CCC Cable announced today two new changes that have been made to better serve Basic Cable subscribers in Drew and Bradley counties:
1: KARK-4, the NBC station from Little Rock, will replace KTVE10 from Monroe. It will continue on KTVE’s former channel location, 10 in Basic and 210 or 10-1 in High Definition. CCC subscribers have been requesting KARK for many years, however signal interference from of a station in Mississippi has made it impossible to receive KARK over the air at the Monticello, AR headend facility.
2: Major mprovements to broadcast station signal have been made.
Today, CCC cable announced a partnership with The Media Gateway of Little Rock, to receive the The “Big 4” broadcast stations, KATV-ABC, KTHV-CBS, KARK-NBC and KLRT-FOX, through a fiber optic connection. This eliminates the interference issues affect the over the air digital broadcast stations and brings a much more reliable product to cable customers and will continue to operate during thunderstorms.
Since 1972, broadcast stations have been primarily received to cable headends over the air using towers and commercial receivers. CCC Cable has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years erecting a 350’ tower and upgrading antennas to receive the best possible signal from the Little Rock TV stations. Even still, because of the 120 mile distance, the analog broadcast stations were subject to interference by other distant stations, atmospheric conditions, and electrical interference. In 2009, the FCC mandated all broadcast stations ceased analog broadcast, and begin broadcasting in digital. When this happened, KARK of Little Rock and WABG of Greenville, MS were both assigned the same UHF channel to broadcast on, causing KARK4 to go dark for much of Southeast Arkansas.
Even with the better picture that came with digital, the same interference issues that plagued analog broadcast were worsened in the digital format, resulting in channels being unviewable when affected. CCC Cable, in an effort to make broadcast more reliable entered an agreement with Echostar to bring broadcast stations through their commercial satellite services. Unfortunately, as those who subscribe to satellite services such as DirecTV and Dish network regularly experience, satellite technology is affected by rain fade and heavy clouds.
CCC Cable is proud to be a local provider of Cable TV, Internet and telephone service for residential and business customers. CCC’s Customer Service can be reached at 800-272-2191 should you have any questions regarding these changes. An updated lineup can be viewed at www.ccc-cable.net.