Submit your question to Rob Owen

This week's TV Q&A responds to questions about "True Blood," "Bear in the Big Blue House" and local news live shots. As always, thanks for reading, and keep those questions coming.

-- Rob Owen, Post-Gazette TV editor

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Q: I'm wondering how the current dismal housing market and the tight credit crunch are affecting shows like A&E's "Flip This House," in which the "flippers" rely on a quick turn-around and resale in order to be successful.

Will there be another season of "Flip This House," or has it fallen victim to current economic conditions?

-- John, 50, Green Tree

Rob: "Flip This House" is currently airing originals through February, so no decision on its future beyond then has been made. However, the bad economy may not be bad for real estate shows if Bravo's "Million Dollar Listing" is an indicator. That show's second season, which aired in late summer, saw its ratings spike to new highs.

Q: Can you find out if the Discovery Channel will ever rerun their series "Planet Earth" from a year or two ago? I really enjoyed watching some of the episodes. Now that we have a flat-screen TV and Discovery HD I'd love to watch it again in HD.

-- Colleen, 31, Ross

Rob: Discovery Channel has no current plans for a rebroadcast. It could air as early as spring 2009 or as late as 2010. "Planet Earth" is available on DVD if you can't wait.

Q: My daughter wants to know, what happened to the Disney show "Bear in the Big Blue House"?

-- Krissy, 41, Bethel Park

Rob: According to the folks at Disney Channel, "Blue" is no longer in production. It ran on Disney Channel from 1997-2007 and is available for purchase on DVD.

Q: My wife and I are big fans of "True Blood"; has the show been picked up for a second season? Also, when will "Big Love" be returning to HBO?

-- Rob, 34, Tampa

Rob: Good news for fans of these HBO vamps: We reported in September that "True Blood," which has its season finale Sunday, has been renewed for a second season.

Both "Big Love" and "Flight of the Conchords" return to HBO with original episodes on Jan. 18.

Q: Where does KDKA get their sound and audio clips? Just curious because I like the "Pittsburgh Today Live" theme.

-- Alex, 15, New Castle

Rob: Folks, I would not use questions like this if not for the fact that once upon a time, back when I was 10 and anchoring fake newscasts from the fake anchor desk in my basement, I could have asked the same thing.

According to KDKA general manager Chris Pike, the "PTL" tune is part of a larger music package the station owns. The track is titled "Up and at 'Em." Somehow I doubt it's available on CD.

Q: Well, I am happy that we finally got a bunch of new channels (both HD and SD) on Comcast. However, I noticed there is no dedicated FSN Pittsburgh channel as I expected. Instead, channel 250 is Big 10 HD.

The Big 10 ads from last year whining about Comcast not carrying their network were bad enough. The fact that they apparently worked -- so now my money goes to schools I have no desire to support -- is worse. On top of that, now I'm apparently getting cheated out of HD programming I want to watch in favor of stuff I don't? That's ridiculous.

-- Todd, 36, McCandless

Rob: According to Comcast, FSN-P HD will launch on Dec. 1 on Channel 226 in traditional Comcast and Channel 774 in new Comcast areas.

Q: This is a strange question, but I'm sure you get plenty of those. I tend to watch Fox News frequently and noticed something on several occasions.

During their prime-time lineup I think Verizon may be poaching some extra commercial time. Near the end of commercial breaks, a Verizon FIOS commercial airs, and when it is finished the channel comes back to the program already in progress.

For example, when I'm watching O'Reilly, the show will go to commercial then the Verizon ad will run at the end of the break. Afterwards O'Reilly is about 30 seconds into his next topic.

Is Verizon taking extra commercial time? I know this sounds crazy, but I see it happening all the time.

Any thoughts?

-- Jeff, 28, Ross

Rob: Verizon said it was human error.

"The advertising contractor that develops the ad insertion schedules incorrectly scheduled a 60-second spot instead of a 30-second spot during that program on Fox News, causing the spillover into programming," said Verizon spokesman Lee Gierczynski. "The contractor has updated the insertions schedules."

Q: With the reported financial problems with local television news, do you think there might be a reduction in the inane and unnecessary "live" news spots? It seems KDKA this past week has reduced their use.

Yes, this is a leading question as I know you hate the fake "live" news spots as much as I do.

-- John, 41, North Huntingdon

Rob: Hmmm, I haven't noticed a reduction in live shots on KDKA this week, and news director John Verrilli said they're doing the same number of live shots as usual. I'm also not sure there's a huge cost benefit in skipping the live shots. Verrilli said there can be overtime issues but haven't been recently.

But John from North Huntingdon isn't the only one thinking about pointless live shots ...

I have an idea to save money at local TV news departments. Stop sending Alison Morris to report live from Mt. Washington with exclusive, late breaking news that you'll only see here about a story that happened yesterday in Westmoreland County.

Or stop sending Dee Thompson out on an overpass on the Parkway in a snow storm with the Really Scary Severe Weather Forecast about why we should stay off the dangerous, snow covered roads.

-- Brian Graham, Brentwood

"I wonder if you can keep an eye on this. It seems like Channel 4 is really sensationalizing the weather. This morning they came on with "when are we gonna get a break in the snow," and in Pittsburgh we've had less than an inch. Then just right now the weather foecaster said the heavy snow is moving toward Pittsburgh and he puts up on the thing that we're gonna have a coating-to-an-inch. I think they realize most people are watching the news because of the weather and they are really sensationalizing the snow. I mean, an inch, half-an-inch? They're making big deal out of everything. ... An inch, a half-inch. I wouldn't consider that heavy snow. If you can, pay special attention to that."

-- Male caller on Monday

TV Q&A will be off next week for the Thanksgiving holiday, returning Dec. 5.