Basically, I sat my high ass down to watch OTA TV. I get only two main channels (ABC and NBC) and their affiliates, which share their respective main channel. Turned the TV on at like 10:45 pm CST, zoned out on my phone, looked up around 11:20 (when I started recording) and there was still seemingly not a feed, just a darkish gray picture. Changed channels, sister stations came in fine, showed normal programming. Went back to ABC and then NBC, both the same level of flat gray picture. Not fully black like there was no signal, but a maybe 75-80% dark gray.
If there were weather or atmospheric interference, it's my understanding that all of the channels would drop out or at the very least, struggle to produce a picture simultaneously. This was night and day. A complete (not black) blackout on 13.1 ABC, and perfectly fine on 13.4 True Crime Network and the other handful. Same with 46.1 NBC; it was "out" but all the affiliates work.
Wtf right? This doesn't seem incidental, or accidental.
I genuinely think the networks or some interloper blocked viewers from seeing the late night shows. Why? Maybe the ongoing latenight feud is just a convenient scapegoat and it's particularly because of the absolute slam-dunk job Mamdani did at making Trump docile to him today. The powers that be are strangling each other not to let casual socialism breach the mainstream with Trump's hearty support and don't want those utterly dumbfounding, amazing moments to be lauded by late night hosts and further spread than they already hopefully have been.
Yes, I did record this for 5 minutes and it contains some interesting commentary because, yes, I'm high. I also recorded shortly after the picture returned in a perfect feed of the very last songs of whatever band was playing on Kimmel. This was around 11:34 pm CST.
Did anyone else witness this? And can I send this video to anyone who would care about checking into how limited or widespread it could be? I could attach a short clip if needed, just hesitant about identifying data.
Again, high. But with video evidence.
I live in LA and just checked my TV after reading your post. Colbert, Kimmel and Fallon are all playing as usual (it's 11:45 here). But they're all reruns from earlier this month. That's probably normal on a Friday, just like The Daily Show doesn't even run on Fridays. The networks have hope for you having a social life on Fridays.
So, maybe your local stations did do a blackout, but you're not missing out on Trump blowing Mamdani. Maybe SNL tomorrow would be good for that.
Thank you for checking! Knowing it was just reruns on the Big Three for those lacking a social life is a certain flavor of relief.
Assuming it was a local "grayout" on the two subchannels coming from different transmitters, could it be a limited testing of the waters for possible public response? OTA watchers would probably report a lack of feed less than someone who subscribes to a wired (cable, internet) service because one assumes OTA has less reliable reception, and it's also free. But in this case, the other subchannels being on air tells me it's not a typical reception issue.
It's easy to handwave this away as an abberation, but it's still disconcerting.