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pghpooh
join:2003-03-05

pghpooh

Member

FM Radio over cable?

Just read a article in the local newspaper that the author in reply to a question said that some cable companies offer fm radio over the cable.
I gotta ask,,, does comcast do this???
Pghpooh

gar187er
I DID this for a living
join:2006-06-24
Seattle, WA

gar187er

Member

we had this back in the 80s....

smaller MSOs still do this.....however i would think you would be hard pressed to find a modern system that retransmits FM stations....
Barovelli
join:2002-04-03

Barovelli to pghpooh

Member

to pghpooh
In my city Comcast has localFM stations in the digital lineup.

hortnut
Huh?
join:2005-09-25
PDX Metro

hortnut to pghpooh

Member

to pghpooh
In Seattle/Tacoma area they do.

In Portland area, music was by genre.
dishrich
join:2006-05-12
Springfield, IL

1 edit

dishrich to pghpooh

Member

to pghpooh
Many cable systems did have such services; we did here as well. However, in about the mid 80's, when the retrans consent rules for CATV system were revised, part of those new rules required every cable system to obtain this for ANY OTA signals (NOT just TV stations) they retransmitted over their systems.

Since FM service was NOT a moneymaker for most cable systems (since SO many people were stealing it anyway...since it only required a splitter to connect to an FM tuner) & since it was going to require more administrative work to deal with the retrans rules, most systems simply dropped it altogether, & used the regained bandwidth for other services. Our system had added Digital Cable Radio (aka Music Choice) a few months before they dropped the FM stations, so obviously they pushed it as the replacement service. This was before digital cable & used a dedicated "DCR tuner" to receive the service, which was $10. When they did drop the FM service, they expanded the DCR lineup from 19 to 30 stations.

Obviously, FM service does still live on in some systems, though...
Joe12345678
join:2003-07-22
Des Plaines, IL

Joe12345678

Member

some systems also had HBO in stereo on cable FM back in the day.
dishrich
join:2006-05-12
Springfield, IL

dishrich

Member

Ours had HBO, Showtime, Disney, MTV, VH-1 & Nashville Net (now Spike TV) in FM stereo.

But when they took down the FM service, they added HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, MTV & VH-1 to the DCR lineup as digital stereo simulcast channels. You pressed a button on the DCR remote to switch it to simulcast mode, then you could cycle through the (5) available channels, which used the same channel #'s as they were on TV.
pghpooh
join:2003-03-05

pghpooh

Member

HI
Thanks for the info.