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This week's TV Q&A responds to questions about "Hotel Babylon," WTAE's 50th anniversary special and the font used in KDKA's graphics. Yes, really. As always, thanks for reading, and keep those questions coming.
-- Rob Owen, Post-Gazette TV editor
Q: Do you know if/when new episodes of "Hotel Babylon" will be coming on BBC America?
-- Diane, 45, Clairton
Rob: "Hotel Babylon" will be back sometime in 2009.
Q: I'm wondering if "Cash Cab" is out of production or if it will return to The Discovery Channel. It was a nice alternative to the dreary evening news.
-- Susan Ross, 62, Mt. Lebanon
Rob: Another season has been filmed, but it has not yet been scheduled.
Q: I watched WTAE's 50th Anniversary special last week and enjoyed it. (I have about half of their 25th Anniversary special on an old VHS tape, and always wished I had a recording of the whole thing.)
Watching the special raised a couple of questions and I'm hoping you might be able to find the answers. First, they had some pretty remarkable stuff, like the appearance of 12-year-old Christina Aguilera on Ann Devlin's show. It would be nice to see some of the archive made available to the public in some way, but maybe there isn't as much there as I would hope.
Second, I know some of the promotional material used over the years was created by ad agencies that sold a similar package to multiple markets, "Hello Pittsbugh" being a prime example. Were the promos featuring Don Cannon and Paul Long working perfectly together -- and also having an off day -- created locally, or did they follow a formula used in other markets? It was a clever and very memorable campaign.
-- Fred, 47, Wilkins Twp.
Rob: WTAE has Devlin's shows on tape, but there are no plans to release them on DVD or make them available to the public. More on another old show in the next question and answer.
WTAE general manager Rick Henry said the spots featuring Cannon and Long working together in sync were created within Hearst Broadcasting and not by an outside agency.
Q: I watched WTAE's anniversary special the other night, hoping to see Knish & Rodney with Hank Stohl. There was the briefest clip, but I was disappointed they weren't shown more. I remember them from my childhood -- I'm that old -- and would have liked to share them with my boys when they were growing up. With a grandchild on the way, I once again wish just a few of these shows were available. I thought I remembered a mention of a DVD being shown somewhere, but can't find the reference in the PG archives. Do you know if a Knish & Rodney DVD is available? Maybe WTAE could produce one as a fundraiser?
-- Janet, 57, Monroeville
Rob: WTAE has no plans for such a DVD release, and I'm not sure there would be much to put on it anyway. My understanding is many of those old shows were done live and not recorded.
In 2005 I reported on Stohl making a DVD of some sketches from the show available to a restaurant. And a retrospective on Pennsylvania kids shows did air on WQED last year.
Q: Why has WPXI not used the weather set -- are they updating it?
-- Jordan, 15, Imperial
Rob: WPXI news director Corrie Harding did not respond to several e-mails and phone calls, so I suspect the weather center may indeed be getting a makeover in time for the return of Julie Bologna, who's expected to begin on air at Channel 11 on Sept. 15, though she could show up sooner.
Q: This has been bothering me for a while now: What font does KDKA use?
-- Alex, 15, New Castle
Rob: What is it with these local news-obsessed teenagers? I'll admit, as a precocious, media-obsessed child, I did go through a local news phase, but I was done with it by age 12, moving on to the equally dorky pursuit of imagining myself as the next Steven Spielberg.
Anyway, the folks at KDKA were good-natured enough to entertain this inquiry and said the station uses "two font families" in newscasts: Square Extended and Square Bold Extended, as well as Swiss Bold and Swiss Condensed Bold.
Q: I keep hearing from the weathercaster that "we need the rain." WHY? We don't need the rain! The forecaster needs the rain so that he/she will have something to talk about! If it doesn't rain in Allegheny County the rivers will not go down or even dry up. We depend on the water falling in the Mon or Allegheny river basins. If you are too cheap to water your lawn, let it be brown. Pittsburgh doesn't NEED the rain. Besides we get enough or more than enough already!
-- Tom, over 60, Mt. Lebanon
Rob: Um, I think that's the point: If people don't want to water, we need to get rain, otherwise grass and plants and trees will dry up and possibly die. I'm no earth science expert, but my basic understanding is that without rain, there's a drought. And if the drought is severe enough, then the region runs out of the water you would expect to get out of the tap or out of your hose to water the lawn. That's probably not as big a concern here as it is in other parts of the country. But even if we're not in danger of a drought, allowing you to say that technically we don't "need" rain, why would it bother anyone to hear a forecaster use this common expression?
Q: I think you have tons of good information and insight, and I would like to read more from you. However, 97 percent of your reader questions are about Comcast and not about the television industry. Are you Comcast's media rep or something? Why don't your readers contact Comcast if they have questions and stop boring everyone else with their cable problems?
-- Dee, 48, Mt. Lebanon
Rob: Believe me, I sometimes ask myself that. But not always. You'll often see in these questions that the person has tried to get answers from Comcast and failed. So I'm sort of the pickle in the middle but not a media representative. (I'm critical of Comcast with some regularity, somthing a Comcast media rep would not do if he or she wanted to remain employed by Comcast.)
I can usually get Comcast to offer some response to viewer questions. I see it as a public service. Not my favorite part of the job but something that's useful. And I do try to screen out questions that are of value to only one individual.
That said, I'll tell Dee what I've told others who complain about Comcast queries: You don't have to read them. If the Comcast questions are of no interest, skip them as soon as you see the word "Comcast," just as you'd skip a question about a TV show that is of no interest to you.
• I wanted to follow up on your answer to "Jean, 58, Ross" about the Verizon FiOS TV channel changes. As of the Q&A posting date (8/29/08), the previous channels are no longer listed in the interactive on-screen media guide.
I checked to see if they had updated the listings since my last visit to their Web site the day of the lineup change. Going to http://www22.verizon.com/content/fiostv/channel+lineup/channel+lineup.htm and entering my zip code (15220) gave the correct lineup. If anyone's Pittsburgh-area zip code doesn't work, they can use 15220 and be sure to get the correct lineup.
If they want an easily printable version, they can go to the above link, scroll down the right-hand column and click on "Pittsburgh effective 8/6," which will download to their computers a .pdf file containing the channel lineup, which can then be printed out.
I'd like to point out that no matter what Verizon is saying about sending out the new lineup with the bill, we have not received one in our last two months' bills.
-- John, 49, Green Tree
• One reason the manufacturers are so slow to market a battery-operated digital TV is that another kind of portable TV is on its way: TV reception on mobile phones and other handheld devices.
Last spring, the two main competitors to manufacture the proprietary receiver chip for cell phones, etc., partnered to remove any remaining obstacles, and many predict that service will begin as early as next January, right before the Feb. 19th "digital transition."
The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) is scheduled to announce its "final (technical) standard" for mobile TV signals sometime next week.
Many local stations plan to merely simulcast their main signal on their "mobile" sub channel, but others may offer specialty programming, while still others may "lease" their mobile capacity to third party companies who will use it to supply mobile pay TV services. Here's one of my articles which contains more info.
-- Arthur Greenwald, Los Angeles
Rob: Thanks, Arthur.
He also pointed out that the day I filed the TV Q&A last week, a company called Winegard unveiled a $14.99 battery pack for its digital-to-analog converter box, freeing TVs "from the power grid in case of emergencies," according to Broadcasting & Cable.
