Thursday, February 19, 2009

Another Analog Bites the Dust..



Screencap of WOAC-TV 67 Canton-Akron-Cleveland during its INTV days. From a TV DX transmission in Missisauga, Ontario, Canada..Courtesy TVDXinfocentre.com

Of course, everyone knows about the on again, off again saga of analog-to-digital Television playing out in the USA. As the majority of the stations will sign off their analog transitters June 12, 2009. Some signed off Midnight Tuesday, February 17 (Wednesday), the original cut-off date. WNEO-45 Alliance shut off its analog station in November 2008. WMFD-68 in Mansfield, Ohio shut off it's analog in 2007.

The third Northeast Ohio station to turn off it's analog signal is Multicultural Broadcasting's WOAC-TV 67, licensed to Canton but "serving" Cleveland/Akron/Canton with a blend of Informercials and some local programming..They've slowly added more local progrqamming to the mix..

Tuesday Night at about 11:55 PM during (what else) an informercial, WOAC aired the following crawl at the top of the screen..

"WOAC-TV Canton/Cleveland/Akron is now discontinuing analog signal broadcasting on channel 67. WOAC is owned and operated by MTBL Cleveland and was originally licensed in 1981. WOAC has operated since 1996 at 5,000KW
on a visual frequency of 789.25Mhz. You can now view WOAC on it's digital channel, 47, with an average power output of 1,000KW.
WOAC now leaves the air permanently. God bless you."

Thanks to Ohio Media Watch reader Andrew for copying the on-screen announcement..Originally posted in a comment to Ohio Media Watch..

Thus ends a 42 year history of Canton, Ohio full power analog commercial television..WOAC first signed on in April 1982 as a full-power independent with some news and sports..Scott Davis, Sherry Lee and Son of Ghoul were major personalities for a number of years..WOAC was sold to Paxson 1n 1996 as an InTV/Worship affiliate, then to Shop at Home/Scripps in the early 2000's then to Multicultural Television of New York City in 2006. WJAN-17 was Commercial from 1967-82 before being sold to David Livingstone Foundation and eventually to TBN.

This leaves WDLI-TV 17 as the last full power analog TV station licensed to Canton/Stark County..They will move to channel 39 in June..

As promised, The final few minutes and last sign-off of WOAC-Analog Channel 67...frtom musicman150 at YouTube..Thanks musicman150!

4 comments:

  1. I would if I recieved the signal,but alias I do not.maybe if I could of aforded a roter when I put up the antenna on the roof maybe I could get the signal.

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  2. By all means get a rotor. I get a beautiful signal from the Youngstown market out here in Wayne County.

    Aiming the antenna for the "Canton" stations can be confusing. The WOAC transmitter is located along I-76 in Brimfield and the WDLI digital transmitter is located in Norton behind Rolling Acres Mall, just a half mile from the channel 23 (formerly WAKR) tower.

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  3. Ah, the good old days of WOAC. Where else could you find reruns of Mayberry, RFD and pre-recorded high school football?

    I was always surprised that they carried the CBS late-night programming up to David Letterman's arrival (I think they may have even had Pat Sajak's show) since WJW apparently chose not to clear it.

    And it was actually during one of Scott Davis' "News Updates" that I first heard that John Candy passed away. For some reason I can still remember that over fifteen years later.

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  4. Well they also carried the CBS Late Night shows,if I'm not mistaken. WCLQ in Cleveland did too. This I recall for sure. Then along came that HSN crap.

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