This article has been updated to reflect new information. A transmitter failure at Meredith's Phoenix CBS affil had transmitter problems yesterday that took it off the air as the basketball tournament kicked off. A station GM hopes to have the signal restored by early this afternoon.
UPDATED AT 2 PM ET
KPHO Goes Dark During March Madness
This article has been updated to reflect new information from the KPHO general manager.
On one of the biggest days in sports, a transmitter failure at KPHO Phoenix knocked out the station’s over-the-air signal for more than 24 hours, says Ed Munson, the station’s vice president and general manager.
The outage, which impacts nearly 16% of viewers who watch TV the old fashioned way in Phoenix, continues as of 2 p.m. ET. Munson said a crew is going up at 12 p.m. PT, to repair the failure. “We believe the failure is right up the transmission line that carries radio waves right before the antenna,” says Munson, adding the timing couldn’t be worse with the start of the NCAA Division 1 Men’s Basketball Tournament. He hopes to have the OTA signal back up by early this afternoon.
Munson says he would have sent crews up earlier in the day, but had to coordinate with other broadcast stations located at the transmission site on South Mountain — located about 10 miles south of KPHO — to lower their power to prevent any injury during the repair. Crews went up at 2 a.m. PT Friday, but were unable to work in the dark, says Munson.
In a post on its website Thursday, the start of March Madness, the CBS affiliate said its “engineering department is working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.” The station encouraged its viewers to watch CBS’s March Madness live stream online during the outage.
Dish Network customers also weren’t receiving a signal until service was restored later in the afternoon Thursday. The outage didn’t impact Cox or DirecTV customers. Western Broadband Cable and Orbitel Communications — two cable systems in the Phoenix area — also experienced the outage, but should be back up soon with an alternative way to transmit the signal, says Munson.
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The Phoenix viewing area was heated in the comment’s section of the KPHO story about the outage.
“This is shameful,” commenter razor623 posted. “How could a major station in the United States experience such difficulties. The station is always mentioning ‘telling it like it is,” well tell us the truth, are you ever going to restore over the air broadcasting? Is there something more to this that meets the eye? What would be good would be an in-depth report online, if the problem is resolved, as well as being reported over the air once, if indeed it occurs, things are resotred. I am sure that you’re aware about the immense lack of credability your station currently has, how do you propose to restore it?”
“Wow OTA signal still off air… Why not tell it like it is… You could care less about OTA viewers… What a joke,” commenter Jerrick Argonia wrote.
Munson says ratings weren’t hugely affected by yesterday’s outage. “My theory is that most sports fans who would be watching the tournament are generally not over-the-air-only viewers. They have cable or satellite for ESPN. So I don’t think it has been affected much.”
Comments (5)
Jonathan Lemire & Laurie Kellman says:
March 22, 2013 at 4:16 pm
Transmitter failure can happen to any station ay any time regardless on the measures undertaken to prevent failure. Acts of nature can always trump effort by man to transmit. Lightning is often the culprit, as are power surges, equipment failure, fires, etc.
Ed Munson is an outstanding broadcaster committed to Phoenix and his company will spare no expense in restoring the CBS signal to Phoenix.
Dale Godfrey says:
March 22, 2013 at 6:14 pm
WCBS-TV NY City was often laughed at for maintaining the expense of an old Harris 20Kw tube type transmitter, and ancient dipoles around the Chrysler Building. When 9/11 saw the end of the WTC, CBS merely fired up the old Harris and stayed on the air with an analog signal! Very same transmitter was also used once when a big power failure took out Empire State, the CBS Broadcast Center, but not Chrysler, I just happened to be in CT when this hit, and an engineer actually scribbled an ID on a whiteboard, showed it on an old b&w camera, and announced the station would soon return to the air, as soon as the emergency generators kicked in at the Broadcast Center at 524 W. 57th. Soon CBS went back online and the coax feed to Chrysler fed the old Harris. The engineer also had a mic, which he used to explain the difficulties. He was on the air for about five minutes!
Perhaps KPHO should consider a simple backup HD transmitter, emergency genset, and non-DA antenna atop a downtown building. Many stations I’m familiar with maintain an emergency transmitter and antenna, ready to go anytime, right on the roof of their studio building, or their STL tower, etc. I’ve seen some 100% redundant transmission systems, at a completely different location, in markets as small as 150-200.
Craig Mullaney says:
March 22, 2013 at 8:01 pm
I’m a college BB fan, and I’m an OTA customer. I want to watch today’s tournament games on CBS. PLEASE FIX IT !!!!!!!!!
Keith ONeal says:
March 22, 2013 at 10:56 pm
I’n surprised Munson made a reference to ESPN. Especially since ESPN is NOT airing the NCAA Tournament (It’s on CBS, TBS, TNT, and TruTV). WCBS was the only major station in NYC with a backup transmitter, and was the only station to stay on the air dring 9/11. I was under the impression that thebackup was at the Empire State Building. Anyway, all the stations had to spend millions of dollars to replace the facilities, and now that a new WTC building is almost finished, WTC wants the stations to move their transmitters from the Empire State Building to WTC. Sorry, but I do not foresee the FCC getting apps from the stations to move to WTC.
Roger Lyons says:
March 23, 2013 at 10:46 am
KPHO applied to maximize their post-transition signal early last year, which included auxillary facilities. The problem is the red tape having to deal with coordination with Mexico, and the application hasn’t been approved by the FCC yet. And, if it had been approved recently, it would have taken them six months to a year just to start completing the new RF systems.