18 Equity stations go dark on June 12, including all Fox affiliates

[FTAList]

Multichannel News reports that 35 full-power stations will go dark on June 12, when all such stations are supposed to go digital. Of those, 17 are owned by Equity Media, although at least some of them have already been sold to new owners. (MN says 18 but lists 17, so they're probably still counting KARZ.) Once the change of ownership paperwork goes through the FCC, the new owners will probably relaunch their stations, although probably not via satellite.

The FCC had a news conference to announce this list. "I am concerned whenever any broadcast station goes dark or shuts down its operation in terms of localism and diversity and competition, said FCC acting chairman Michael Copps. "In the face of a disappearance of another newsoom, that is a net loss for the American people."

The FCC also said it would try to move some of these to subchannels of nearby digital stations.

Equity stations going dark include:
KBTZ, KLMN, KMMF, WMQF: Fox
KCBU, KEGS, KQUP, KWWF: AMG
KKYK, WNGS: this
KPBI, KWBM: MyNet
KUOK, WNYI: Univision
KUTF: TeleFutura
KTUW, WBIF: ??

Also of note: KARZ, now owned by Nexstar, is on the list.

Full story: Updated: FCC: 35 Stations To Go Dark June 12 - 2009-06-03 14:15:36 | Multichannel News

PDF station list: http://www.broadcastingcable.com/fil...ntStations.pdf

[RDosetareh]

I wonder what new stations and programming will be launched.

[Babadem]

Those Equity Stations are on Galaxy 18 @ 123.0°W, right? That's sad.

[RDosetareh]

Yeah... Good Old Galaxy 18.

I'm not worried... I'm sure something better or new will be come out soon!

[FTAList]

Then again, I figured that KARZ would drop off as soon as it changed owners, so in a word, yaneverknow.

What IS true is that you shouldn't get into FTA because you love a particular channel. Your favorite might be gone tomorrow, but there will always be something out there to watch.

[FTAList]

As I type, I can't pick up any of the "Equity" transponders on G18. 11720-V, 11800-V, and 12114-V all show no signal quality and no channels.

KTWO, the Research Channel and the VA channel are all still there loud and clear, so I doubt that anything knocked my G18 dish out of alignment.

Poking around elsewhere online, I don't see any mention of this. Either I'm the first to spot it, or it's a personal problem? What do you folks see?

Update: A few minutes later, 11800-V and 12114-V are back, but 11720-V is still out. Maybe they're shuffling channels or something?

2nd Update: About a half hour after the first update, 11720-V is back, too. Situation normal. Never mind.

[Rainman]

could have been some of the storms moving through that cause the outage.

[FTAList]

Gone so far: KUTF (just a title card now), WMQF, KARZ, WNYI, and WNGS.

I'm sure that more will drop as the weeks go by.

[Babadem]

Originally Posted by FTAList

Gone so far: KUTF (just a title card now), WMQF, KARZ, WNYI, and WNGS.

I'm sure that more will drop as the weeks go by.

Here today gone tomorrow........that's the world of FTA.