Wednesday, October 29, 2008

KXAN, Time Warner kiss and make up

Just in time for November sweeps, KXAN is back on Time Warner Cable’s lineup in Austin. Neither LIN TV Corp., KXAN’s warthog of a parent company, or Time Warner will reveal terms of the settlement that led to the local NBC affiliate’s reinstatement on cable channel 4 early this morning. LIN stations in 16 other markets have also returned to Time Warner lineups.

In the past month, I’ve missed having KXAN a total of one time, which was when Sarah Palin did her non-transformative cameo on Saturday Night Live. I already time-shift everything else I watch on NBC, so watching it online rather than via TiVo wasn’t such a sorry fate after all. In doing so, I discovered the hidden joys of Hulu, including full episodes of classic old chestnuts like Lost In Space, WKRP in Cincinnati and The White Shadow.

The one thing I regret is not yelling, “Hey, y’all still on the air?” as I drove past an unidentified KXAN reporter preparing to do a 6pm live spot outside the county courthouse a few days back. Then again, it wouldn’t have been funny to anyone on the planet but me and I derived almost as much enjoyment from the mere thought of yelling such a thing.

It’s called maturity, folks.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

And yelling at a reporter trying to do their job is your definition of maturity? Contract negotiations are pretty mature. Good thing we left it to the grown ups.

Anonymous said...

I didn't actually yell anything at anybody, Anonymous. I just thought about doing it and laughed on the inside. That was the mature part.

And just to be sure, it was the "grown ups" who screwed Austin TV viewers in the first place. Mature people don't turn contract negotiations into public pissing matches.