Salem TV Station KWVT Goes Digital

Today, KWVT makes history as Salem's first truly local TV station to broadcast a digital signal.

(SALEM, Ore.) - KWVT began as the vision of two local individuals who knew Salem needed its own local television station. “We kept hearing about everything the Mid Valley has to offer, and realized there needed to be a way to get the word out,” says co-owner Michael Mattson. “As longtime residents of the area, we knew the Portland stations were ignoring Salem.”

“Another reason is that during the ’96 floods, all the Portland stations were focused on the sea wall in Portland and creating all this hype about what could happen if it didn't hold, yet at the same time, we had real flooding in Keizer,” added Ken Lewetag.

Lewetag and Mattson were experienced in various aspects of broadcasting, and when the Federal Communications Commission opened an opportunity to file for new TV stations in August of 2000, the men each filed several applications for various communities around Oregon. Nearly five years later they signed on their first Salem Station on channel 52. In the summer of 2007 they signed-on their channel 17, moving programming from Channel 52 which was sold about one month later. The sale provided the duo with funds to buy new transmitters and to build a High Definition production truck.

Mattson says, “Although KWVT can continue broadcasting analog, the Full Power TV stations are required to turn off their analog transmitters in February. We knew we would need a digital channel in order to continue to be seen by many of the TV viewers as they install their digital converter boxes. At the same time, we also knew there would be some viewers who are not ready for the digital transition.” In the coming months, KWVT will continue broadcasting analog on channel 17 while the new facility will transmit digitally.

Viewers who wish to watch the digital channel will likely have to rescan the channels in order to tune to the station. The digital channel should have better coverage south, but not as far north as the analog channel. This should be good for viewers in South Salem, where the analog signal is a bit weak. For viewers in Woodburn and Newberg, the DTV signal will be weaker. An independent engineering analysis of the coverage showed that over 94% of households in Marion and Polk counties have the potential to receive KWVT’s analog signal. “Adding the DTV channel will expand our overall coverage,” said Mattson.

“There’s a lot of misinformation and confusion about the digital transition,” says Mattson. “There seems to be this idea that TV viewers all subscribe to cable or satellite. This simply isn’t true. Most cable providers are losing customers. Some are switching to satellite, but many also realize that DTV stations have the ability to provide superior quality as well as additional ‘subchannels’. As an example, Some stations have High Definition channel as well as standard definition channels. Cable and Satellite viewers are not able to watch the programming on many of these additional channels.”

KWVT airs mostly sports programming in the evenings, but a wide variety of programming the rest of the time. There are also plans for more locally produced programming. KWVT plans to add another program channel to its digital station, a movie channel - mostly classic movies but some newer ones as well.

KWVT’s owners have also been granted permits for the Albany and Eugene areas. Mattson says the time frame for constructing these stations is uncertain. “The goal is to have our Eugene station on the air before the end of the year, but it’s impossible to know if the weather will allow it. The site still had snow and ice preventing tower work until mid May this year.” Construction can’t begin until the transmitter and antennas arrive, about six weeks from now.