And so it begins

Welcome to Jackson TV News, a blog/website dedicated specifically to local television stations serving the Jackson, MS television market and the pay television content providers serving the Jackson metropolitan area.

Before I introduce the website, I’d like to introduce myself – sort of. Though I was born in, grew up in, and have lived my entire life in the southeastern United States, I’m actually a bit of a newcomer to the state of Mississippi. In fact, I never really planned to move to the state of Mississippi. So how on Earth did I end up here? You see, remaining with my present employer meant that I would have to be transferred to another location. Because I’ve always really enjoyed my job, I was more than willing to make the move. And thankfully, I had some options as to where I’d be transplanting myself. Given the options presented to me, Jackson seemed like the best fit. After all, it isn’t that far away from where I came, and the metro area is fairly similar (at least size-wise) to my hometown. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect out of the Jackson area (and Mississippi, in general), but I’m here to say I’ve been very pleasantly surprised. I presently reside in Rankin County, and the people here are some of the friendliest folks I’ve ever encountered.

So you have to be wondering – what makes a newcomer like me think I know enough about the area to run a website about the local television stations?

To quickly set aside one potential explanation, no, I don’t work in television. I am not an insider. All I am is a television fan. As far back as I can remember, I’ve been interested in TV, what’s available on TV, how it’s distributed, and so on. Anytime I was along for a visit to the grocery store as a child, I remember looking forward to our trip through the check out line. Not just because it meant we finally were about to leave. Nope. I was eager to grab a copy of TV Guide off the shelf so I could browse through the programming guide and look at which TV stations were in it. And if we were ever on vacation, that was a real bonus, because I could see the different local TV stations available in different parts of the country. The other thing I looked forward to was Friday newspapers. The Friday edition of my local paper had the special TV section. It listed all of the channels in the guide, all of the local cable providers, and the channel number where all of these stations were located on those providers. I’m not sure what I could have ever done with that information back then, but for some reason, it was interesting to me.

Needless to say, the Internet has changed the way we receive information, including information about TV stations. Things that I used to scrap together from the newspaper and various local editions of TV Guide are now readily available on several websites.

So once again, you have to be wondering – what makes a newcomer like me who has no inside knowledge of television or any of the Jackson television stations think he has anything unique to offer people in the Jackson area?

Here’s the deal. When I was getting ready to move here, I spent quite a bit of time looking for information about which provider would be best for me – price-wise, and selection-wise. Now there are quite a few websites that allow you to plug in your zip code and receive a list of channels and channel numbers from that provider. But a lot of times, those websites leave something to be desired. First of all, there’s no easy way to compare what stations one provider has versus another provider. Sure, you can flip back and forth between different ones and manually figure it out, but that can get a little time consuming. Then I had more questions. What channel is that supposed to be an abbreviation for? Is that channel available in HD? Is that channel available full time?

All of these questions meant that I had to spend quite a bit of time digging up information from the various providers’ websites. And even then, things weren’t crystal clear. Comcast provides a listing of prices and packages. But when you go to the channel listing, the package names change completely. Which package name matches up with which? I had to contact customer support. With Dish Network, I couldn’t find any definitive information about their multitude of part-time HD sports channels. Being a big sports fan, I really preferred to have my local RSN in HD 24/7. Having already spent a considerable amount of time with DirecTV at my previous location, I was already familiar with the various nuances of their programming and marketing. As it turns out, my apartment faces anything but south, and my lease agreement left me with no choice but to hook up the cable. But that’s another blog post…

Once I had been here a while, I began to explore some of the local TV stations. I was already receiving them via cable, but being the nerd I am, I had to hook up an antenna to see what I could pick up the old-fashioned way. With an indoor antenna, the answer to that was…virtually nothing.  Thankfully outdoor reception proved to be much better. There is good technical information about the local TV stations available from the RabbitEars website and from the FCC. Wikipedia also offers a wealth of information about Jackson TV stations.

So I’m saying all of these things to say just one thing. The purpose of this site isn’t to provide any new or groundbreaking information. Maybe it will start being that someday. But for now, this site is all about organizing local television information for Jackson area residents. I will definitely need the help of you – the locals – to keep the information up-to-date and to fill in any holes in my information.

Questions, comments, suggestions, and constructive criticisms are all welcome. You can do so by commenting on individual posts, emailing me at jacksontvnews – at – gmail.com, or sending us a message on Twitter (@jacksontvnews). If things take off well enough, we may explore additional avenues of communication.

Thanks for visiting!

Your humble, and for now anonymous, webmaster