June Q&A with Jim & Travis
Our Chief Programming Officer Jim Wiener gets asked a LOT of questions, not just by us, but by all of you as well. Once in a while, he likes to sit down and pick a few particularly special questions and answer them for everyone to see. Here is Jim’s latest Q&A with you, the viewers, featuring an appearance from our Chief Engineer, Travis Fultz.
“Is the program Humanity from Space available on the CET streaming channel? If so, can you tell me how to find it? If not available, why not? Trying to watch a two-hour movie on my laptop or mobile device is uncomfortable. Also, I thought Passport membership allowed access to all programs on any device and the streaming channel is the ideal place for a two hour movie.”
-Wayne A., Hamilton
Humanity from Space came out in February 2016 and has a similar theme to the Human Footprint series coming this July, namely humans as the dominant species on earth, and their effect on the environment. Humanity is available on Passport nationwide, as is any PBS program with current broadcast rights (just remember: once a PBS special or series has expired rights, they expire as well on Passport).
Passport membership allows you to watch PBS programs, but also thousands of hours of “how-to’s” from American Public Television (e.g. cooking series like America’s Test Kitchen or Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Station).
What Passport can NOT provide are non-PBS programs, local acquisitions like Carol Burnett, Father Brown, Foyle’s War or Midsomer Murders, or PBS series long out of rights like Cosmos, I, Claudius, or Ken Burns’ Civil War or Baseball.
And viewers can watch their local PBS station on its streaming channel, but remember that they’re “geo-fenced.” So you’ll get ThinkTV16 in the greater Dayton area and CET 48 in the Cincinnati area. But drive to Columbus, and you’ll receive WOSU. Doesn’t really matter if you need to watch Antiques Roadshow on Monday night at 8, or NOVA on Wednesday 9pm. But if it’s Saturday night at 8, you’ll get:
Keeping Up Appearances in Columbus
Carol Burnett in Cincinnati
Help! We Just Bought A Village in Dayton.
-Jim Wiener, Programmer
“We no longer receive Channel 16? What happened? We live in Mercer County and received 16 over the air with an antenna. We rescanned our set about a year ago, but now the channel number skip from 8.2 to 26.1.”
-Barbara K., Carthagena
Thanks for that information. We have a transmitter up there that died and are waiting on it to be repaired. The company that makes them gave us a loaner but it is a smaller less powerful unit. You may attempt a rescan and adjust your antenna direction a little bit at a time and repeat until it locks on.
We are also hopeful the main unit will be repaired and returned to us shortly.
-Travis Fultz, Chief Engineer
“Last night, you showed two hours straight of Antiques Roadshow instead of the nationally advertised, and usually scheduled, episode of Frontline on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Why did that program not air? Did the public television station get political pressure not to show it?”
-Marian S., Cincinnati
I’d like to say we resisted all political pressure. But in truth, you simply had your days mixed up.
The “last night” referenced was Monday, May 8th, our usual night for Antiques Roadshow. Thankfully, the 2-hour Frontline titled “Clarence and Ginni Thomas: Politics, Power and the Supreme Court” aired Tuesday at 9pm (May 9th), more than 8 hours after you wrote us.
Tragedy averted!
-J.W.
“On Saturday, May 5, 2023 I was expecting to watch episode #4107 of Fons & Porter’s Love of Quilting on WCET 48 at 8:00am and instead the coronation of King Charles III was shown. I looked in my Spectrum guide for all the PBS channels in the Dayton area for the remainder of May 5 and all day May 6 and did not see where this episode would be shown.
I assumed then that this episode would be shown the following Saturday, but it was instead #4108.
It’s as if you skipped the episode that was supposed to be shown on May 5.
Can you tell me when or if you will show episode 4107 of Fons & Porter Love of Quilting and on what channel it will be shown?”
-Linda V., Moraine
To say the addition of King Charles coronation was a last minute insertion would be an understatement. We received viewer calls for weeks assuming we would carry coverage. But while PBS maintained three weeks earlier that they were “this close” to securing a deal, their announcement of coverage wasn’t confirmed until four days before the event!
The Fons & Porter series has stand-alone episodes. It isn’t like Paint This where Jerry Yarnell takes five episodes to complete a painting, so missing an episode throws everything off. Rather than push episodes back and risk having incorrect cable guide listings, we moved the #4107 episode to the back of the bus. So you can now see it (aka “Petals on My Path”) on June 24 at 8am on CET 48.1.
Fons & Porter’s Love of Quilting also airs on Think 14.1 in Cincinnati Thursdays 9am, and on ThinkTV16.3 in Dayton on Saturdays 7:30am & 1:30pm.
-J.W.
