It seems years and years ago that we were fumbling with converter boxes and people were fretting about not being able to watch TV after we fell off the precipice into the digital transition.
Actually, it was just a year ago, June 12, and the fact that nobody's talking about it shows that the transition happened pretty painlessly.
Frankly, most people don't watch TV over the air. The vast majority watch cable or some other pay-TV service, and they were unaffected by the transition.
While it's not tied to the one-year anniversary of the digital transition, it seems apropos that Channel 58 has completed a technical upgrade allowing it to air syndicated programs in high definition starting today.
You'll need the right equipment and TV service to get high definition. That means if you're watching on analog cable or with a digital converter, you won't see HD.
But a year after the conversion, you already know that.
The weekday shows that will now be available in HD are "The Insider" at noon, "Dr. Oz" at 3 p.m., "Ellen" at 2 p.m., "Jeopardy!' at 6, and "Wheel of Fortune" at 6:30. Those two game shows also air at 6 p.m. Saturdays.
"CSI: Miami" airs in HD at 10:35 Saturdays, "Lost" at 1:35 a.m. Saturday night/Sunday morning, "Insider Weekend" at 11:05 p.m. Sunday and "Boston Legal" at 12:35 a.m. Sunday night/Monday morning.
And, anticipating your next question, there's no word when Channel 58 (or Channel 12, for that matter), will launch HD local newscasts.
A continuing Chicago radio shuffle: If you're a listener to Chicago's WGN-AM (720), 1 to 3 p.m. host Steve Cochran posted on his Facebook page over the weekend that he expects to be gone by the end of the month.
He writes: "Thanks to everybody for all the support. As of now I don't believe I will be on wgn beyond 6/30."
There's been talk for a while that Cochran's days were numbered at WGN. And while he hasn't confirmed it, there's also talk that John Williams will be losing that 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. shift.
Williams is already doing a 1 to 3 p.m. show on Minneapolis' WCCO-AM from his studio at WGN.
WGN has announced the hiring of talker Mike McConnell from Cincinnati's WLW-AM, but his hours haven't been scheduled.
"Futurama" in the near future: "Futurama" is returning with new episodes June 24, and Comedy Central has released a preview:
| Preview - Interstellar Fugitives | ||||
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Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
