OCTOBER 30 UPDATE: Audio problem resolved.
After more than four months and a report to the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection (DATCP), Charter Spectrum finally identified the problem with Watertown TV's signal as an encoder problem on their end and installed a new one on September 29. Lisa Famularo, manager of the channel, reports that the audio is now better than ever.
Starting in late May, Watertown TV began receiving calls from residents about bad audio on the channel. “I started getting two or three complaints every day about the audio cutting out,” said Lisa Famularo, Media and Communications Director for the City of Watertown. “When the audio goes out every three to five seconds, it’s impossible to watch our channel’s programming. This will go on for maybe a week and then clear up. But then it happens again.”
After checking to be sure that the city was sending a clean signal to Charter, she emailed Charter on May 25. Mike Hill, Director of Government Affairs for Charter, responded two days later, explaining “we have some equipment issues on our end that will need to be replaced.” But despite follow up calls and emails, Watertown TV’s channel is still having problems and so is the City of Jefferson’s JPEG channel.
Famularo has been tracking complaints and now has a pretty long list of names. “Most of the callers are watching church services on Watertown TV and most of them don’t have the Internet,” said Famularo.
Frustrated by Charter’s inaction, a local church finally filed a complaint with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) on behalf of its congregants on August 29. Two days later the state agency called the church back and shortly after that, the church received a call from Charter, asking who specifically had been complaining. Not comfortable supplying the names of members of its congregation without permission, the church decided to say it was the City of Watertown.
Today, [September 6, 2022] Charter technicians are being dispatched to check the lines between the City of Watertown origination point and the company’s headend – where the signal connects to Charter’s system. “I’m crossing my fingers that the technicians figure it out,” said Famularo. “Having recurring reception problems for three months is far too long. The people I’ve been hearing from – some of them are just livid at this point.”
