ITV, American Style

Thande

Donor
I always thought America had a very, very strong slant towards regional TV anyway, although admittedly not in the same way we did/do.
 
Why do we have so much more channels than the British anyway? Is PAL just inefficient or something? What do you use all the extra spectrum for?

Anyway, I think RKO General would be likely to get a New England-area license... it would be interesting to see if TTL's RKO General still gets into the kinds of issues that resulted in it getting stripped of its licenses OTL.
 
Why do we have so much more channels than the British anyway? Is PAL just inefficient or something? What do you use all the extra spectrum for?

No, it's not because of PAL being inefficient - in actuality, PAL is more efficient than NTSC, so much so that television sets with PAL don't have tint control (unlike NTSC, also jokingly called Never Twice the Same Colo(u)r). In the case of the UK (and most European countries, by the same token), the problem is of co-channel interference by many different countries, compounded by the fact that so many of the European countries are close together. Thus, broadcasters and regulators have to carefully select the channels needed for broadcasting - after all, if you're watching BBC1, for example, you don't want it ruined by some Norwegian adult television station, right? :D
 
Well, I mean, we have those kind of overlap issues to an extent in the United States, too, which is why there's no Boston channel 6 for example, because it would interfere with WLNE-TV in New Bedford/Providence.
 
Well, I mean, we have those kind of overlap issues to an extent in the United States, too, which is why there's no Boston channel 6 for example, because it would interfere with WLNE-TV in New Bedford/Providence.

A channel that I hate because Buddy Cianci is their political commentator. :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: At least WJAR-TV (ch10) is better in that sense - they have Jim Taricani. :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

In the US, the overlap issues are mild, because it's more or less one country, using the same system (even though the system is notoriously inefficent). In Europe, you have multiple countries, using different systems (even if the colour standard is the same, with the exception of France because it's, well, France), and thus the overlap issues are even more acute.
 
giving the above example in the website i've posted at top of the topic:

In OTL every ITV station have (or had) names therefore In TTL every "USTV" station have names as well

New York City-NBC-New York Television
New England-The Yankee Network-Yankee Television
Great Lakes-WGN-Great Lakes Television
Middle Atlantic-WFIL-Liberty Television
Southeast-WSM-Southeast Television
Southwest-WBAP-Lone Star Television
Rocky Mountain-KOA-Rocky Mountain Television
West Coast-Don Lee Broadcasting of Los Angeles-Don Lee Television
News Broadcast-CBS-Columbia News Service
 
Actually, with New England, I could see a split that could allow WBZ-TV (well, in reality, Westinghouse) control over Eastern New England (pretty much Metro Boston, SE Massachusetts, Cape Cod and the Islands, southern New Hampshire, and Rhode Island), WNHC (the New Haven Register newspaper) control over Western New England (Connecticut and Western Massachusetts), a Vermont or New Hampshire station given control over Vermont and New Hampshire (outside of Southern New Hampshire), and WCSH/WLBZ given control over Maine (as the "Maine Broadcasting System").
 
Hm, I forgot about Westinghouse Broadcasting- they could beat RKO General to the punch, I suppose.

Does this stunt the development of broadcast networks in the US? I would imagine that the "USTV" channels would do a lot of their production in-house, and perhaps buy programs from movie studios (like exists already today with companies like Warner Bros. Television), but not necessarily having something like NBC where there's a national schedule of prime-time shows that's the same on every channel.
 

Thande

Donor
Hm, I forgot about Westinghouse Broadcasting- they could beat RKO General to the punch, I suppose.

Does this stunt the development of broadcast networks in the US? I would imagine that the "USTV" channels would do a lot of their production in-house, and perhaps buy programs from movie studios (like exists already today with companies like Warner Bros. Television), but not necessarily having something like NBC where there's a national schedule of prime-time shows that's the same on every channel.
What happened with ITV was that one or two of the regional production offices (in particular LWT, for London, and Granada, which covers Manchester, Lancashire and that area) became known for producing quality programmes and often ended up selling them to the other broadcast regions. Nowadays ITV has lost its regionalism and most of its in-house production, but ironically the BBC is now taking on its former role - BBC Wales has become known for producing a ridiculous number of dramas, including Doctor Who, Torchwood, Life on Mars and this new 'Merlin'.
 
You know, I actually wondered why it was that Europe had fewer television stations than the US, and I never knew why until now. You learn something new and interesting every day on AH.com! :)
 
Hm, this would have rather large effects on PBS as well. Note that the Public Broadcasting System as such didn't exist until 1969, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting until in 1967- the non-government predecessor National Education Television was founded in 1952.

My guess is that the FCC would give licenses to a non-profit television station in each region (so you have the for-profit "USTV" license, and the non-profit license), and that later on you have something like the CPB- this would pretty much mirror OTL's PBS development anyway, but you'd likely have far more viewers. (in fact, perhaps the Corporation for Public Broadcasting wouldn't be needed in TTL, and non-profit television remains separate from the government?)
 
Hm, this would have rather large effects on PBS as well. Note that the Public Broadcasting System as such didn't exist until 1969, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting until in 1967- the non-government predecessor National Education Television was founded in 1952.

That's probably because the NET/PBS model is more or less patterned on ITV, albeit without the commercials. (Though, TBH, from what I've read about NET, I would've preferred that over PBS).
 
No, it's not because of PAL being inefficient - in actuality, PAL is more efficient than NTSC, so much so that television sets with PAL don't have tint control (unlike NTSC, also jokingly called Never Twice the Same Colo(u)r). In the case of the UK (and most European countries, by the same token), the problem is of co-channel interference by many different countries, compounded by the fact that so many of the European countries are close together. Thus, broadcasters and regulators have to carefully select the channels needed for broadcasting - after all, if you're watching BBC1, for example, you don't want it ruined by some Norwegian adult television station, right? :D

You can't pick up foreign stations in Britain except some places on the south coast. Transmissions are pretty short range, we need quite a lot of transmitters around the country to get them out.
 
You can't pick up foreign stations in Britain except some places on the south coast. Transmissions are pretty short range, we need quite a lot of transmitters around the country to get them out.
Hm, a good point about transmitters- in the US stations usually only have one high-powered transmitter. If you have an area that goes beyond the transmission range, either the FCC would have to allow more power or you'd have to have more than one transmitter per station.
 
People are forgetting the availability of coax cable television.

True, in the Fifties it was used to serve areas that had poor TV reception. But if there is only room for one TV frequency per service area and high enough demand to pay for more, cable TV would be used to make up the difference.

I'd bet that Bell Telephone would just piggyback Coax with their Long-Lines long distance service for coverage between cities and states.

We only have to wait for the Sixties to add satellite to the formula and have real nationwide service.
 
People are forgetting the availability of coax cable television.

True, in the Fifties it was used to serve areas that had poor TV reception. But if there is only room for one TV frequency per service area and high enough demand to pay for more, cable TV would be used to make up the difference.

I'd bet that Bell Telephone would just piggyback Coax with their Long-Lines long distance service for coverage between cities and states.

We only have to wait for the Sixties to add satellite to the formula and have real nationwide service.
The Bell System was under strict regulation in this period to only provide telephone service, thanks to the 1956 consent decree they agreed to. But independent cable operators could grow larger earlier if there's more demand for more channels.
 
You can't pick up foreign stations in Britain except some places on the south coast. Transmissions are pretty short range, we need quite a lot of transmitters around the country to get them out.

I knew that. :D Co-channel interference is more a problem on the Continent, anyway, though even with the stations picked up on the South Coast (and Northern Ireland, for that matter), there might be problems with co-channel interference. IIRC that was part of the justification for the current switchover plan for digital TV in the UK - start off with the (ITV) regions with the least interference problems, and spread out from there.
 
People are forgetting the availability of coax cable television.

True, in the Fifties it was used to serve areas that had poor TV reception. But if there is only room for one TV frequency per service area and high enough demand to pay for more, cable TV would be used to make up the difference.

That was more a Canadian thing, to be able to get American channels (especially if they didn't want to watch CBC).
 
Actually, with New England, I could see a split that could allow WBZ-TV (well, in reality, Westinghouse) control over Eastern New England (pretty much Metro Boston, SE Massachusetts, Cape Cod and the Islands, southern New Hampshire, and Rhode Island), WNHC (the New Haven Register newspaper) control over Western New England (Connecticut and Western Massachusetts), a Vermont or New Hampshire station given control over Vermont and New Hampshire (outside of Southern New Hampshire), and WCSH/WLBZ given control over Maine (as the "Maine Broadcasting System").

that split may been happened in 1967 the year when the yankee network disbanded

& if that station is WPTZ in vermont you're correct, in OTL WPTZ has a satellite station called WNNE serving both Vermont & New Hampshire

Here are the station names after Yankee Television Went Off The Air

Eastern New England-WBZ/Westinghouse-Westinghouse Television
Western New England-WNHC/New Haven Register-New Haven Television
Vermont/Northern & Central New Hampshire-WPTZ-Twin States Television
Maine-WCSH/WLBZ(Maine Broadcasting System)-Maine Television
 
Last edited:
Top