By Steve Crum
GROUSE TIME.
Randomly clicking through my many cable channels the other day, I decided to revisit a (classic) rerun on a Johnny Carson “Tonight Show” episode. I had not been there for the last couple of years, since I think I watched all of them during their first run on ANTENNA-TV. I hit a jackpot of an episode: guest Jimmy Stewart reading a poem about his old dog.
It took me three seconds to figure out what was wrong with this episode since I saw it originally on NBC-TV as well as on Antenna years ago. JAMES STEWART AND JOHNNY CARSON HAD GAINED 30 POUNDS EACH! Their old TV width images were now stretched to fit the wide 
screen ratio of our large flat screens! Unfrickingbelievable!
More remote clicks brought me to other channels, essentially free-to-air broadcasts, but also carried on Spectrum. BOUNCE-TV, a decade-old station targeting Black Americans, also stretches its non-widescreen 
images of “The Bernie Mac Show” and other sitcoms.
On the flip side, LIGHT-TV (aka THE GRIO-TV) & THIS-TV use the wrong lenses, 
vertically squeezing the movies and TV shows to make everyone appear at least 30 pounds thinner! Egad, to say the least! Their heads appear to have been victimized by a vice.
The popular old folks channel, ME-TV, has been slightly stretching original image widths via chopping off the tops and bottoms of classic sitcoms and dramas for years in an effort to fill the viewers’ widescreen TVs. In any event, the viewer does not truly see the original images. But does it matter to most ME-TV viewers? I have 
a sad feeling it does not. I know many viewers who care only about
“filling up the screen,” no matter if anything is edited or stretched.
But it does matter to me! I am a purist. I also do not appreciate colorizing black and white movies and TV shows.
Yes, one can readjust the new flat screen TVs to compensate for the disparities in aspect ratios. BUT you lose picture sharpness and quality. Plus it is a hassle. 
A solution is to write or e-mail the stations’ owners and protest how they are undermining their viewers.
OR just do not watch these technologically lame channels. They will get the hint, maybe.
Sadly, as long as their multitude of advertisers keep supporting them, nothing else probably matters.