So NYC appears to be less adventuresome in terms of broadcast TV news because of the multitude of other ways to get news between cable, radio, in-town print, and even media in the farther-out suburbs makes the idea of a 3:00 PM or a 7:00 PM that flies elsewhere a lot harder of a sell there. When you put it that way, I would tend to agree to a point. This doesn't even get into media on the fringe - the further out News 12's, Hearst's papers in Fairfield County, Gannett's papers in Asbury Park and Poughkeepsie, even Spectrum News Hudson Valley.
The gold rush of sorts in DC seems to make a lot of sense because of the general dearth of suburban news sources; it's a bit crazy that Fairfax and Montgomery counties have over 1 million people and have zero newspapers of their own and I think that's much of why Nexstar is doing what they're doing with WDVM. I do wonder outside this why Fox is making it rain with news there - expanding the morning to 11:00 AM, putting on a 7:00 PM, the primetime newscasts on WDCA, Final Five with Jim Lokay - while not taking such risks in NYC. Might this be why?
Boston seems to have been partially broken by the NBC switch there and, let's be honest, if NBC had gotten their hands on WHDH there would be a lot less inventory to deal with. There wouldn't be four stations at 4:00 and 3 at 7:00, that's for sure. There isn't the depth of radio that NYC, on the commercial side at least, has but there is the depth of suburban papers as suburbs as close in as Quincy and Lynn support daily papers.
To bring this sub's favorite medium market into this, as much as I love Albany I think that it's a little over-newsed. Outside of the fact that WTEN and WNYT are seemingly are in a death match, is there really a reason for two stations at 4:00 in that market? Or for a 7:00 to even exist when it clearly seems that WTEN put one on WXXA to cut off WNYT from doing one on WNYA? How about that there are more stations doing 10:00 newscasts there than in most markets in the Top 10? If any market is the poster child for news for the sake of news, it's Albany.