These TV Stations Sold Out Antenna Viewers in $20 Billion FCC Repack 

Hey Folks, this is a re-upload because there were some errors in the last video that needed to be corrected. Specifically that the FCC document showed Nexstar as the owner of 8 TV stations that took payouts. Nexstar did not own all of the TV stations at the time of the payouts but rather Media General, which Nexstar bought around the same time.

This destruction of the public airwaves started with the telecommunication acts of 1995 and 96. That was when corporations were allowed to buy up radio and tv stations without limit which is why we now have 6 corporations owning all the radio and tv stations in the US. Very few locally owned stations in existence now.

Even when it’s not about the money, it’s about the money. I believe cable and satellite stations are lobbying for this to be done. They don’t want anyone to be able to get any television through an antenna for free.

This is so annoying, This is why a lot of us have turned to pirating. Antenna was my last go at traditional TV.

Thank you for this information. When I put up my antenna, I could receive 23 channels but now even the 14 available are unreliable. I suspected a technical change for profit and now I understand why.

I miss the days of turning on the TV in 5 rooms of the house and everything is perfectly in sink. Best Superbowl parties ever! Even had a TV in the bathroom.

After working with you on our antenna setup, we were able to receive several stations including FOX 11 (K22JC-D 11.1 FOX). FOX 11 and and other channels are now gone. Some other stations have lowered signal strength and can only be received when the stars align. Being retired we can only afford antenna TV. This sucks.

I have been a subscriber for a while now but have to say that this video is one of your most informative videos on over the air television. You told me things that I never knew or heard about. Thanks Antenna Man. PS - You need to sit before a Congressional committee hearing and speak on behalf of over the air television viewers.

The FCC is doing the same to wireless microphone users. They are pushing wireless mics into an ever decreasing corner of the wireless spectrum. I've had to trash perfectly good sound equipment twice in the last 15 years.

Very interesting, well researched and reported information. Thank you. You are doing a great job as probably the only journalist in these topics. I can't imagine how non profits like trinity and pbs could possibly be favored to the tune of billions of dollars, and the government only got 7 billion. Even if you accept the idea that the public good of making more spectrum available for cellular and internet vs television (we need access to more competitive wireless too), how little cellular companies pay for a monopoly on public airwaves is a the real crime.

"Bribes" is an accurate description... love the content sir. Thank you for holding them accountable!

The PBS affiliate in our Nashville market was forced by the FCC to participate in the repack to move from VHF 8 to VHF 7, and almost impossible to receive now without an outdoor antenna if you live outside of Nashville. They did get a new (and free after the FCC reimbursement) transmitter and antenna.

It sounds like cell phone companies want all the bandwidth for themselves.

I was definitely impacted. I live about 40 miles SSW of NYC in the NJ suburbs and we dropped cable about 15 years ago. At that time I bought the best outdoor roof mounted antenna and preamp I could find, and set up OTA as best as I could. There are trees blocking my line of sight to NYC, but it worked pretty well. Better in the winter when there were no leaves on those trees. I was even getting some Philadelphia channels off the backside of the antenna! After the repack we lost a bunch of channels.

I can see the commercial stations reasoning; for them it's all about the money. The ones I loath are the public stations, like my local one. They had an alleged educational and cultural mandate, and they trashed it for a one time payout.

Haha that's funny and reminds me of a story... I had a TV in the kitchen on an antenna, and my dad was watching the football game in the living room via cable. When I realized how far ahead I was, I would say "Dad, they should run this play and throw to this guy on the left side" At first he was impressed with my coaching skills, but after the 3rd play of my accurate prediction, my Dad said, "I don't know what you're doing but knock it off !!!" Antennas Rock

Not surprised the stations up north took the biggest payout, there were none here in Houston that did. In Houston Channels 8 and 13 operate on their original analog stations and channel 11 as well though it also simulcast on UHF from I think our ION affiliate. So there is enough room for the remaining to be on the UHF spectrum. Nothing wrong with VHF Hi, the problem is not everyone has a VHF antenna.

You're killin it Tyler. Thanks for always being informative to even some of us smarter than the average Joe's, pun intended.

WHDF, my local CW affiliate, sold it's UHF channel 15 frequency and went to VHF channel 2. After Nexstar purchased the station along with its sister station, WHNT (CBS), they moved CW to one of it's subchannels. Nexstar didn't get to profit off the move. Instead, it was the previous owners that ended up selling out to Nexstar. The only downside is that it's the only Rewind TV affiliate in the area. I was actually getting enough signal quality for reception (about 50%) on my 8-bay UHF/VHF-Hi antenna until my neighbor installed an LED security light that basically killed any future reception.

At 1 point I was almost at 50 channels over the air. Now I have lost some of my original channels as well. It seems like every few weeks channels seem to change

Tyler you nailed it..Congress names their bills to make it sound good.

In my area of colorado rural mountains stations are stopping antenna broadcasting and going streaming online only. So if you don't have WiFi , satellite, or cell service in remote areas you won't have any stations unless you get a huge satellite antenna.

Shows what they all think of us. Also shows how little money actual viewership is worth to them.

i agree bribes i mean payouts.

I'm surprised that the Houston market didn't lose anything in this. Funny thing is I got my first atsc tuner in 2003 and was so excited at the time, yet now I haven't even turned my tuner on in almost a year. I don't really even miss it a bit and haven't had cable in 15 years either. Considering I'll be moving to fringe areas of any tv signal at all soon I don't see much changing for me.

1:46 Deficit reduction is not paying down the national debt. It is reducing the deficit of annual budgets so that less will be added to the national debt. It does not "pay down" the existing national debt.

Great job Tyler. The repack definitely effected the reception here up in southern Ontario, Toronto area specifically and areas north and east.

I have lived in an area where you cannot get any ( well maybe 5-10 ) channels with any kind of antenna no matter how good or bad since the digital switch in 2008. All we can do is pay for cable, which is crazy expensive and if you have any of the dish tv services (especially direct) is super bad, because you have to sign a contract and God forbid you loose your job and are not able to pay and you call them to try to put your services on hold, they will just tell you they will withdraw from your bank account even if you tell them you have no $ to cover for the charges and your bank will charge you for NSF the direct company will just suggest for you to borrow some $ although I just told them I don't even have $ for food. This was what happened to me, thank God, I'm in a better situation now, and now I rely on streaming.

We lost WCCO-TV cbs in Central MN several years ago. When the digital tv signal took over we lost 90% of the tv stations we received before 2009.

Had to rescan several times and still do. Lost 3 channels 8.1m 8.2 , 8.4, etc from channel 8 in Dallas, TX WFAA

Here in Baltimore, MD WUTB CH 54 sold out and is now apparently channel sharing with WBBF CH 45. I getbthem both fine with my "Crazy 8" indoor antenna ( i.e. the Max V with the high vhf dipole). But I'm only 2 miles from the transmitter.

Drain The Swamp When The Swamp Comes along You Must Whip Them Whip Them Good 👍 DEVO

It's funny how in the '50s and '60s, the VHF HI and Lo were considered "prime" real estate, but now the "worthless" UHF frequencies are now coveted. Well, I love TV DX'ing, so VHF LO and sporadic-E make fun for me! (...still have the old antenna...) So that's a good side of this otherwise dismal greed-fueled collaboration between industry and another un-elected 3 letter government agency that side-steps the voter and politician alike. (...bitter? Me? Well, maybe a bit...) 73's W3IHM

Louisville’s WBKI was sold to some radio owners, then gave up their spectrum right before all this. I am sure that was their intentions to cash in. Low VHF is trash. In the olden analog days Lexington, KY market was only a UHF market. Then the FCC put 3 stations on VHF for digital. One on Low VHF.

Chicago channel 20 WYCC, a PBS station run by Chicago City Colleges, sold their spectrum. It was a wonderful alternative and diverse PBS station, that also had free televised classroom lectures. They decided to co-transmit with the larger, more mainstream PBS station WTTW 11. On the flip side, I now have 5G internet and finally got to dump the corrupt, unreliable and bloated cable TV/internet. DSL may have been slow, but it never failed or hiccuped. Regulations and standards made it reliable.

Great video. Although I haven't watched broadcast TV since I was a kid my parents do. These corporations don't care about their viewers. The are simply buying units to them.

I stopped watching TV in 2012 as I was finally fed up with the terribly spotty reception I had been getting since the digital transition and honestly I don't miss it at all. Network TV is dying and at this point almost anything you'd care to watch can be found online. Legally or otherwise.

I live in Farmington, Michigan. The one channel I can't get is channel 3 which broadcasts on VHF channel 3. Low VHF is the devil

I remember that always having to rescan my tuner box to get the channels because they was moving them around. I didn't think all this money was involved. But yeah money makes people do strange things. Money Talks.

I live near Youngstown. I didn’t have any problems with wkbn. I have 2 hight outdoor antennas. One facing Cleveland and one facing Youngstown.

Right now in the Northeast it is negative 17 degrees it's cold 🥶

Its all about the Dollar. Every (company) has a price. Rarely does the consumer benefit from these "changes." I can see OTA TV broadcasting being totally wiped out or scaled back to "emergency broadcast" purposes only at some point in the future. The FCC will be coming for the rest of the Ham bands soon.

When I changed to Antenna TV in YR 2013, it was good, plenty of clear channels. Now it is just sad, lost most of my channels, mainly classic TV show channels remain and no PBS. I loved the Create channel on PBS. Sad, sad, sad.

I often wonder if the smaller cable companies will fair in all of this, most of them get there signal off the air..., that kind of put them in a bad way....they may be loosing something!

So Tyler is it worth cutting the cord and using an antenna when TV channels had payouts to the FCC?

All New York City area stations sold out and now there is no available spectrum for a full power ATSC 3.0 station. The #1 media market and there is only a low power ATSC 3.0 on RF channel 6. Really screwed themselves (and us) with the sellout. At this point, they might as well sell off 500 MHz and kill it off completely.

Everything is going to be pay-per view. They want that direct residual money coming in. Same with newspapers, software, options for your car, etc., etc., etc.

I lost my Dayton Ohio semi locals after the repack as well as a few Cincinnati locals.

1:09 Its things like this that should be a big no no to do. When something has absolutely nothing to do with the other it shouldn't be allowed to be in it.

I'm still trying to figure out why mobile phone providers need TV bands when their 4G & 5G technologies are running on GHz to millimeter-wave.

FCC needs to allow VHF lo band more power to help cover up noise that interferes with those stations. Hi band VHF could also use more power for the same reasons.

Hi Tyler, doesn't that happen because there's only so much "band width" and with newer technologies coming out they try to make room within that band width for the sort of Next new Generation of technologies that people will want.. and it sounds like regular TV is on its way out with new APPS coming in and selling off of Band widths... and unfortunately it hits the (antenna group). All of these supposed newer technologies are all perpetual subscriptions and I am sick of paying for cable and these crazy "services" that never stop price increases for the last 12 yrs!! Which I am sure is attributed to some of the crazy prices of advertisement and to host sporting events where individuals make more money than a major corporation but ultimately the Network tv stations pass that pricing fees on to the consumer us.... Its ending soon .. (I am all in) _ as long as antenna is working ...Thanks Great info.

It is always about the money when you get right down to it. I watch TV and anything I want in various ways but I do have OTA TV some 65 miles from STL. My antenna is 34 feet high and signals are mostly good. My total channels with subs are about 42. Signal is good about 98% of the time.

Why am I not surprised. Thank you for this great information.

It seems that when ever you get your tv channels in something happens to change them, Mostly other channels seem to rob the same band with and cancel out the channels you want to watch. Scanning does not fix that either.

In my area I lost south bend CW25, ABC 57 and Chicago channel 11. It has been years since the repack and still not gotten any of them back. I am thinking of calling a local antennae installer that originally installed my antennae to see if they can adjust my antennae to get back 25 and 57. I don't care about losing pbs 11 I have two others. I am beginning to think we need a constitutional amendment to protect our over the air signals from the fcc trying to make money.

I don't know if the FCC has made over the air channels available to the American people or not, but I notice local channels do not have good programs like they used to. You almost have to use cable or online provider to watch good programming. It's about how much money they can make off of the American people and no one cares if we can afford it or not. I think it's a load of bologne when use DRM and talk about privacy on their programs. Local channels used to provide great programs for adults and kids. Channels are being sold and turned into shopping channels, selling products or even religious channels. I used to watch cop shows, sitcom shows and cartoons on TV, but we cannot enjoy that like we used to. What is happening to America?

And Happy New Year 2023

The repack was (and still is) a mess, plus the remainder of the spectrum is crowded in larger broadcast markets, which hinders a few local TV stations who are unable to move from low VHF...

The payouts actually saved some of these PBS station. The Providence station (WSBE) was about to fold before it got money from FCC auction. It's still on the air today. I don't consider Low Band VHF to be trash, but it's definitely harder to pick up because we don't use rabbit ears any more.

Thank you. This explains the everyplace loss in Chico, Ca and why I needed to buy a new outdoor antenna. (From your suggested antennas)

Antenna Man, here in in the Harrisburg, York, Lancaster area, the biggest impact was to fox channel 43 York, which went off the air and moved on to WITF 33 in harrisburg with less power and coverage. This did affect us with a less reliable signal at the place we use to live at. People in the southern part of York county lost their local TV station. Another loss was the Lebanon TV transmitter shut down for Channel 15, loss of coverage for eastern Lancaster county, they did goto WHP 21 which is the strongest UHF station in Harrisburg. The whole OTA TV started down hill when Obama had the Analog TV transmitters shut down Nationwide, then got worse with each selling off of frequencies. As a cavot the are several LPTV stations with duplication of channels around the South Central PA area, that does help more people to get OTA TV, but there is no major networks except ABC 27 on these..

It didn’t help the FCC promised station owners a high ball amount that guaranteed they would enlist in the auction for a once in a life team deal. However, as the reverse auction played out, actual amounts went south of $1 million.

PBS in Phoenix went off the air recently. Rescanned but haven’t found it. Oh well.

My antenna is from 1999. This would be good for me lol. UHF signals dont go as far

We no longer get 3 or 4 stations now from the antenna, We can actually see the transmitters on South Mountain. Granted the wife does get some streaming services like Hulu. We should not have to do this just to see local TV.

here are two big culprits number one is the cable companies and TV stations themselves cable companies want free over-the-air TV to go away while the TV stations are making big bucks by charging the cable companies for a retransmission of thier broadcast signal . and the low-income to middle-class who can't afford streaming or cable are the ones being left out in the cold. yeah the fcc's being stupid okay yes they have the affordable connectivity program . but however they figure they can make money by selling two cell phone which also affect some over-the-air broadcast TV. I'm sure later on down the road they'll be killing over-the-air FM radio as well .

And that folks is why they say all bills have pork. TV effectively got neutered in 2012.

Low VHF isn't trash! In my area, Channels 4 and 5 had good analog reception back in the day.

Tyler will this Effect Reception??

Thanks! Your advice has been very helpful.

Tyler my question is Will this effect the reception ? Are we going to need a bigger Antenna 📡 ???

7 billion for *deficit* reduction means filling a hole in the budget in that year. They would have called it 'debt reduction' if it was expected to reduce the principal of the ever growing national debt.

I can’t find my ION channel it was there a couple of days ago & now it’s gone😢

Of all the networks listed. PBS was the last that I'd expect/should have been on this list.

What's happening to our TV stations I can't figure it out why so many changes going from uhf to low vhf it doesn't make sense to me

The analog shut off did nothing but punish the impoverished

It's sad that it's only about the money and TBN really proves that they don't care about God or people just money!!! Wake up people it's only your money 💰 they are worried about!!!

I see what you mean. Now I know why my over the air signal now suck. Where I live, 94070, KRCB PBS 22.1 and 22.2 is now RF channel 5. Way down in the VHF. I can hardly get a stable signal. This is the "Create" channel< 22.2 I use to tune into. Not so much anymore.

Tyler, thanks for your expertise and info. I've been struggling for some time trying to consistently get local channels and wondered why some channels just disappeared, like Fox and CBS. I bought into the BS of rescan frequently. With the best antenna available for my area, can I expect to get those channels and others back given the issues you explain with high, low VHF?

I lost my favorite channel 63-3 it had 24 hour fails and fear factor playing. I’ve never heard of the station before but I’m pretty sure it was called TBD.

I live 50 miles from chicago and reception is bad bad bad we are lucky now to get a few stations at all we use to get 72 channels no 24 hour channels at all. ABC and win are like 12 hours. The rest are shorter that that pbs Hartley at all.

when tv went digital, i lost EVERY tv station out of new orleans. the channels actually said how many customers would lose signal! i switched my antenna to the east and picked up a few channels out of mississippi. digital tv sucks! tmobile internet is not available where i live. they could sign up thousands of customers if they were here!

Oddly, WPRI is running fairly well on RF 7. I even pick them up rimshot on a UHF Channel Master 4221.

I watch more and more internet tv. Its sad. But like all the good stuff in life. Radio included. I'm glad I'm as old as i am. One day none of this will matter.

Greedy corporations, Soon nobody will get anything with tv antenna

I had decided to just quit using the antenna and let the local channels go. Local channels have the option to give us an app to watch their station if they want us to see it. Let me make this clear to all media companies, I am not paying for ad base television so you will simply go away now, so bye!

These are mostly city stations and there is no shortage of channels in the city, Chicago still has close to 100 stations, many transmitting the same thing on multiple frequencies.

Hello from Russia, thanks for the TV news

All the Major Networks.

Why did so many companies get bought out by cell phone companies?

The biggest problem with this decision is that it brought about the degradation of the EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM, which is supposed to be available for informing the public in the event that a natural disaster should hit an area of this country.

In the Chicago market, WWTO wasn't a loss at all, as the station was licensed to LaSalle Illinois, and being too far from Chicago, that they could not locate their signal in Chicago. The closest they might have been able to locate it, would have been Joliet Illinois. The station was between Chicago and Peoria, and would have been better serving the Peoria market, and not Chicago. This repack did impact a number of stations. Duopolies Univision, Fox, and NBC/ Telemundo just channel shared. Not sure why Univision channel shared with ABC WLS-TV, instead of placing WXFT-DT on sister station WGBO-DT. Sometimes the quality on WLS-TV is horrible. Fox placed WPWR-TV on WFLD, and the worst one is NBC, placing Telemundo on the NBC station's signal. This repack impacted WYIN in NW Indiana, because the repack has now prevented the station from moving their signal to Chicago, as they're on RF 17, and WBME-CD was moved to RF 17, and because of that station having Class A status, that station's signal is protected, and now makes it impossible for WYIN to relocate on their current channel. After learning that the City Colleges of Chicago decided to take WYCC off the air, WYIN wanted to find an affordable way to relocate their signal to Chicago, and become the second PBS station to serve those impacted by WYCC going off the air. Their mission was to still serve NW Indiana with programming for NW Indiana viewers, buy also wanted to tap into Chicago area viewers, especially in the northern suburbs, where the money is plentiful, but their current signal does not reach. The only reason WYIN did not locate in Chicago at the beginning of the digital transition, is because their plan was also to locate their analog signal as well, and under the spacing requirements for analog broadcast, the analog signal was required to be located on the Sears Tower, where channel 60 was located (this move was possible, after 55 moved from Pleasant Prairie to Franksville in Wisconsin, no longer being short spaced). The FCC approved the move for WYIN to relocate to the Sears Tower. They however was forced to back out, after learning that they could only afford to locate on the Sears Tower for just 1 year, then the rent was going to exceed their donations from the public and funds from various organizations, including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. WTTW and the original WYCC was glad the move didn't happen, as they tried to block the move, based off of the fact that these 2 had to buy PBS programming at full price, due to being licensed to Chicago, while WYIN is licensed to Gary Indiana, and gets discounts. The FCC denied WTTW and WYCC's request, because WYIN had been operating within the requirements for the license. So had the move happened, these 2 needed to complain to PBS instead. As for Milwaukee, the biggest complaint I can think of went to Milwaukee Area Technical College, for selling their UHF signal, and moving WMVT to sister station WMVS on RF 8. They also sold off their translator that was on UHF, that not everyone gets their VHF signal. Except for WIWN on RF 5, all other stations probably weren't impacted much. The exception would be those over 30 miles away, where Weigel decided to sell off the spectrum for WMLW, and put an SD version on sister station WDJT, and the HD version on the bandwidth of sister station WBME-CD, along with all subchannels (except for MeTV, and Start TV, which are also carried on WDJT)

Why would someone pay a tv station 100 million or more dollars to go off the air. What is in it for the buyer?

How much "out of pocket expense" when they move there channel or go from uhf to vhf....?

Taking payouts just like most politicians and certain doctors!

By giving up spectrum the signal will be worse? Or those stations going off air?

You should start reviewing antennas for cellular internet.

Where the hell was the SEC to investigate Dell's scam?

Hi Antenna Man….my antenna dilemma is ongoing.?I’ve got a Winegard HD7698P in my attic on the second floor. Living outside of Chicago near Joliet I’ve always had good reception. I’ve completely lost WTTW and everything else pixelates…help