It has been said that when MeTV went widescreen that is when black bars started to appear on the sides for 95% of the shows. Now I get the black bars because my station is still showing it in 480p. If the station if showing it in standard definition 720p (perhaps this would be widescreen standard definition) would the black bars be gone?

My station is still using 480.

It has been said that when MeTV went widescreen that is when black bars started to appear on the sides for 95% of the shows. Now I get the black bars because my station is still showing it in 480p. If the station if showing it in standard definition 720p (perhaps this would be widescreen standard definition) would the black bars be gone?
Me-TV’s satellite feed broadcasts in 720p at 60fps. Black bars show up on 99% of their shows, exceptions being (to my knowledge) “In the Heat of the Night,” “Wonder Woman,” “Columbo,” and select movies that air during “Svengoolie”. There may be one or two others. Me-TV is broadcasting in a 14:9 ratio. My local station broadcasts the feed at its natural 720p60 resolution. Some local stations downgrade the feed to 480p and stretch the ratio to 4:3. I know of a local station in Tennessee that does this practice, named WAPK. It makes the show completely unwatchable, as they crop the show even more than what Me-TV does. It’s just horrendous.

Our station "stretches" it, which, with an HD cable box, results in a squeezed look
(which is counterintuitive). For SD shows, with an SD cable box, they are "zoomed in" and most look pretty bad (depending on the shot you get chopped off heads, etc.).

I'd still rather see this than the vertical black bars. They are horrible.

It's terrible what many TV channels are doing, widescreen telecasting/black bars, in my area MeTV used to have a square picture in the center of the screen with black borders on all four sides. That was ridiculous. Now they've gone to the widescreen look with the black bars at the top and bottom, which isn't good either.

The main things I watch on TV these days are the news and sporting events. I'll also watch a show on the Antenna TV channel once in a while. I watch The Price Is Right on weekday mornings although it was better when Bob Barker hosted it. Drew Carey is too much of a clown to be a good game show host.

I have DVD's of most of my favorite old TV shows, the picture on all of them is fullscreen format so I'm glad for that.

Personally, I’m in the minority that is starting to not mind Me-TV’s 14:9 ratio. I just wish they wouldn’t crop portions of the top and bottom of the show to fit it into a 14:9 frame, but I understand why they have to do it. If they didn’t, the whole show would just look stretched and unnatural.

However, I do wish Me-TV would just broadcast native 4:3 shows in their native 4:3 format, with black bars on both sides. That way, the whole picture is broadcasted, no cropping involved.