I’m grateful to PBS for its coverage of the national conventions. Largely that’s because I couldn’t get any other live coverage.
I live in a somewhat remote area of Minnesota where I have no cable available, and only fringe coverage by Hughesnet satellite internet. Hughesnet probably has at least good streaming (though forget Skype or anything else interactive because of latency inherent in the necessary great distance of “stationary” satellites) in the more populated areas of the state because that’s where they focus the center of their satellite beam. Incidentally that’s also the area that has many other choices for internet service available, even competition between them. Out here even clouds and/or light rain shuts it down. Forget about Dishnet. I had their TV service for a year—not sure if I ever got all the way through a program without it breaking up. Hughes is also expensive and has onerous data caps and throttling.
Many years ago now, there was a long-running and largely volunteer driven campaign to build a big broadcasting tower in the Bemidji area for PBS. Many sites ranging over a wide area were investigated, and one just south of Blackduck on the edge of the Chippewa National Forest was chosen and it was built. Yeah, I know, the spelling. This gave a us very solid strong signal to a very wide area including mine. Studios are on the Bemidji State University Campus on the shore of Lake Bemidji. Call letters are KAWE. Minnesota Public Radio also has studios, and broadcasts from the same towers. Since the switch to digital television I now get 5 strong PBS channels and actual HD (cd quality) music programming as well as MPR news and information programming. Yea!
Throughout the conventions I followed along on dkos (when it wasn’t raining), read the exhortations to go to cspan, to go to the “official” DNC feed, and other good suggestions, none of which would work. So I watched the somewhat limited coverage on PBS. I also receive a solid signal from WCCO TV from the Twin Cities, a CBS affiliate rebroadcast out of Walker, but I never found any convention coverage ‘til the last night when PBS cut off well before the end of Hillary’s speech. I got to see the end from CBS.
I’ve long had respect for many PBS news people, and way back when, Judy Woodruff was my Mom’s favorite on that morning show when Judy was in her bloom. But I was so frustrated by their persistence in yammering away through such a high percentage of the DNC coverage that I became very resentful of it. Hey, if they’d just let me listen to the speeches I wouldn’t need anyone to tell me what they just said!
MnPost is reporting today that Minnesota was blessed with a higher than usual presence in the convention. I did get to see Franken and Silverman’s somewhat comic attempt to calm the Sanders supporters, but I missed Franken’s speech, (perhaps I was scanning dkos, which I did when I could no longer tolerate the pointless yammering), they totally talked over Sen. Amy Klobuchar, I missed Gov. Mark Dayton, Rep. Keith Ellison, and State Rep. Peggy Flanagan all of whom spoke on the main stage. Maybe I wasn’t attentive enough. I feel that I missed many other good speeches they didn’t deign to broadcast.
My message: Support Rural Broadband!
