CanCon In The US: CBS News Report On Canadian Banks On WROC!

During a recent burst of Rochester, NY reception (with a dash of Erie, PA) on April 23, 2009, I stumbled across a CBS News report on 8-1 WROC trumpeting the fact that Canadian banks are doing much better than the ones in the US right now. They focused on Bay Street and talked to people from TD and Bank Of Montreal (the latter is my bank...heh...) They also flashed Scotiabank on screen at one point and I was excited because one of my close friends works there! So yay for Canada getting props on their ability to maintain their banking system!

Reception Reports: Return Of Rochester! (April 13, 2009) Part 2

Last Monday (April 13, 2009) I experienced another "big burst" of Rochester! It started off a little after 7:30pm with WXXI and eventually all Rochester digitals came in as the night went on. This is Part 2 documenting the "Return Of Rochester" at my home on April 13, 2009! (Click here if you missed Part 1.) So sit back, and imagine you're on a personally guided "channel surf" through all the Rochester stations with me! This entry picks up a bit after 2am.

So I was continuing my antenna surfing, and was watching 31-1 WUHF Fox Rochester, and noticed that they air a lot of Public Service Announcements. The one captured below is for the Shriners Hospital For Children.


Meanwhile, 10-1 WHEC was running Poker After Dark (after they skipped Carson Daly to air an infomercial.) I remember the days in the late 80s and early 90s when the Rochester affiliates would do a better job following the network schedule than the Buffalo stations!

I flipped back to 31-1 WUHF just in time to catch this totally over the top Diva glare from an actress known simply as "Sicily". (Pause for an Estelle Getty flashback.) Sicily stars on the sitcom One On One.

In my last Rochester report, I noticed that Fox Rochester sponsors a "Green Student Of The Month." The ad below features the current student of the month, Khari Thompson.

At this point, 13-1 WHAM and 13-2 CW-WHAM started to drift in, though they were rife with pixellation at first, as you can see in the pic below of Divorce Court on 13-2 CW-WHAM.

In the last Rochester report, I was surprised to see a hilarious Trojan commercial for a "fingertip massager" pop up on 31-1 WUHF. Here is the same commercial making an appearance as 8-1 WROC's signal begins to come in!


And there was more PSA fun with Fox 31! This time Sean Astin promotes the Boys Town National Hotline. (This was funny to me, because one of my close friends visited a totally different type of "Boys Town" in Chicago recently.)


Then it was time for Bernie Mac to pop up on 31-1 WUHF!


Over on 10-2 WHEC-DT, they were running a promo for Live With Regis And Kelly as the Buffalo weather popped up on screen.


I was checking off and on to see if I was picking up any other digital stations that I don't regularly get and found 26-1 / 26-2 WNYB from Jamestown, NY coming in! (Though technically not a Rochester station, it is pretty far away, and it's Lucille Ball's hometown!) Watching TCT is sort of a guilty pleasure for me. I don't like making fun of religion, per se, but the wacky way that TCT tries to get across their messages can be pop culture gold. (One episode of "Rejoice" showed pringles on people's shoulders to represent the "chips on your shoulder" that hold you back in life!)


Check out the Britney Spears' type wireless mic the host is rockin' in the pic below, along with the futuristic set of TCT Today!


I'm guessing the host below (on Rejoice) is trying to explain that you need to get "plugged in" to the Bible? (This is one of the examples of their "literal" metaphors!)


Then, over on 21-1 WXXI, Scott Fybush is there to help us get "plugged in" to digital television in a "DTV Minute" on the station.


It's now 4am, and 10-1 WHEC finally gets around to showing Last Call With Carson Daly.


Meanwhile, over on 31-1 WUHF, the George Lopez show features special guest star Jerry Springer.



On 13-1 WHAM, ABC World News Now was covering the big story that day, which was about the American captain being rescued from sea pirates.


And over on 8-1 WROC, they wanted to let us know that CBS Cares! (Followed by another CBS Cares ad for Ed Equity.)


When 5am rolled around, I was bleary eyed but determined to get shots of 8-1 WROC's morning newscast (which had eluded me during the last "Big Burst of Rochester.") Of course that's precisely when the signal got shaky and started pixellating again.


The signal started to get steadier again as the newscast progressed, and they covered a story about ATM scams.


Then, while surfing around, I checked out WPXJ, Channel 51 from Batavia, NY. I was getting a strong analog signal, with some multipathing, and they were showing an atrocious infomercial for something called "ExtenZe" in the guise of a talk show called "Sex Talk." Take four of the most vapid women you can round up, get them talking about male "size" in the most juvenile and catty manner possible, then flash to a handsome doctor who explains that ExtenZe can help you with your problems and roll out the phone number!


I needed to cleanse my pop culture palette after that trashy infomercial, and so I found my recently discovered sitcom gem Half & Half over on 31-1 WUHF!


During commercial breaks on Half & Half I channel surfed and saw this wacky stage performance over on 21-2 WXXI-W (PBS World cuts over to Classic Arts Showcase programming for 6 hours at 12am each night.) This featured a Shirley Temple-esque girl surrounded by GIANT creepy doll-like replicas of herself dancing around at left. Strangely mesmerizing stuff, especially at 5:25 in the morning.


Back on 31-1 WUHF, I caught a commercial for a contest to win tickets to the circus, and saw that it was sponsored by both WUHF and WROC! After doing some digging (coughWikipediacough) I found out that they are, indeed, sister stations and both have ties to the well promoted Rochester Homepage.


At 5:30, WUHF ran another episode of Half & Half. My Reception Report wouldn't be complete without at least one Diva glare from Telma Hopkins!


I also caught a commercial on WUHF promoting the top 7 contestants left on American Idol and I took pics of my three faves, Anoop, Allison, and Adam. (The Triple A, if you will.)


Below are a few pics from both 10-1 WHEC's News 10NBC Today, as well at 13-1 WHAM's 13WHAM News This Morning.


I love the shot of WHEC's Rebecca Leclair below, where her expression reads "Ugh, I'm so done with taxes, aren't you?" The snap after this shows off the WHEC web address.


Take a look at the stock market name at the bottom of the pic below. Harris Corp is a company I'd invest in Annie-time (inside joke....)


When 10-1 WHEC got to their weather report, I was quite excited to see Toronto prominently represented on their map! Whoo!


If you've got a birthday announcement and want it to show up on 13-1 WHAM, make note of the addresses below.


8-1 WROC, like many other stations at this time, promotes that the DTV Transition will be taking place June 12, 2009.

13-1 WHAM does a live interview at Dallywater's Tea Room And Art Gallery. Note the logo in the bottom right corner is for CW-WHAM. The logo alternates back and forth between 13 WHAM, and CW-WHAM during the show, as the newscast is carried on both stations.

Over on WROC, meteorologist Brian Neudorff gives the scoop on temperatures for the Lake Ontario towns just prior to the 6am newscast starting. (The second pic is from the start of the 6am newscast with a great shot of the WROC station ID with an 8 logo spinning in the background.)

I finally got a shot of the WROC weather map from their 6am newscast, and was once more excited to see Toronto get represented! (Along with a few other Canadian cities, including Barrie, Hamilton, Peterborough, and Kingston!)

I watched a bit more of WHEC's newscast before finally going to bed, and thought it was funny that their ticker was sponsored by Cellino & Barnes. They're everywhere in Western New York!!! I didn't really pay attention to the story about Rochester's gas prices, but recently read that Toronto's should be stable throughout the Summer.

And this concludes my report on the "Return Of Rochester" on April 13, 2009. Stay tuned to TV Garth for more Reception Reports in the future!