When Digital Trend Began in Bend

摘要

A B&C cover story late last month tout-ed newbie WMBF Myrtle Beach as what many believed to be the first fully digital, hi-def station built from the ground up. Not long after that issue dropped, B&C was alerted that an upstart in the No. 192 Nielsen DMA had, in fact, launched a fully digital station a year earlier. "The station is completely tapeless and HD, from ENG to broadcast," wrote former KOHD Bend (Ore.) technical director Rion Seick, who concluded: "There is more to the TV world than just the top 100 markets and those of us in the smaller sectors of the business are still able to do great things...." KOHD launched September 27, 2007, out of its 11,000-square-foot facility in northeast Bend. (The station had rebroadcast the signal from sibling KEZI Eugene on a digital channel for about a year before that.) KOHD is part of Chambers Communications. President Scott Chambers says the strength of KEZI, which built what he calls "one of the most sophisticated media facilities, probably in the world," back in 1998, paved the way for the KOHD launch. KEZI, located a little over a hundred miles west of Bend, central casts all but the KOHD local programming. (Both are ABC affiliates.)