Unhappiness is a staticky TV.

The switch from analog to digital has many TV viewers suffering through some unanticipated pain
this week. Check out these articles on antenna and power supply problems at UNC-TV and also at WTVD (ABC), the two local stations who seem to be having the most trouble right now.

If the information there doesn't help you, try some of the numbers listed below. Or if you have information that might help other readers, leave it in the comment section.

Oh yeah, and double-rescan!

Since digital conversion was completed on Friday, June 12, some local UNC-TV viewers have still had problems picking up the public television channels, even with the requisite digital televisions and converter boxes.

Because of problems with a tower in Chatham County, the problems have been bad throughout the Triangle. Here's what happened.

Based FCC rules regarding the broadcast of profane language, UNC coach Roy Williams' timing was inadvertently impeccable. Meanwhile, Fox television stations and the FCC are awaiting a U.S. Supreme Court decision on their legal battle over the F-word.

More than a month has passed since an FCC official ordered Time Warner Cable to begin carrying the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network's programming on basic cable within 30 days.

As you might have guessed, TWC subscribers still can't get MASN. Time Warner, which had vowed to appeal the Oct. 30 decision by Monica Shah Desai, chief of the FCC's Media Bureau, indeed filed an appeal to the five-member Federal Communications Commission last week. The FCC has not specified how long it would take for the full commission to hear and rule on the case.

The bureau chief, backing the decisions of two separate arbitrators, ruled that Time Warner Cable had discriminated against the regional sports network by refusing to put it on an analog tier that most of the cable company's estimated 1.5 million North Carolina subscribers receive. TWC has offered to make MASN available on a more expensive digital sports tier.

MASN carries the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals, Major League Baseball's designated home teams for this market, and an extensive slate of college sports programming, including about 25 non-ACC college basketball games involving North Carolina teams such as UNC-Wilmington and Charlotte.

“TWC is flouting the law, the intent of the FCC and the will of their customers,” MASN spokesman Todd Webster says of the latest appeal.

The intent of the FCC may be what Time Warner and other cable companies are seeking to change.

According to a report last week by Multichannel News, which covers the cable television industry, Cablevision is pitching a plan that would bar programmers from demanding carriage that would reach a specified number of subscribers on a cable system, and that the FCC is listening.

“It has been the longstanding view of ... Cablevision that programmers should not be able to withhold their programming from cable, satellite and telco distributors unless it is carried in a designated tier. We believe that programming should be sold on a per-viewing-subscriber basis, and not be required to be distributed to all customers as a condition of carriage,” Cablevision said in a prepared statement published by Multichannel News.

Federal Communications Commission Mary Diamond says Time Warner Cable has 30 days to appeal a ruling in the MASN case to the full, five-member commission. But Diamond couldn't say how long the appeal would take once it is filed.

TWC is continuing its fight despite FCC Media Bureau Chief Monica Shah Desai's order on Thursday that the cable TV company put MASN on a standard analog tier within 30 days. The FCC official backed two previous rulings by arbitrators that Time Warner has unlawfully discriminated against MASN, which carries the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals.

The Federal Communications Commission has denied an appeal by Time Warner Cable and ordered the cable television company to begin carrying the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network on a basic analog tier within 30 days.

Or, "in time for college basketball season," MASN spokesman Todd Webster says.

But TWC isn't giving up in its long dispute with MASN. The company issued a one-sentence response when informed of the FCC's Media Bureau's decision: "We disagree with the Media Bureau's decision and plan to appeal to the full commission."

MASN carries Major League Baseball's Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals, as well as college football, basketball and other sports. Under MLB's territorial rights map, the Triangle is Orioles and Nationals territory, so during the course of this dispute, cable customers have been unable to watch those games.

But Time Warner has argued that teams so far away from this market would not interest all of its huge basic cable audience and that MASN thus should be made available to subscribers willing to pay extra for a digital sports tier.

Two arbitrators have ruled that Time Warner Cable has discriminated against MASN, an independent regional sports network, and TWC had filed a "petition for review" with the FCC. FCC Media Bureau Chief Monica Shah Desai's denial came today.