Oxygen goes OTA

[Adam MadMan 285]

Within the past month, cable network Oxygen has started to roll out OTA on subchannels of NBC/Telemundo O&Os. I noticed it a week or two ago, when a subchannel with the PSIP OXYGEN showed up on WVIT-DT4, though only yesterday did it actually start showing Oxygen programming, and watching both the cable and OTA feeds side by side, I was able to confirm that they're virtually identical.

 

And in case you don't believe me, Trip of RabbitEars.info has logged the subchannels onto his site, which is a generally reliable source for OTA info.

[DMA 136]

Good addition - it's a shame that NBC hasn't consolidated LX News with NBC News Now, that'd be a great OTA option. Unfortunately with WNBC and WNJU channel sharing with 2x 1080i and 3 480i subchannel, this addition might make the already poor picture quality even worse in NY. 

[nathannah 2537]

It'll be interesting to see how Spectrum and Altice react to a channel going from cable to broadcast, even if it's a declining network forced down to 480i; Spectrum and Altice dominate NY, thus why it might not be on there, but it's on in a bunch of markets where Comcast or Cox is primary.

 

But if they decide to dump the cable carriage and go all-in on broadcast, you could see Tegna/Standard throw in the towel on True Crime Network and take Oxygen as Snapped does fine on whatever platform it gets put on.

[ColtFromGulfcoast 739]

Let me know when USA  and Syfy come over the air.

[channel2 982]

Don't they make too much money for that?

[TheSpeedKing 270]

18 hours ago, DMA said:

Good addition - it's a shame that NBC hasn't consolidated LX News with NBC News Now, that'd be a great OTA option. Unfortunately with WNBC and WNJU channel sharing with 2x 1080i and 3 480i subchannel, this addition might make the already poor picture quality even worse in NY. 

It’s why WNJU should probably go ATSC 3.0 sooner rather than later. Problem is lining up 1.0 hosts in a tightly packed market. Also maybe WCMH could replace Ion with Oxygen just so they can reduce their reliance on Scripps.

[Yankees4life 565]

Well...why not. Might as well move one of your 100 cable networks to OTA. I wonder if the gameplan is to set up an ATSC 3.0 subscription which will give you MSNBC, CNBC, USA and Syfy

[nathannah 2537]

1 hour ago, Yankees4life said:

Well...why not. Might as well move one of your 100 cable networks to OTA. I wonder if the gameplan is to set up an ATSC 3.0 subscription which will give you MSNBC, CNBC, USA and Syfy

There is a DRM update coming to current tuners that will enable that, along with adding broadcast flag-like protection on network feeds (which shouldn't be a thing but we're in the age of secretary-designees and not passing FCC commissioner nominations, thus they'll try to get away with it).

[TheSpeedKing 270]

8 hours ago, mrschimpf said:

There is a DRM update coming to current tuners that will enable that, along with adding broadcast flag-like protection on network feeds (which shouldn't be a thing but we're in the age of secretary-designees and not passing FCC commissioner nominations, thus they'll try to get away with it).

I bet if you tell this to Uncle Perry, he'll think we're in the year 2200 and try to get NBC to replace whatever Scripps diginets he has and add cable networks to his NBC affiliate(s). It's actually a solid idea!

[DirtyHarry 745]

18 hours ago, Yankees4life said:

I wonder if the gameplan is to set up an ATSC 3.0 subscription which will give you MSNBC, CNBC, USA and Syfy

 

Good luck on that. I'm done paying for TV and so are a lot of other people. If it ain't free, I won't miss it.

 

AFAIC, the networks aren't losing anything with free OTT. Back in the old days, the kind of movies shown on places like Pluto, Tubi, Xumo and Peacock would have been on free TV with commercials. Today, they're on OTT with commercials. They don't get whatever TV stations were paying for the movie, but they do get all the advertising which should theoretically be more money than what they got in "rental" fees before.

[channel2 982]

On 4/24/2022 at 9:29 AM, TheSpeedKing said:

It’s why WNJU should probably go ATSC 3.0 sooner rather than later. Problem is lining up 1.0 hosts in a tightly packed market. Also maybe WCMH could replace Ion with Oxygen just so they can reduce their reliance on Scripps.

 

You have to wonder if this is what Scripps owns stations like WPXN for...at least in part...

 

Hell, even stations like WMBC.

[DENDude 224]

It would be interesting to know how many folks along Colorado's front range will ever tune into Oxygen because it's on a sub channel of KDEN-TV Telemundo Denver and not on KUSA-TV  I would love to see ratings for it.    

[Requiere 51]

I didn't realize until seeing this thread but it looks as though NBCU went with WTVJ 6.4 and not WSCV for Oxygen. For years now there has been no 51.3, only .2 for TeleXitos and .4 for an SD Telemundo version for Palm Beach. Anyway, has any update on whether or not Spectrum dominated areas will get Oxygen OTA?

[Yankees4life 565]

3 hours ago, Requiere said:

I didn't realize until seeing this thread but it looks as though NBCU went with WTVJ 6.4 and not WSCV for Oxygen. For years now there has been no 51.3, only .2 for TeleXitos and .4 for an SD Telemundo version for Palm Beach. Anyway, has any update on whether or not Spectrum dominated areas will get Oxygen OTA?

Don't know but you can check here

https://rabbitears.info/search.php?request=network_search&network=Oxygen

[NowBergen 717]

On 4/23/2022 at 7:47 PM, mrschimpf said:

It'll be interesting to see how Spectrum and Altice react to a channel going from cable to broadcast, even if it's a declining network forced down to 480i; Spectrum and Altice dominate NY, thus why it might not be on there, but it's on in a bunch of markets where Comcast or Cox is primary.

 

But if they decide to dump the cable carriage and go all-in on broadcast, you could see Tegna/Standard throw in the towel on True Crime Network and take Oxygen as Snapped does fine on whatever platform it gets put on.

Oxygen is on Altice's line-up.  I just checked.  

[nathannah 2537]

4 hours ago, NowBergen said:

Oxygen is on Altice's line-up.  I just checked.  

I meant more of a future question as to whether they'd take a lower-cost OTA feed over the current cable channel. Obviously Altice and Spectrum still carry the Oxygen cable network, but would they dump it next RTC go-around with Comcast if it's available for free over-the-air (along with a further cut in their already declining original programming budget)?

[TheRolyPoly 2655]

On 7/2/2022 at 12:58 AM, Requiere said:

I didn't realize until seeing this thread but it looks as though NBCU went with WTVJ 6.4 and not WSCV for Oxygen. For years now there has been no 51.3, only .2 for TeleXitos and .4 for an SD Telemundo version for Palm Beach. Anyway, has any update on whether or not Spectrum dominated areas will get Oxygen OTA?

 

I'm not surprised. NBC O&Os get first blood for Oxygen OTA with Telemundo only picking them up on stations where there's no NBC O&O in the market (Houston for ex.).

[KS-IL-IA 48]

So will Oxygen end up being like Ion, as either a cable or OTA secondary, depending on the market?

[TheRolyPoly 2655]

WTVJ 6.4 Miami has added it recently too.