CBS basically said "if we do not affiliate with this new VHF station, we could be in for decades of hurt", and they were right. Advertisers wanted VHF stations, too, because otherwise they missed a large part of homes with televisions. There would not be a mandate in effect for every TV set to receive every channel until 1964.
Another factor, relevant here in Pittsburgh, is that in many cases the new UHF channels were less wanted and thus less likely to be tied up in years-long hearing processes. It wasn't that unusual for the first new post-freeze station in a market to be on UHF with one or two VHF channels still in the hearing phase, and then the UHF died when more VHFs turned up. WGVL (TV) folded the day WSPA-TV showed up. WENS left the air one day and WIIC turned up the next.
As a result, dozens of stations like WENS folded. UHF operators wanted deintermixture—a changing of a market to all VHF or mostly all UHF channels—but this was highly controversial. In a VHF-bearing market (e.g. WRGB near Albany, New York), it threatened to leave fringe-area viewers without TV service. Only a handful of markets were deintermixed. A couple of UHF stations competed for and won VHF channels.
It took UHF decades to win something resembling parity with VHF, though of course by then most network affiliates were on VHF. The All-Channel Receiver Act was a huge help but insufficient, and there were still stations that performed poorly in the UHF band (including an early incarnation of WPGH-TV in this very city). Better transmitter technology, demand for more TV, and there being no other place to put new stations finally helped the UHF band improve in the 1970s and 1980s.
Numbering from Special:Permanentlink/1230604541.
There's a citation missing for something before 10, but it generally looks fine, solid work as usual. — Kusma ( talk) 20:38, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
Good Article review progress box
|
No major issues left, just the missing citation in the spot checks and perhaps a prose point or two. Nice work! — Kusma ( talk) 20:58, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
![]() | WENS (TV) has been listed as one of the
Media and drama good articles under the
good article criteria. If you can improve it further,
please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can
reassess it. Review: June 25, 2024. ( Reviewed version). |
![]() | A fact from WENS (TV) appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the
Did you know column on 13 March 2021 (
check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
| ![]() |
![]() | This article is rated GA-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The result was: promoted by
Maile66 (
talk)
22:19, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
Created by Sammi Brie ( talk). Self-nominated at 21:44, 15 February 2021 (UTC).
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
GA toolbox |
---|
Reviewing |
Nominator: Sammi Brie ( talk · contribs) 04:46, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
Reviewer: Kusma ( talk · contribs) 15:54, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
Adding to my queue. Review should not take more than a few days. —
Kusma (
talk)
15:54, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
I will comment on anything I notice, but not all of my comments will be strictly related to the GA criteria, so not everything needs to be actioned. Feel free to push back if you think I am asking too much, and please tell me when I am wrong.
More later! — Kusma ( talk) 21:39, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
{{
main|WINP-TV}}
here when WINP-TV is not even mentioned?
The article looks well researched (but will need to check sources later) and fairly detailed. It may be related to my lack of knowledge of American TV, but I have some difficulty understanding the big picture here (possibly this is connected to the UHF/VHF issue?) Making me see the big picture is not strictly in the GA criteria, though :) — Kusma ( talk) 10:58, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
@ Kusma: In addition to all the changes mentioned above, I am putting this down because I think you have finally found the issue. This station's history is very much about being a UHF. UHF television broadcasting#United States needs sources but it provides something of the needed overview. Here's my Cliffs Notes version: Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 17:30, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
When the FCC first authorized channels for television, it authorized 2–13 in the VHF band. This seemed adequate, but there were some issues of interference due to spacing and the early receiver designs. There was also a lot more demand for TV after World War II than the FCC had counted on. In October 1948, it instituted a freeze on new TV stations in order to revise technical standards.
That freeze ended in April 1952 with new channel spacing (some 30 existing stations were given new channels) and the opening of a new 70-channel (14–83) UHF band. Early UHF technology tended to produce clean signals but that did not cover as wide an area as VHF stations. Critically, there was no requirement for TV set manufacturers to make their sets receive UHF stations. This meant that, for almost all people who wanted to see (say) WENS, they had to go buy a converter, the first set-top box, if you will. Convincing people of that was tough work. Even in a large market like Pittsburgh, only a VHF station was certain to be received in all homes.
The coverage area and reception disadvantages made UHF television, except in a few areas where the only regional stations were on the UHF band (e.g. South Bend, Indiana), a losing proposition. UHF stations could get network affiliations, but in some cases, the networks—and sponsors, who in the early days of TV were determinative in where and how a show got seen—held back their best shows for the VHF station in the market, even if there was only one. NBC and CBS each tried running UHF stations (e.g. WBUF-TV, WUVN#WHCT: Hartford's CBS station) and failed. In ending its experiment in Hartford, CBS basically said "if we do not affiliate with this new VHF station, we could be in for decades of hurt", and they were right. Advertisers wanted VHF stations, too, because otherwise they missed a large part of homes with televisions. There would not be a mandate in effect for every TV set to receive every channel until 1964.
Another factor, relevant here in Pittsburgh, is that in many cases the new UHF channels were less wanted and thus less likely to be tied up in years-long hearing processes. It wasn't that unusual for the first new post-freeze station in a market to be on UHF with one or two VHF channels still in the hearing phase, and then the UHF died when more VHFs turned up. WGVL (TV) folded the day WSPA-TV showed up. WENS left the air one day and WIIC turned up the next.
As a result, dozens of stations like WENS folded. UHF operators wanted deintermixture—a changing of a market to all VHF or mostly all UHF channels—but this was highly controversial. In a VHF-bearing market (e.g. WRGB near Albany, New York), it threatened to leave fringe-area viewers without TV service. Only a handful of markets were deintermixed. A couple of UHF stations competed for and won VHF channels.
It took UHF decades to win something resembling parity with VHF, though of course by then most network affiliates were on VHF. The All-Channel Receiver Act was a huge help but insufficient, and there were still stations that performed poorly in the UHF band (including an early incarnation of WPGH-TV in this very city). Better transmitter technology, demand for more TV, and there being no other place to put new stations finally helped the UHF band improve in the 1970s and 1980s.
Numbering from Special:Permanentlink/1230604541.
There's a citation missing for something before 10, but it generally looks fine, solid work as usual. — Kusma ( talk) 20:38, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
Good Article review progress box
|
No major issues left, just the missing citation in the spot checks and perhaps a prose point or two. Nice work! — Kusma ( talk) 20:58, 23 June 2024 (UTC)