Tribune and Comcast: What's The Deal With Manhattan?

WGN America has a new limited series called "Manhattan," about the development of the nuclear bomb in World War II (The Manhattan Project). It's been getting buzz and good reviews.

But Comcast doesn't carry WGN America.

PHL17 ran the first episode last Sunday but apparently they are not running any more episodes.

Thanks a lot.

Anybody know why Comcast decided not to carry WGN America in the first place?

But it's especially irritating that they would put only one episode on their local sister station to tease people and then not carry the rest when the largest cable company in the region has it blacked out. That makes no sense. Either carry it all or don't carry any of it.

Well you know how these things work. They're trying to find ways to pressure Comcast to carry the channel. If enough customers complain, maybe Comcast will ignore the fact that WGN America has been basically a waste of space for the past 20 years or so.

New management at Tribune has realized they have a cable channel that could do more original programming, which is what they used to do before bankruptcy. The fact that Tribune owns a TV station in Comcast's home town is also interesting.

Ever try to complain to the cable company? Remember those ads, "Call your cable or satellite provider." Voice menus that can put you in a perpetual loop. Wait times of 30 or 45 minutes. And those sales reps who barely speak English and get bonuses for not letting you cancel. Who is going to complain to the cable company, except maybe Julius?

Tribune has had PHL17 for some time - before Comcast was the behemoth it is now, when other companies had much of the city of Philadelphia and most of the 'burbs.

I have Verizon FiOS, and WGN America is on Channel 8 there. So I may get to see more of "Manhattan."

FredLeonard said:

Ever try to complain to the cable company? Remember those ads, "Call your cable or satellite provider." Voice menus that can put you in a perpetual loop. Wait times of 30 or 45 minutes. And those sales reps who barely speak English and get bonuses for not letting you cancel. Who is going to complain to the cable company, except maybe Julius?

Tribune has had PHL17 for some time - before Comcast was the behemoth it is now, when other companies had much of the city of Philadelphia and most of the 'burbs.

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They could get interested customers to switch out of Comcast to Fios or satellite. It's a stretch - just for one show.

Comcast in the Philadelphia market on many systems has avoided carrying WGN America for years. Most likely because Comcast just viewed it as a Matlock and In the Heat of the Night, Funniest Home Video rerun station with Chicago newscasts. It's 2014 not 1991 but WGN America still is a time warp to that era.

Oddly Comcast in the Baltimore market has carried this channel for years market wide there.

It's one of those things: if it's been carried, Comcast won't drop it, but Comcast won't add it either.

I think Tribune needs more leverage. They need to buy up some more big 4 network affiliates across the country and then the next round of retransmission, get Comcast to agree to carry WGN America more nationwide.

Or, pump out more original shows to WGN America, that become critically acclaimed, that Comcast is inclined to add it. They're in between a rock and hard place because they likely can't charge what TBS and TNT are charging for their programming fee but a lot of original programming will be expensive.

Maybe it could offer news programming and then do what Bloomberg did. Go the legal avenue to make Comcast carry it. I think in that case, Bloomberg made the connection of rival CNBC being owned Comcast, and it was about channel placement as well.

I actually used to call Comcast or was it Garden State Cable at the time every day to carry Fox News Channel. They picked up MSNBC right away but not FNC. I really wanted to watch The FNC coverage of the Bush/Gore election being a member of the GOP. At the time FNC's rating were exploding and Comcast wasn't carrying it. Comcast was also much smaller than they are now. Anyway, I switched to the Baby Bell and now I have WGN America & The Comcast Network in HD on my FiOS.

ding12 said:

Or, pump out more original shows to WGN America, that become critically acclaimed, that Comcast is inclined to add it. They're in between a rock and hard place because they likely can't charge what TBS and TNT are charging for their programming fee but a lot of original programming will be expensive.

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I think this is the direction they're heading. Tribune once syndicated a lot of original programming, but left WGN alone. Now they recognize that there is no need for superstations any more. So "Manhattan" is one of the first of their original dramas.

Comcast (Xfinity) has both Manhattan and Salem available On Demand....Go to On Demand...select TV Shows..then find the shows under the alphabetical listings
The shows are available the day after the original showing...and you may be able to fast forward

I discovered Manhattan in the "On Demand" section, thanks. It's also on Hulu Plus.

Now, the question becomes, why would Tribune let a cable system that does not carry WGN America have its programming in On Demand?

For the record, I miss the days of Superstations when cable had channels from New York, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles with local news, local shows and local spots. SynFin killed all that.