CD Voice | No shortage of Chinese TV on air in New York
When I decided I no longer wanted to pay nearly $200 a month for a cable package in New York, I was pleasantly surprised by the number of channels to be had on free TV.
No, you can't get ESPN or HBO, but for the price of a $20 (digital) antenna, you can get the major US networks and several channels that cover China.
I am able to receive China-focused channels such as CCTV (English and Spanish), ICNtv, and Sinovision English and Chinese.
They all offer a good mix of programming, with CCTV and Sinovision focusing on national and international news. ICN has news too, but also dramas and variety shows, and almost all of the channels provide some sort of English-Chinese language instruction, and vice versa, along with interesting travel features.
The free channels in Spanish even outnumber the ones in Chinese, as Spanish is the second-most spoken language in New York after English, followed by Chinese.
In fact, it was having New York-based Spanish channel Univision that enabled me to see that fantastic, curling free kick by the great Lionel Messi of Argentina on Tuesday night in the semifinals of the Copa America soccer tournament.
Unfortunately, that goal and Argentina's 4-0 victory came at the expense of the US squad.
I should add that because the reception of these channels depends on the strength of their signals on a given day, you may have a channel in your lineup one day, and it could be gone the next.
On an unrelated note, another free channel carries a network called Buzzr, which features old game shows. My favorite is What's My Line?, which was filmed mostly in Manhattan from 1950 to 1967, making it the longest-running prime-time network TV game show in the US.
Although the show changed format over the years, a main objective was for the sometimes blindfolded panel of intellectually curious celebrities to guess the identity of the guest.
The witty, urbane banter is terrific and funny. The guests ranged from those with ordinary (albeit interesting) occupations to famous people. Some "recent" celebrity guests were future US president Ronald Reagan, actor Tyrone Power and hotelier Conrad Hilton.
The show was hosted by the affable John Daly, a former radio reporter and war correspondent known for two historic broadcasts. As a reporter for the CBS Radio Network, Daly was the first national correspondent to deliver the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec 7, 1941, and also was the first to relay the wire service report of the death of US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on April 12, 1945.
In 2013, TV Guide ranked What's My Line? as No. 9 in its list of the 60 greatest game shows ever.
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