WJBF/WAGT Off the Air

[Guest NewsHound]

Tonight, both stations in Augusta, GA now under combined operations in the same building called "Television Park" announced that both stations will sign off at 11:35pm tonight for "an important technical upgrade".

 

As promised, at 11:35 both stations went off the air, with WJBF sporting a bright yellow screen and WAGT sporting a black screen. This includes the CW Augusta and MeTV Augusta subchannels. The stations will return to air about 7am on Saturday.

 

http://www2.nbc26.tv/news/2012/aug/17/programming-announcement-nbc-26-cw-augusta-going-a-ar-4356180/?referer=http://www2.nbc26.tv/&shorturl=http://bit.ly/NsQTom

 

http://www2.wjbf.com/news/2012/aug/16/wjbf-news-channel-6-be-air-late-friday-night-ar-4356818/

 

What I'm unsure about is what technical upgrades are being made "to make the viewing experience even better" and why make them? Both stations are in a state-of-the-art facility with all High-Definition equipment that is brand new. As of recently, syndicated programs on both channels started airing in HD as well. The combined Television Park is less than a year old. Unless they are upgrading their transmitter facilities, I don't expect much change.

 

It is very strange for them to be doing something like this on a weeknight as well, as most television stations would perform this kind of thing late Saturday or Sunday nights.

[ABC 7 Denver 1568]

Yet interestingly I saw this article written in early May from the Augusta Chronicle suggesting that Television Park would be torn down: http://chronicle.aug...television-park. What is even more interesting is that I took the address from both NBC26 and WJBF 6 website (1336 Augusta West Parkway Augusta, GA 30909) and threw it into Google Earth. In street view it shows the building being utilized and even highlighted as the offices of WJBF as being a Barnes & Noble bookstore. The eagle view shows that behind the bookstore is a about 100yrd triangular plot with 12 satellites on it. This baffles me because I see no television station. Thoughts?

[T.L. Hughes 763]

Yet interestingly I saw this article written in early May from the Augusta Chronicle suggesting that Television Park would be torn down: http://chronicle.aug...television-park. What is even more interesting is that I took the address from both NBC26 and WJBF 6 website (1336 Augusta West Parkway Augusta, GA 30909) and threw it into Google Earth. In street view it shows the building being utilized and even highlighted as the offices of WJBF as being a Barnes & Noble bookstore. The eagle view shows that behind the bookstore is a about 100yrd triangular plot with 12 satellites on it. This baffles me because I see no television station. Thoughts?

 

I checked. If you look at the status bar on Google Earth when that location (the aforementioned former Barnes & Noble) is in street view, it identifies that the image was taken in January 2008, a good three years before WAGT and WJBF moved into that building. The image seen in aerial mode was probably taken last year around or shortly after the stations moved into the building.