After months of speculation, new Cleveland market CW affiliate WBNX/55 has let out a little more information on its upcoming digital signal.
The station’s “Trends” web page has now been updated with information we reported months ago, indicating the approval of the WBNX-DT construction permit. But it looks like it’ll be a while before local viewers are watching “The CW” in high-definition:
We are planning on making our digital and HD signal available to cable and satellite by mid to late October 2006. Unfortunately it will not be available for over the air viewing until April of 2007.
This confirms something we put up here shortly after the WBNX-DT CP was approved, when a station staffer E-Mailed one of our readers that the WBNX digital over-air signal would not likely hit the airwaves until next Spring.
But it also confirms our speculation that the station would make efforts to provide a cable (and satellite) HDTV feed before the over-air signal is completed.
Simply put, it takes time to build a TV station, and expecting WBNX-DT to start broadcasting as soon as this fall was probably a stretch.
As far as satellite TV goes, for the moment, DirecTV is only passing along the “Big Four” network affiliates in Cleveland in HDTV, and as far as we know, other markets nationwide. Dish Network still hasn’t lit up HD “local-into-local” service for the Cleveland market, and we don’t know if they’d offer WBNX or other CW affiliates…
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