Goodbye to all my friends at WRCB TV

June 14, 2009 by JD · 2 Comments
Filed under: Musings 

I originally sent this as an email to the President of WRCB TV in Chattanooga, TN. He sent a nice reply, and I thank him for that.

These were some of my thoughts on the morning of the transition from analog to digital TV.

This morning, at midnight, while watching Conan O’Brien, the end of an era arrived and now it’s time to say goodbye to all my friends at Channel 3.

For almost 25 years, I’ve started and ended my day with your broadcasts.

Jed, Latrice, and David started my day with news and weather and the Tonight show ended my day with humor. During the day, the Today show provided information and news. I enjoyed watching Ellen and some of your afternoon game shows. Your evening news gave a recap to what was going on during the day.

I moved to Murphy in 1984, about the same time as Bill Markham and Paul Barys [moved to Chattanooga], I think. Even though I’ve never met them, it feels like I’m listening to friends when they come on TV.

Channel 3 has been my main source for news and weather, but now all I can do is visit your web site, which is very slow because I have only a slow dial-up connection to the Internet.

I live in an area north of Murphy where there is no broadband Internet nor cable TV available – and probably won’t be any time soon. Still, I would not exchange the peace, quiet, and beauty of where I live for better connections to the rest of the world.

When I first attached my new digital converter a few months ago, all I got was “no signal.” This was not unexpected. Reception here, where I am surrounded by mountains, has never been good, even with a signal booster.

I rescanned this morning and still, no signal.

So, goodbye TV. Goodbye Channel 3.

It was fun while it lasted.

All the best,

JD

As I said, above the quote, he sent a nice reply and suggested that I look into satellite services.

I’ve already thought of that and decided that what they offer isn’t worth the cost, as far as I’m concerned.

It sounds like I watch(ed) a lot of TV, but that’s not really true.

I have a TV in my office and have it on with the volume turned down low much of the time, but I rarely give it my full attention. There were some exceptions, however.

I enjoyed watching the first half-hour of the Today show to get a daily summary of the news. I was a big fan of Meet The Press when Tim Russert was the host, but not so much now that David Gregory has succeeded him. I liked watching the evening news and weather and usually stopped what I was doing to watch the monologue on the Tonight show.

Otherwise, it was on in case there was breaking news and as a background so that barking dogs and passing vehicles didn’t distract me as much as they may have otherwise.

I might be interested in cable TV, if I could also get broadband, but I’m not interested in satellite TV and don’t want their Internet service either.

So, after about 30 hours with no TV, I don’t miss it as much as I thought I might.

Act on your dream!

JD

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