July 28, 2008
DTV Regional Meeting in Grand Rapids
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MAB's Larry Estlack explaining the technical side of the DTV Transition to the Grand Rapids crowd.
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The MAB DTV Team held a regional meeting at the Yankee Clipper Branch of the Grand Rapids Public Library on Monday Night, July 28th. MAB's Director of Programs Jennifer Preslar and MAB Director of Technology presented an overview of the Digital Transition from "why and how".
Following the MAB presentation, representatives from Grand Rapids area television stations joined the MAB DTV Team and answered questions from those attending the meeting.
The Grand Rapids area presents some unique challenges in the DTV Transition with many stations changing channel positions - and the location and distance of the many transmitting towers in use by the market's broadcasters may present some difficulty for some viewers.
The overwhelming issue in Grand Rapids appears to be reliable digital reception with existing indoor and outdoor television antennas.
Grand Rapids/Kalamazoo/Battle Creek in the second largest market in Michigan and has over 115,000 households receiving their television signals only over-the-air. This is 15.6% of the households in the market. These numbers do not count the many cabled households that still have one or more televisions not hooked up to their paid service provider.
Our thanks to the local broadcasters in attendance at the Grand Rapids Meeting: Diane Kniowski (President and General Manager) and Mike Laemers (Director of Engineering) from WOOD-TV/WOTV-TV/WXSP-TV; Jim Lutton (Vice-President and General Manager) and Jim Steffy (Chief Engineer) from WWMT-TV; Chuck Mikowski (Vice President and Director of Technology) from WZZM-TV; Dale Scholten (Chief Engineer) from WXMI-TV; and Michael Walenta (General Manager) from WGVU-TV.
The MAB has speakers available to discuss the digital transition with your staff or community organization. Contact the MAB office for more information at 800-968-7622 or via email at mab@michmab.com.
