The nexus of this topic is that we travel to other states, stay in hotels or (like me) RV parks, and watch TV. In some states, there continue to be independent local TV stations - not "independent" in the sense of network affiliation, but rather stations that broadcast from local studios, have local news personnel, etc. In other states, many of the original TV markets have been absorbed into larger markets from large metropolitan areas. While the local TV stations continue to broadcast, they operate as "satellites" of the big-city stations, mostly rebroadcasting their signal, and the best one can hope for is a breakaway from the 10:00 news to provide two minutes of local news or weather.
In other states, those small-town stations seem to be surviving. I actually thought of this topic during a recent visit to the northwest California coast, where we watched stations from tiny Eureka rather than, as I had anticipated, San Francisco. Last year, we stayed in the central coast area (Santa Maria/San Luis Obispo) and that area had local stations as well. I'm not aware of how many other local TV markets there are in California, other than L.A., San Diego, and San Francisco.
Here are some other observations from my travels. Colorado, where I live, is dominated by the Denver TV market. This is even found in far southern Colorado, such as Salida and Alamosa. There are two other TV markets, though: Colorado Springs-Pueblo (my home area), which serves the sparsely populated southeast quadrant of the state, and Grand Junction. In contrast, New Mexico's former regional TV markets in Farmington, Roswell and Carlsbad have been absorbed by the Albuquerque market. The only exception is far southwest New Mexico, part of the El Paso market. Similarly, in Kansas, there is a small market around Topeka, and of course the area around Kansas City, but the rest of the state - even far western Kansas - is served by Wichita television. It's strange to sit in Dodge City, 200 miles west of Wichita, and be regaled with stories of the street crime at that distance. Also, the regional TV markets in southern and central Minnesota appear to be absorbed into the Minneapolis-St. Paul market.
How does this compare elsewhere?
I enjoyed this when I lived in Laramie. We got all the Denver market stations, but also KLWY (Cheyenne/Fox) and KTWO (Casper/ABC), so we had two ABCs and two Foxes. We only got the Wyoming PBS though. This was nice because every once in a while the football broadcast on ABC varied between Colorado and Wyoming, and we had the ability to watch either affiliate.
Indiana does this somewhat. Some of the medium sized towns will have one local news affiliate but most of the stations come from a bigger city. Lafayette is a good example. They have a local CBS affiliate WLFI while also getting the Indy CBS affiliate and other networks from Indy.
I think here in the east, the markets are small enough that small cities don't need their own station as much as out west.
St. Lawrence county NY's local public access station is Clarkson University's WCKN. Though we aren't really a "local news station" aside from the community calendar, we did air a lot of village dissolution stuff and candidate conversations before the election.
In the western Finger Lakes, roughly equidistant between Rochester and Syracuse, I receive both the Rochester and Syracuse news channels.
Downstate Illinois is still independant of Chicago ex most cable have WGN and have had it for decades.
Quad Cities is considered one of teh best local markets with lots of competition and local news. It has even had obits and pet of the week and city council news.
Peoria is more concentrated with only 2 outlets
Quincy is a tiny market but it does .not have the resoources of the larger Quad cities and thus fills with a lot of IL/Mo state stories and national repeats.
Ottumwa Iowa has an even tinier market and the last I knew did have local news on Channel 3 .
I can also confirm the small western MN markets have been absorbed into MN.
I miss predigital TV as well. I am in downstate Illinois and in the right weather I Had South Dakota come in once and frequently got Chicago. Anyone else every play with long distance reception?
I miss the analog days too. I remember with the right weather before digital TV I could get the occasional Norfolk station. Nowadays even getting some Richmond stations (at work, where we have a demo TV) is next to impossible.
Quote from: Takumi on November 23, 2011, 11:05:33 PM
I miss the analog days too. I remember with the right weather before digital TV I could get the occasional Norfolk station. Nowadays even getting some Richmond stations (at work, where we have a demo TV) is next to impossible.
In the analog days, I routinely picked up a station in Lafayette, LA, 350 miles to the west,
and also Montgomery, AL, 160 miles to the north.
IMHO digital sux, I'd much rather watch a snowy channel and try to fine tune it than deal with the pixalization/picture freeze crap on digital!
Digital sucks. I lived in Tacoma when the changeover happened and had a DTV compatible antenna. Before the switch, I got stations cloudy but clear enough to watch. Afterwards I had no TV.
QuoteQuoteI miss the analog days too. I remember with the right weather before digital TV I could get the occasional Norfolk station. Nowadays even getting some Richmond stations (at work, where we have a demo TV) is next to impossible.
In the analog days, I routinely picked up a station in Lafayette, LA, 350 miles to the west,
and also Montgomery, AL, 160 miles to the north.
IMHO digital sux, I'd much rather watch a snowy channel and try to fine tune it than deal with the pixalization/picture freeze crap on digital!
I get my direct TV signals off Cheyenne Mountain behind Colorado Springs, about 25 air miles north but in clear weather I can see the tower lights. Nevertheless I've had trouble on some channels, especially in the period right after the analog-digital transition before some stations boosted their power. To answer the previous poster, I lived in Albuquerque before there was a channel 2, now their Fox channel, (though that's their analog identification and it could be anything now) and I swear I was able to identify a station from El Salvador one afternoon. That may sound improbable but listening to FM coming home from work earlier this year I had a station from Tuscaloosa AL push my local NPR station off its channel.
In McCurtain County, OK (the farthest SE corner), one gets local stations from Oklahoma City, Texarkana, Dallas, Ft. Smith, and Shreveport. McCurtain County is closer to Shreveport & Dallas than to Oklahoma City.
Quote from: okroads on November 24, 2011, 05:11:26 PM
In McCurtain County, OK (the farthest SE corner), one gets local stations from Oklahoma City, Texarkana, Dallas, Ft. Smith, and Shreveport. McCurtain County is closer to Shreveport & Dallas than to Oklahoma City.
Falls City, NE(SE corner of the state) is in a similar position. They get stations from Lincoln, Omaha, St. Joseph, Topeka and Kansas City.
Quote from: The High Plains Traveler on November 23, 2011, 08:19:10 PM
It's strange to sit in Dodge City, 200 miles west of Wichita, and be regaled with stories of the street crime at that distance.
The last time I was in Dodge City a few years ago, they still got a local weather insert and local commercials, at least on the CBS affiliate. They had their own logo bug in the corner of the screen too-a "6" in the same logo style as the "12" for KWCH in Wichita.
We have the same thing here in Nebraska. KOLN-TV Channel 10 in my home town of Lincoln has a satellite station KGIN-TV Channel 11 in Grand Island(the two stations are known on-air as "10/11"). The coverage area extends about 300 miles to the west from Lincoln. Covering all of that area is always interesting during severe weather season when there are constantly severe weather warnings for some part of the vast viewing area.
I wonder if anybody else has ever experienced this on their travels. Sometimes motels will get their signals off of satellite rather than from the local cable system. This sometimes leads to them getting their network stations from a far away place rather than the local area. One time I was staying in a Motel 6 in Russellville, AR, and they got the 3 major network affiliates from 3 different very distant markets. the CBS affiliate was WCBS in New York, the ABC affiliate was WTVD in Durham, NC and the NBC affiliate was WXIA from Atlanta. Has anybody else ever seen anything like this?
Our local US station in western New Brunswick was WAGM in Presque Isle, Maine. It was an affiliate of the three big networks with a mix of programming from ABC, NBC & CBS. The larger market was New Brunswick so a lot of the local news, weather, sports and advertising was Canadian orientated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAGM-TV
After we got cable, US stations carried were from Bangor then it switched to a package of all network stations from Boston and if you have "time shifting" you get all the networks out of Seattle too.......now I'm just as familiar with the anchors on KIRO as I am with my local CBC station.
My aunt and uncle have a similar situation. They get Canadian channels over the air and need cable to get US channels.
When my parents got cable in the early 1980s, my local cable company (now aquired by Videotron) carried ABC WMTW-8 fbefore they switched to the ABC affiliate in Burlington VT in 1995. We got a FOX in 1995 from a Rochester tv station before the creation of WFFF station. We even got for a short moment, WDIV from Detroit via satellite until they improved the reception of WPTZ, the NBC station in Plattsburgh.
Also, over the years, CTV, Global and CBC, as well as the French networks Radio-Canada and TVA buyed local stations being recycled into a defacto re-emitters. There not lots of differents of programming between tv stations of Montreal and Sherbrooke.
Quote from: huskeroadgeek on November 24, 2011, 05:56:21 PMOne time I was staying in a Motel 6 in Russellville, AR, and they got the 3 major network affiliates from 3 different very distant markets. the CBS affiliate was WCBS in New York, the ABC affiliate was WTVD in Durham, NC and the NBC affiliate was WXIA from Atlanta. Has anybody else ever seen anything like this?
I used to see it every night at home, as my parents had one of those 10' satellite dishes. There was a programming package for those (and even DIRECTV in its infancy) called "Primetime 24" which carried affiliates from three large markets on a rotational basis in the Eastern/Central time zone, and WXIA-11 was the NBC affiliate in it at one time. When Fox got the NFL in 1994, WFLD-32 Chicago was added to the package.
Quote from: 3467 on November 23, 2011, 10:03:57 PMI miss predigital TV as well. I am in downstate Illinois and in the right weather I Had South Dakota come in once and frequently got Chicago. Anyone else every play with long distance reception?
When I lived on Long Island, and my family wouldn't get Cable TV(which I really didn't mind), my family had TV signals from the Tri-State Area like everybody else, along with at least one other ABC affiliate; WTNH, Channel 8 in New Haven, Connecticut. However,
I also used to get TV signals from Bridgeport, Connecticut, Waterbury, Connecticut, Hartford, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, DC, Providence Rhode Island, Atlantic City, a couple of places in Delaware, Salisbury, Maryland, and occasionaly Boston.
Somewhat on topic, this link redirects to a story in the Hazard (Ky.) Herald about the local CBS affiliate being unable to be carried on satellite TV.
http://tinyurl.com/85qg6wj
Quote from: Stephane Dumas on November 25, 2011, 04:57:41 PM
When my parents got cable in the early 1980s, my local cable company (now aquired by Videotron) carried ABC WMTW-8 fbefore they switched to the ABC affiliate in Burlington VT in 1995. We got a FOX in 1995 from a Rochester tv station before the creation of WFFF station. We even got for a short moment, WDIV from Detroit via satellite until they improved the reception of WPTZ, the NBC station in Plattsburgh.
Also, over the years, CTV, Global and CBC, as well as the French networks Radio-Canada and TVA buyed local stations being recycled into a defacto re-emitters. There not lots of differents of programming between tv stations of Montreal and Sherbrooke.
I used to live a bit East of Montréal and caught very clear signal from Trois-Rivières (most stations emit from a 1200-footer, one of the tallest antennas throughout the province), Sherbrooke, Burlington and Plattsburgh. Most of the Sherbrooke signals cannot be caught on Montréal island, although curiously from where i lived and eastward, the signal was ok.
That good reception made a diversified TV offer, with nearly all of the VHF channels occupied with very clear reception. I made a list in 2001-2003 (not sure) of these capturable channels, analog tv was still current. I wonder if that have changed since then. I know nothing at all about OTA digital television ; I lived in Québec city when USA switched to DT, so that did not affect tv reception. I since moved back to Montréal but i do not watch television anymore.
The offer in Québec was more restricted : 6 channels were available on the air, with some weak repeater signal.
Some very, very small markets (Carleton, pop. <5000, Rivière-du-Loup pop. <20 000, Rouyn-Noranda, pop. ~40 000) have network-affiliated TV stations.
Back when I made the present list, the major difference in programming between local networks were the news at 6PM and early sunday shows.
Channel - Callsign [Network], City of license (Location of the antenna)2 - CBFT [Radio-Canada], Montréal (Mont Royal)
3 - WCAX [CBS], Burlington (Mount Mansfield)
5 - WPTZ [NBC], Plattsburg (Mount Mansfield)
6 - CBMT [CBC], Montréal (Mont Royal)
7 - CHLT [TVA], Sherbrooke (Mont Orford)
8 - CHEM [TVA], Trois-Rivières (Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel)
9 - CKSH [Radio-Canada], Sherbrooke (Mont Orford)
10 - CFTM [TVA], Montréal (Mont Royal)
12 - CFCF [CTV], Montréal (Mont Royal)
13 - CKTM [Radio-Canada], Trois-Rivières (Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel)
-------
17 - CIVM [Télé-Québec], Montréal (Mont Royal)
22 - WVNY [ABC], Burlington (Mount Mansfield)
{29 - CFTU [Canal Savoir], Montréal (Université de Montréal tower building)},weak signal
30 - CFKM [TQS], Trois-Rivières (Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel)
35 - CFJP [TQS], Montréal (Mont Royal)
44 - WFFF [Fox], Burlington (Mount Mansfield)
{45 - CIVC [Télé-Québec], Trois-Rivières (Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel)}, prior to a plane crashing in the old antenna
{46 - CKMI [Global], Montréal (Mont Royal)}, weak signal
57 - WCFE [PBS], Plattsburgh (Lyon Mountain)
{62 - CJNT, Montréal (Mont Royal)}, weak signal
Quote from: Takumi on November 23, 2011, 11:05:33 PM
I miss the analog days too. I remember with the right weather before digital TV I could get the occasional Norfolk station. Nowadays even getting some Richmond stations (at work, where we have a demo TV) is next to impossible.
When I was growing up in North Carolina I could go to my grandmother's house (in Ashe County at the time) and pick up WRAL in Raleigh on her rooftop analog antenna if the conditions were right. At that point I was about 200 miles from the transmitter.
Quote from: huskeroadgeek on November 24, 2011, 05:56:21 PM
I wonder if anybody else has ever experienced this on their travels. Sometimes motels will get their signals off of satellite rather than from the local cable system. This sometimes leads to them getting their network stations from a far away place rather than the local area. One time I was staying in a Motel 6 in Russellville, AR, and they got the 3 major network affiliates from 3 different very distant markets. the CBS affiliate was WCBS in New York, the ABC affiliate was WTVD in Durham, NC and the NBC affiliate was WXIA from Atlanta. Has anybody else ever seen anything like this?
I think that happened more frequently in the 1980s when home satellite dishes first went on the market. They used to be large free-standing dishes in the yard instead of being mounted on the house as they sometimes are now. If you subscribe to DirecTV or Dish you get the network affiliates that serve your county only.
Quote from: broadhurst04 on November 25, 2011, 11:59:54 PM
Quote from: huskeroadgeek on November 24, 2011, 05:56:21 PM
I wonder if anybody else has ever experienced this on their travels. Sometimes motels will get their signals off of satellite rather than from the local cable system. This sometimes leads to them getting their network stations from a far away place rather than the local area. One time I was staying in a Motel 6 in Russellville, AR, and they got the 3 major network affiliates from 3 different very distant markets. the CBS affiliate was WCBS in New York, the ABC affiliate was WTVD in Durham, NC and the NBC affiliate was WXIA from Atlanta. Has anybody else ever seen anything like this?
I think that happened more frequently in the 1980s when home satellite dishes first went on the market. They used to be large free-standing dishes in the yard instead of being mounted on the house as they sometimes are now. If you subscribe to DirecTV or Dish you get the network affiliates that serve your county only.
Yeah, the time I experienced this was in the early 90s, and with the DBS systems now that have local channel packages, I guess getting distant stations like that isn't quite as common, although some small markets still do not have local channel packages and get their network affiliates from either New York or Los Angeles depending on which part of the country they are in.
I also remember another interesting story about picking up distant stations on satellite that somebody else experienced. About 10 years ago some friends of mine from Nashville took a trip to the Cayman Islands and were surprised to find that their hotel carried American network TV channels. They were even more surprised to find out that the ABC affiliate they carried was WKRN from Nashville-which was the local station they watched for news, so they got to watch their local news while they were out of the country.
Dish does offer a "Superstation Package" that offers
WPIX & WWOR from NYC,
WGN from Chicago,
KTLA from LA,
KWGN from Denver
WSBK from Boston.
I also get my local affiliates from nearby Pensacola (40miles) and Mobile, AL (100miles).
Quote from: 3467 on November 23, 2011, 10:03:57 PMI miss predigital TV as well.
I must be the only person that prefers the ATSC system over the NTSC system. While I lost two OTA stations (one whose transmitter is relatively close but still get in SD via ClearQAM from Comcast), I gained the ability to see my market's Fox station and what is now the ION station. I did add another ABC station thanks to a subchannel from the neighboring market's Fox affiliate. Not to mention, I can feed the digital OTA signals to computers in my network thanks to SiliconDust's HDHomeRun (http://www.hdhomerun.com/products/hdhomerun/atsc/) device.
Quote from: 3467 on November 23, 2011, 10:03:57 PMI am in downstate Illinois and in the right weather I Had South Dakota come in once and frequently got Chicago. Anyone else every play with long distance reception?
I do some TV DXing from time-to-time and belong to a group (http://wtfda.org/) that focuses on VHF/UHF band scanning. Since the full-power analogs have disappeared, I've done a lot better at receiving long-distance signals, especially from Canada.
From Oklahoma City there's not really a lot of other nearby markets close enough to bleed into that market; however, I do remember picking up stations in Ardmore, OK and Sherman/Denison TX at various times. Strangely, I don't remember anything in the Tulsa area showing up...
I grew up when cable service was new, had watched L.A. area TV stations and some over the air from Yuma, Az. (KECY 9- CBS on Mountain time) with El Centro, Cal. and Mexicali on the border (in Spanish). The southwest part of Riverside county received San Diego/Tijuana TV stations, while the Palm Springs Market boundary was Banning-Beaumont, KESQ 3 (ABC) but not KMIR 6 (NBC) carried into Hemet-San Jacinto and the Morongo Basin of San Bernardino county also had KESQ 3, as well Blythe-Colorado River valley received Phoenix and some Tucson, Arizona TV stations. The Orange county KOCE and San Bernardino KVCR are Public TV stations known to be on cable (formerly over air) in Palm Springs-Coachella valley.
Quote from: realjd on November 23, 2011, 09:10:29 PM
Indiana does this somewhat. Some of the medium sized towns will have one local news affiliate but most of the stations come from a bigger city. Lafayette is a good example. They have a local CBS affiliate WLFI while also getting the Indy CBS affiliate and other networks from Indy.
I have a cousin that lives in Munster (about a mile or two east of the Chicago/Illinois border) and as close to Chicago as Munster is, their cable system carries two stations out of South Bend. I thought that was always rather interesting.
We had a similar situation when I was going to school at Southern Miss in the mid-90s. Hattiesburg has a CBS affiliate (WHLT, though it's a satellite operation of Jackson's WJTV), but the cable system at the time (I hear that has been absorbed by Comcast) carried WKRG from Mobile. My professor mentioned that WKRG was still being carried because of some sort of contract that was agreed to years earlier. WHLT has only been around since 1987 or so. Hattiesburg gets their ABC and Fox stations from Biloxi-Gulfport.
Here's another interesting situation: I have family in Forrest City, AR, and their cable system carries three ABC stations (Jonesboro, Little Rock and Memphis)! They're lined up right next to each other too! They also get ABC and CBS from Memphis and Little Rock. However, they only get the Fox and CW from Memphis. Jonesboro only has one station, the aforementioned ABC station KAIT (known as Region 8).
Quote from: golden eagle on January 24, 2012, 11:03:28 AM
Quote from: realjd on November 23, 2011, 09:10:29 PM
Indiana does this somewhat. Some of the medium sized towns will have one local news affiliate but most of the stations come from a bigger city. Lafayette is a good example. They have a local CBS affiliate WLFI while also getting the Indy CBS affiliate and other networks from Indy.
I have a cousin that lives in Munster (about a mile or two east of the Chicago/Illinois border) and as close to Chicago as Munster is, their cable system carries two stations out of South Bend. I thought that was always rather interesting.
We had a similar situation when I was going to school at Southern Miss in the mid-90s. Hattiesburg has a CBS affiliate (WHLT, though it's a satellite operation of Jackson's WJTV), but the cable system at the time (I hear that has been absorbed by Comcast) carried WKRG from Mobile. My professor mentioned that WKRG was still being carried because of some sort of contract that was agreed to years earlier. WHLT has only been around since 1987 or so. Hattiesburg gets their ABC and Fox stations from Biloxi-Gulfport.
Here's another interesting situation: I have family in Forrest City, AR, and their cable system carries three ABC stations (Jonesboro, Little Rock and Memphis)! They're lined up right next to each other too! They also get ABC and CBS from Memphis and Little Rock. However, they only get the Fox and CW from Memphis. Jonesboro only has one station, the aforementioned ABC station KAIT (known as Region 8).
I have a brother who lived briefly in Wynne, AR(just north of Forrest City). They also received the same 3 ABC stations(KATV from Little Rock, KAIT from Jonesboro, and WPTY from Memphis). I went to college in Searcy, AR and we got both KATV and KAIT.
In Lincoln, we get 2 ABC, CBS and Fox stations on cable because we get both Lincoln and Omaha stations. Lincoln doesn't have its own NBC affiliate, which is why we don't have 2 NBC stations. We also have an interesting situation with satellite systems. Satellite systems only carry local stations from your market(with some exceptions). In Lincoln, that means we only get stations from the Lincoln market and not the Omaha market(except for KXVO, Omaha's CW affiliate). This means we get our NBC from KHAS in Hastings(which is actually the NBC station for the Lincoln market) and not WOWT in Omaha, which is where Lincoln gets its NBC from over-the-air and on cable. We also get two ABC stations on satellite because Lincoln has its own ABC affiliate(KLKN) and there is also an ABC affiliate in Kearney(KHGI) which is also part of the Lincoln market. Lincoln's CBS affilate, KOLN covers the entire market along with satellite station KGIN in Grand Island.
I live in the Hartford/New Haven TV market. Our market is Connecticut minus Fairfield County, since they're part of the New York City DMA. Despite being about 35 air miles from Springfield, MA, I don't get a hint of their digital TV signals. Their three full-powered analog stations were always crap at this house (NBC 22, ABC 40 and PBS 57). The problem in this market is that the signals come from four different directions: Avon Mountain (CBS 3 and UNI 18), Rattlesnake Mountain (CW 20, PBS 24, NBC 30 and FOX 61), Madmere Mountain (ABC 8 and MY 59) and New London County (ION 26 and PBS 53). My home is at the bottom of a hill in southern Hartford County, which causes a reflection with Avon Mountain. The old analog CBS 3 was rarely perfect and UNI 18 was always unwatchable. I used to get ABC 8 from the New Haven area better than CBS 3.
As for cable, whether analog or digital via a QAM tuner, we only get one each of ABC (8 ), CBS (3), CW (20), FOX (61), ION (26), MY (59), NBC (30) and UNI (18). We get two PBS stations (24 Hartford and 57 Springfield, MA). Telemundo is from a low-power station which was last on channel 50 in the analog days.
Quote from: hbelkins on November 25, 2011, 08:27:12 PM
Somewhat on topic, this link redirects to a story in the Hazard (Ky.) Herald about the local CBS affiliate being unable to be carried on satellite TV.
This is one of the unique deals in the world of OTA TV. It really isn't in any market. Its an "extra" station.
TV markets are not determined by the government. They are determined by the Nielsen company based, strictly on county lines, on what town's local stations people watch most. The situation on the ground in terms of what can or cannot be actually received is not relevant to the discussion.
So you have WYMT. As you know, in eastern Kentucky, like most of Appalachia, actually receiving TV on an OTA basis is problematical, if not impossible. In EKY, some counties are assigned to the Tennessee Tri-Cities, some to Huntington-Charleston and most to Lexington (which was a "UHF Island", which is to say before digital TV, a place where all of the local stations were UHF, UHF having very poor signal strength in mountainous areas).
So under federal sat laws, you get whichever town's locals your county belongs to. And no others. Lexington, Bristol, and Huntington all have a full set. WYMT is a standalone. It will neve be a market and never displace the full markets elsewhere (becuase you cannot expect a viewer to only watch CBS, now can you).
The sad thing is that WYMT actually provides news from the area it serves, while none of the full markets are going to do so.
Quote from: SP Cook on January 24, 2012, 07:19:46 PM
The sad thing is that WYMT actually provides news from the area it serves, while none of the full markets are going to do so.
True. Plus, I get interviewed on the air a lot by them. :clap:
We have a WYMT employee here on the forum, but I will let him ID himself if he wishes.
I can remember living in Caldwell County, NC in the late 70s and receiving WSPA-TV from Spartanburg, SC on our cable system, even though we were living in the Charlotte market.
I miss analog OTA TV. Back when I was younger, I had rigged my parents' TV to pick up the VHF stations from New Orleans (closest), Baton Rouge and Biloxi, MS (and on good days, we could even get signals from Mobile, AL), giving me 3 CBS stations, 3 ABC stations and 2 NBC stations reliably (Baton Rouge's NBC affiliate was on the UHF band.) This came in handy when our ABC affiliate at the time dropped the network's Saturday morning cartoon package (and I needed my Sonic SatAM fix) - I'd just flip the dial from Channel 8 to Channel 2. It was also good for all those years when the Saints couldn't sell out a game - turn the antenna and I had a 50/50 shot of getting Lafayette stations too.
Can't do that with digital - hell, with digital, I can barely pick up even the New Orleans stations.
Growing up in NE PA, OTA stations were the local affliates, WNEP(ABC), WYOU(CBS) and WBRE(NBC). If you went north and west of the Wyoming and Lackawanna Valleys you could get a station or 2 out of Binghamton, NY.
Cable on the other hand, we had the above affliates plus WPIX and WOR from NY and WTXF out of Philly.
Here a clip showing vintage promos of tv shows printed in newspapers showing CHLT Télé-7 of Sherbrooke circa 1972-73 who beginned as a Radio-Canada/French CBC affiliate in 1957 and switching to French network TVA around 1973-74; back when the local programming was more then news bulletin.
And another one showing various printed promos of what Radio-Canada showed from 1970 to 1974.
One clip showing the 35 years of CBMT/CBC-6 Montreal originally broadcasted in 1989 and re-runned into the mid-1990s.
I love going to my grandmother's house in Princeton WI. She gets a wide varirety of choices which is good esp during football season.
She gets WTMJ (NBC) and WISN (ABC) in Milwaukee (80 mi).
WISC (CBS) in Madison (60 mi).
WBAY (ABC), WFRV (CBS), WGBA (NBC), and WLUK (FOX) in Green Bay (65 Mi).
The local PBS i think is WMVS in Milwaukee.
At my mom's place in Cumberland, MD, the cable company carries local stations from Washington, Baltimore, and Pennsylvania. There are, if I remember correctly, 3 CBS stations (WUSA, WJZ, and WTAJ), two NBC stations (WHAG and a station from PA), and two Fox stations, although the cable company was cancelling its contract with WTTG due to a price dispute last I heard, leaving only the PA Fox station.
Probably WWCP-TV (FOX) channel 8 of Johnstown, PA?
Yeah, that's it.
edit - and the PA NBC station is WJAC.
As for the markets, I'm smack-dab in the middle of the South Florida/Miami TV market, although only one Treasure Coast/Palm Beach station picks up (Channel 5). I actually pick up less stations (maybe 2-3 on a good day, if I want to bend the mast about for a few minutes) since the conversion to digital. There as also the cost of the box and antenna, minus refund voucher. I received about 4-6 channels with the old rabbit-ears antennae. After a hurricane, or when I couldn't afford cable, that's all you can get.
What a crock...I'm basically forced to subscribe to cable/dish, and buy boxes for every room. Our X10 repeater is inoperative with AT&T Uverse. I watch very little TV as it is, basically, we keep it so my wife and daughter can watch a few hours a week. That said, if F1 racing was available live on the 'net, I'd even pay for it. No such availability exists in America.
Also, in Canada, it's now very rare. It's when a local or regional company who own 2 tv stations for a 2 different tv networks. We refer them as "twinstick" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple-stick and Riviere-du-Loup had a very rare case of a "triple-stick" with the company Tele Inter-Rives who own CKRT (SRC), CIMT (TVA) and CFTF (V, formely TQS).
Down here that situation is referred to as duopolies. Sinclair, CBS, and NewsCorp are some of the biggest ownership groups that have them in numerous cities, including mine where Sinclair owns WPGH-53 (Fox) and WPMY-22 (My Network) and CBS owns KDKA-2 (CBS) and WPCW-19 (CW).
Quote from: PAHighways on February 17, 2012, 12:40:48 PM
Down here that situation is referred to as duopolies. Sinclair, CBS, and NewsCorp are some of the biggest ownership groups that have them in numerous cities, including mine where Sinclair owns WPGH-53 (Fox) and WPMY-22 (My Network) and CBS owns KDKA-2 (CBS) and WPCW-19 (CW).
Yeah, I would say the vast majority of CW and My Network TV stations are owned by one of the major network affiliates. That's where most of the duopolies are, but there are a few situations(I know Ft. Wayne, IN is one and I think Duluth, MN is another) where one company owns two major network affiliates in the same market.
Quote from: huskeroadgeek on February 17, 2012, 12:59:52 PM
Yeah, I would say the vast majority of CW and My Network TV stations are owned by one of the major network affiliates. That's where most of the duopolies are, but there are a few situations(I know Ft. Wayne, IN is one and I think Duluth, MN is another) where one company owns two major network affiliates in the same market.
Most of those (CW/MyN) tend to be digital subchannels of the more major affiliate. Over the years, though, LIN Corporation has come to own both ABC (WOTV) and NBC (WOOD-TV) affiliates in the Grand Rapids/Kalamazoo/Battle Creek market. There is another ABC affiliate owned by Gannett (WZZM), but that primarily covers the northern half of the market.
Here in Jackson, the Fox, My Network and Me TV affiliates are owned by the same company. All the others are "stand-alones" (as in that their owners have no other stations in the market).
In Richmond, the NBC (WWBT) and Fox (WRLH) stations are both owned by the same company (Jefferson Pilot IIRC).
Quote from: hbelkins on January 24, 2012, 10:25:23 PM
Quote from: SP Cook on January 24, 2012, 07:19:46 PM
The sad thing is that WYMT actually provides news from the area it serves, while none of the full markets are going to do so.
True. Plus, I get interviewed on the air a lot by them. :clap:
We have a WYMT employee here on the forum, but I will let him ID himself if he wishes.
That would be me! There's a lot of people in the region that do not have access to cable TV and can only get satellite. It's really a shame that they cannot get local news, since we are the only TV station in Eastern Kentucky.
WYMT is technically a satellite station of WKYT in Lexington, and we simulcast their noon, 5, and 5:30 newscasts, but we have a full-fledged newsroom and three bureaus due to our large coverage area, and fully produce our own morning show, 4pm, 6pm, and 11pm newscasts.
We constantly have people asking us when we will get on satellite, and we have to tell them it's not up to us.
RANT:
Duopolis are supposed to be regulated by the FCC. In a regular market (one having at least four commercial TV stations) no one company is supposed to own more than one of the Big Four network affiliates. In other words a company could own an station from "column A" (Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS) and then station or stations from "column B" (WB, MY, or an independent stations), but not two from "column A". But, the FCC refuses to enforce this rule. Sinclair, Gray, J-P lots of companies do this.
Laws should be enforced, or repealed. Random and uneven enforcement is a gateway to tyrany.
/RANT
Quote from: SP Cook on February 27, 2012, 06:51:04 PM
RANT:
Duopolis are supposed to be regulated by the FCC. In a regular market (one having at least four commercial TV stations) no one company is supposed to own more than one of the Big Four network affiliates. In other words a company could own an station from "column A" (Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS) and then station or stations from "column B" (WB, MY, or an independent stations), but not two from "column A". But, the FCC refuses to enforce this rule. Sinclair, Gray, J-P lots of companies do this.
Laws should be enforced, or repealed. Random and uneven enforcement is a gateway to tyrany.
/RANT
Same here. We have a group here that owns the Fox and My Network stations. They also once had UPN on another station, but when UPN merged with the WB, it became CW and the CW went to another station.
Quote from: SP Cook on February 27, 2012, 06:51:04 PM
RANT:
Duopolis are supposed to be regulated by the FCC. In a regular market (one having at least four commercial TV stations) no one company is supposed to own more than one of the Big Four network affiliates. In other words a company could own an station from "column A" (Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS) and then station or stations from "column B" (WB, MY, or an independent stations), but not two from "column A". But, the FCC refuses to enforce this rule. Sinclair, Gray, J-P lots of companies do this.
Laws should be enforced, or repealed. Random and uneven enforcement is a gateway to tyrany.
/RANT
In Canada, the duopolies became rarer over the years when Bell (who acquired the network CTV) buyed most of the privates duopolies/twin sticks CTV/CBC over the years. Sold the CBC affiliates back to CBC....who recycled them in simple re-emitters. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Defunct_Canadian_TV_stations
Here the current CTV, CBC and Global tv stations list
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:CBC_TV_stations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:CTV_Stations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Global_TV
I wondering, could we see in a more long-term if NBC market share continue to drop, a merge with another network? I couldn't resist to think of the Simpsons episode "Lisa Wedding" where they mentionned then Kent Brockman was an anchor for CNNBCBS.
NBC doesn't have to worry about money now that Comcast bought them.
The Bell Canada group (who currently own CTV network) acquired Astral Media owner of multiple AM and FM radios in Canada as well as cable channels.
http://finance.sympatico.ca/home/bell_buys_astral_media_for_radio_tv_content/c59f5149
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2012/03/16/astral-bell.html
Also, Rogers communications did some layoffs including a small network called "CityTV" created by Moses Znaimer known here for creating Much Music. We could wonder how long this network will hold?
Quote from: SP Cook on February 27, 2012, 06:51:04 PM
RANT:
Duopolis are supposed to be regulated by the FCC. In a regular market (one having at least four commercial TV stations) no one company is supposed to own more than one of the Big Four network affiliates. In other words a company could own an station from "column A" (Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS) and then station or stations from "column B" (WB, MY, or an independent stations), but not two from "column A". But, the FCC refuses to enforce this rule. Sinclair, Gray, J-P lots of companies do this.
Laws should be enforced, or repealed. Random and uneven enforcement is a gateway to tyrany.
/RANT
Not correct. The applicable rule, 47 CFR §73.3555(b), states that one company can own two stations in a single DMA, provided that their Grade B contours don't overlap, one of the stations is not ranked as a "top-4" station in the market as determined by Nielsen or other rating service (9AM-midnight), and at least eight independently owned TV stations will remain post-merger. Network affiliation no longer enters into it.
Further, a group owner of TV stations cannot exceed a national reach consisting of more than 39% of the TV audience.
Quote from: SidS1045 on July 25, 2012, 04:00:39 PM
Not correct. The applicable rule, 47 CFR §73.3555(b), states that one company can own two stations in a single DMA, provided that their Grade B contours don't overlap, one of the stations is not ranked as a "top-4" station in the market as determined by Nielsen or other rating service (9AM-midnight), and at least eight independently owned TV stations will remain post-merger. Network affiliation no longer enters into it.
Further, a group owner of TV stations cannot exceed a national reach consisting of more than 39% of the TV audience.
Insert standard rant about government interference in the free market here...
^ I always thought of it as a variant of an anti-brainwashing law.
"There's always McDonald's and Wal-Mart." - Calvin's Dad