One of the comments made to me by a Time Warner representative on the phone when I complained about our losing Ch 11 WTTW, was this:
"Well, you still have Channel 36 and 10 - and Channel 11 was not that popular."
Sign of the times if you ask me.
When PBS runs Ken Burns' The National Parks, beginning soon...it would be nice to think that tons of kids and parents would watch this amazing work, but who knows? They may prefer "Dancing with the Stars" or something else like that, and in so many ways, it's a real shame.
Original Post: Time Warner Cable TV is changing its local lineup of channels on Oct. 13.
The first sign of the new lineup was the loss of WTTW Channel 11, the PBS channel out of Chicago, from local basic and digital TV packages. The change occurred without notice to customers in late August. (Here's a Kenosha News story on the change.)
A WTTW representative said Monday the decision was entirely Time Warner's.
A Time Warner Cable representative said WTTW was dropped because there are already two PBS stations in its Milwaukee-area packages (which include Racine) that duplicate 90 percent of the programming on WTTW. Time Warner is investigating whether the remaining 10 percent can be incorporated Milwaukee Public Television's Channel 10 and Channel 16 lineups.
Time Warner Cable dropped WTTW to make room for another high-definition station, the rep said. A new station will be assigned to the Channel 11 slot, but what station has not been determined.
Time Warner Cable is realigning its stations on Oct. 13 in response to customer demand for more HD stations.
The rep also noted Time Warner Cable carries all four of the Chicago networks (ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC) for southeastern Wisconsin subscribers. But it's unlikely WTTW is coming back to the lineup.
At least one local resident is disappointed by the change. Here's an email we received:
Something interesting happened to Time-Warner Cable subscribers a few weeks ago, without warning WTTW (PBS channel 11 from Chicago) was gone. There was no warning, no crawl on the bottom of the screen beforehand, no notice in the bills before or after, no response to emails, and not even an answer when I called. They simply did it and won't talk about it. In the place of programming there is a notice to watch PBS out of Milwaukee. Unlike commercial television, PBS stations are radically different. Meanwhile WBBM (CBS Channel 2 from Chicago) which is blacked out most of the time is still there.For anyone who misses WTTW, you can watch Chicago's PBS for free online at: www.wttw.com
