Altrok Radio - Blog: A Farewell To Analog TV

Saturday, June 13, 2009

A Farewell To Analog TV

Being a longstanding broadcasting geek, I found the digital switchover that finally occurred yesterday fascinating. While many (probably most) of America's TV stations saw the loss of their analog signal as little more than a bullet item on the day's schedule, a number of them took the opportunity to take time to commemorate the event. It was, after all, the end of an era that, for some stations, started as long ago as 1932.

Some took the opportunity to cover the switchover as breaking news; Here's WABC-DT, leading up to the switchover and then continuing its digital broadcast afterward:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snI_ucrVnL8

Some took the opportunity to reflect on their storied history; here's Dallas' WFAA with a short runthrough of sixty years of broadcasting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYgmSAmvG8Y

WFTV in Orlando took a similar approach: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OK3qDWxAjQ

Sometimes it ended not with a bang, but with a whimper: KYES in Anchorage had an incredibly laid-back closedown:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMFw-ZBeFNE

And, finally, the oldest station to sign off, KYW-TV in Philadelphia, whose blink-and-you-missed-it farewell would have been ignominious, if not for its use of the test pattern used by the station when it first started, 77 years ago:

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Welcome to Altrok.com, also available at AltrokRadio.com and AltrockRadio.com. Here's where the remaining listeners of several fine radio stations have retreated, regrouped, and built a replacement strong enough to stand on its own. It builds on the independent legacy of New Jersey's FM106.3, New York's WPIX and WLIR, Oklahoma's 105.3 The Spy, the pre-buyout mindset of KROQ, WBCN and WHFS and of every other alternative station that was destroyed at a moment's notice - not because they weren't making money, but because there was bigger money to be found elsewhere.

We've stood by as truly independent alternative rock radio died. Sure, something called "alternative" took its place, but we know for sure that anything that "tests well" with soccer moms just ain't alternative. (Even if some of us happen to be soccer moms.) So we've taken matters into our own hands.

This really is independent alternative rock radio, visible here at Altrok.com and audible at our web radio station. It has the classic music that fired our passions back in the day - or that we maybe only heard about from our elders - but it's mostly made of the new music that does precisely the same for us now. We're paying attention to scenes all over the world, watching the energy build, and waiting to see what it creates. Wherever it happens, we'll make sure you can hear about it here. We've been slowly building all this since 2001, and now that you've noticed us, we're glad you're here.

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