Samantha 2878 Posted February 19, 2016 Share Posted February 19, 2016 When was the last time a market went away....when Tuscaloosa and Anniston merged into Birmingham? I believe you're correct. The markets were dissolved in the fall of 1998. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dantheflash2014 14 Posted February 19, 2016 Share Posted February 19, 2016 Maybe The CW if Tribune doesn't renew for WDCW? It wouldn't be the ideal situation for The CW since WHAG's signal doesn't reach Washington, but it does have Satellite carriage in Washington. Good question, but might WHAG will become CW sometimes this fall or early 2017 and may reach in washington dc area? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T.L. Hughes 753 Posted February 19, 2016 Share Posted February 19, 2016 If they do affiliate with another network, it sounds like it may not be a Big Three network. Nexstar is apparently increasing news programming on WHAG to around 50 hours a week, and making some investments. Maybe we don't have to worry about WISH and KRON in regards to news output once Nexstar takes them over. http://www.tvnewscheck.com/mobile/index/article/id/92473 In association with the news expansion, Nexstar said it will be investing approximately $1 million to relocate WHAG’s news bureaus, open additional field offices, add over a dozen news and production personnel, develop new on-air graphics and purchase new equipment, weather technology and traffic systems to complement the additional programming. In addition, the station will hire additional marketing and sales personnel to promote WHAG’s suite of multiplatform marketing solutions, including Your4State.com. The expansion will deliver more than 20 additional hours of local news to its new weekly broadcast schedule, increasing WHAG’s locally-produced news, lifestyle, sports, weather and community programming to over 50 hours per week. In addition to more local programming hours, Nexstar said the expansion will bring WHAG’s local news coverage “to new geographic areas with the addition of original newscasts unique to local viewing communities in Maryland and Northern Virginia as well as West Virginia’s only available state-wide local news. Importantly, WHAG-TV’s local news expansion directly addresses the needs of the local communities outside the Beltway, particularly in Montgomery County, Md., and Northern Virginia by bringing viewers the only full-coverage local television news programming targeted to their local communities.” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
padrechuck 25 Posted February 19, 2016 Share Posted February 19, 2016 I wonder if they will carry TONIGHT LIVE from the WVMH stations that Nexstar is in the process of acquiring. A big deal was made about the "statewide" network that would be available once the West Virginia Media stations are running under Nexstar, which they now are..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TVNewsLover 728 Posted February 19, 2016 Share Posted February 19, 2016 Good question, but might WHAG will become CW sometimes this fall or early 2017 and may reach in washington dc area? They can petition to move to another DMA, right? I wonder if they would consider moving to the Harrisburg DMA and picking up the CW or MNTV affiliation. It's the same distance as DC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
effseesee 101 Posted February 19, 2016 Share Posted February 19, 2016 Anyone who has had cable or satellite, has gotten WRC for years. WRC has significantly viewed status in that entire region, and is not subject to exclusivity. People in that area didn't watch WHAG for NBC, they watched because it is the only news source in that region. FYI: Hagestown is not served by Comcast. Washington County is served by Antietam Cable, which is owned by Schurz. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mvcg66b3r 97 Posted February 19, 2016 Share Posted February 19, 2016 They can petition to move to another DMA, right? I wonder if they would consider moving to the Harrisburg DMA and picking up the CW or MNTV affiliation. It's the same distance as DC. They would have to move their transmitter, and they can't because of the FCC's freeze. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samantha 2878 Posted February 19, 2016 Share Posted February 19, 2016 I wonder if they will carry TONIGHT LIVE from the WVMH stations that Nexstar is in the process of acquiring. A big deal was made about the "statewide" network that would be available once the West Virginia Media stations are running under Nexstar, which they now are..... The statement does reference the West Virginia state network, so I expect the answer is yes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mvcg66b3r 97 Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 http://www.tvnewscheck.com/mobile/index/article/id/92473 The linked article gives a date of July 1, which means it won’t carry the July NASCAR race at Daytona or the Macy’s Fireworks show, but will have the French Open finals and Stanley Cup Final in its last month with NBC. Speaking of Macy’s, they’re closing their Hagerstown store. You think that (or maybe the economy in general) might have something to do with WHAG losing NBC? http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/consuming-interests-blog/bal-consuming-macys-will-close-hagerstown-store-20160106-story.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ntropolis 593 Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 I guess the "secondary" affiliates are almost extinct. WWSB and WOTV are about it aside from WHAG these days. At least those two don't have O&Os to compete with. We used to have: KVOS Bellingham (CBS) (1979) KDUB Dubuque (ABC) (1995) KNAZ Flagstaff (NBC) (semi-satellite 1996) KNTV San Jose (ABC) (2001) WMGM Wildwood/Atlantic City (2014) (Not counting stations that have/had separate news departments but are/were co-owned with the primary affiliate in the market) Am I missing any others? Keeping in the area... Martinsburg, WV and Hagerstown used to have their own Fox affiliate for a short time in the early 90s, WYVN. It had a news department. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyrannical bastard 3474 Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 Seeing as how this is the DC market and home turf for the FCC, they may not want to let this territory slip away to a separate or adjacent market. Had Hagerstown and Atlantic City split away into separate markets, they could have built up their markets and especially for Atlantic City, guaranteed in-state media for their residents. But NBC pretty much put their foot down and asserted their right to yank the affiliations. ABC seems to have little problem of having stations like WWSB, WOTV, NTV and WMUR around... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mvcg66b3r 97 Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 More hardball from Comcast along the lines of WMGM I'm guessing. (Although "hardball" implies there was negotiation...I'm assuming there was none and the affiliation was yanked at Comcast's whim) My guess is HAG picks up one of the subchannel networks as an "affiliation" and probably does fine. It'll be similar to WFMZ in that regard. I guess the "secondary" affiliates are almost extinct. WWSB and WOTV are about it aside from WHAG these days. At least those two don't have O&Os to compete with. We used to have: KVOS Bellingham (CBS) (1979) KDUB Dubuque (ABC) (1995) KNAZ Flagstaff (NBC) (semi-satellite 1996) KNTV San Jose (ABC) (2001) WMGM Wildwood/Atlantic City (2014) (Not counting stations that have/had separate news departments but are/were co-owned with the primary affiliate in the market) Am I missing any others? WOWL Florence AL (NBC) (2000) later UPN, now CW affiliate WHDF The station began on October 28, 1957 as WOWL-TV, based in Florence. The station was owned by Richard "Dick" Biddle. Up until late 1999, that station broadcast NBC programs to northwestern Alabama and portions of southern middle Tennessee and northeastern Mississippi; it carried also some popular CBS shows like the soap opera As the World Turns. WOWL-TV always faced competing NBC affiliates in Huntsville or Decatur, whose signals reached much of its broadcast area. However, it retained viewership in the Shoals region (Florence, Sheffield, Muscle Shoals, Tuscumbia and areas known as "The Shoals" recently and referred to as "The Quad Cities" years ago) by offering local newscasts, which for most of the station's 40-plus years were the only TV newscasts concerned specifically with northwestern Alabama. Over time, though, with the Huntsville stations expanding news bureaus of their own into the Shoals, WOWL lost much of its traditional advantage in that regard. Put together with NBC's ratings declines of the 1990s, the owners opted to sell to outside interests, who swapped network affiliation to the upstart United Paramount Network (UPN) and moved the transmitter and tower to Giles County, Tennessee. The relocation was undertaken in order to re-position the station to serve the entire Huntsville-Decatur-Florence market, not just northwestern Alabama as in the past. In September 2006, both UPN and The WB television network ceased operations. A single new network, The CW, replaced those two struggling entities. WHDF, the UPN affiliate, was granted the northern Alabama affiliation rights for the new network earlier that year, and rebranded as The Valley's CW at Midnight on July 27, 2006. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHDF#History Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnothy 43 Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 With the switch to digital TV, I don't think some of the counties in our local DMA can even pick up the local stations anymore. I know a friend only gets one PBS station in his apartment. Outside antennas aren't always feasible and a lot of people I know won't pay for cable or satellite anymore because it costs too much. I wonder if viewers in Hagerstown even pick up the DC stations very well. If having NBC on WHAG gave it more viewership than other networks (since Hagerstown has no other affiliates) why wouldn't NBC just want to keep it there? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scrabbleship 427 Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 I could see WHAG switching from NBC to ABC. At that point selling WHAG to Gray might be a wise move as it would be a natural continuation of their The statement does reference the West Virginia state network, so I expect the answer is yes. Currently Tonight Live is on WJAL as it was under WVMH ownership. I wonder what their fate is, they scream spectrum bait and if Nexstar bought their programming inventory it would fill some empty time. I wonder how long it would take to add WHAG to Comcast's Loudoun and Montgomery county systems... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atlnews2 561 Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 The linked article gives a date of July 1, which means it won’t carry the July NASCAR race at Daytona or the Macy’s Fireworks show, but will have the French Open finals and Stanley Cup Final in its last month with NBC. Speaking of Macy’s, they’re closing their Hagerstown store. You think that (or maybe the economy in general) might have something to do with WHAG losing NBC? http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/consuming-interests-blog/bal-consuming-macys-will-close-hagerstown-store-20160106-story.html The closing of a Macy's store has NOTHING to do with WHAG losing their affiliation. For one thing NBC doesn't give a crap about how well local economies are doing, all they care about is getting their reverse compensation from the stations, how those stations survive / do financially is non of their concern. Also if the local economy was doing bad Nexstar wouldn't be investing $1 million into the news operation after the loss of NBC affilation. If anything this is a case of Comcast/NBC not wanting to share NBC programming with a station in a sub-market (a la KGO and KNTV) or this is a case of Nexstar not wanting to pay NBC more money in reverse compensation (a la Nexstar's dispute with FOX). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samantha 2878 Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 Keeping in the area... Martinsburg, WV and Hagerstown used to have their own Fox affiliate for a short time in the early 90s, WYVN. It had a news department. I remember reading a recollection of WYVN. Some particularly bad ownership there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJClementeFan69 477 Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 Seeing as how this is the DC market and home turf for the FCC, they may not want to let this territory slip away to a separate or adjacent market. Had Hagerstown and Atlantic City split away into separate markets, they could have built up their markets and especially for Atlantic City, guaranteed in-state media for their residents. But NBC pretty much put their foot down and asserted their right to yank the affiliations. ABC seems to have little problem of having stations like WWSB, WOTV, NTV and WMUR around... Well...WMUR doesn't have a competing affiliate owned by another company in Boston to complain about it...but it's a good point. WWSB, WOTV, and NTV carry on... IIRC WFTS has cooperated with WWSB lately. I want to say it made a deal with WWSB to be on Verizon Fios throughout the whole market so long as WWSB blacked out network programming. I'm sure Scripps could have shut WWSB out completely if it wanted to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
channel2 869 Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 Has Hearst/any prior owner of WCVB tried to get WMUR's ABC affiliation taken away? Because the whole reason Hearst even owns WMUR is to keep them from competing with WCVB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rkolsen 1679 Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 TVSpy (don't have the link handy and my iPad is giving me fits) is reporting that WRC would receive most of the market (as expected) with the possibility of WBAL picking up a county or two to the west of their viewing area. A while back I was looking into cable carriage in western Maryland and was surprised that in some areas 11 was carried along with WHAG. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TVNewsLover 728 Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 As I stated earlier in the thread, ABC tried, unsuccessfully, to strip WWSB of its affiliation back in the mid-1990s: https://business.highbeam.com/436953/article-1G1-15842769/station-cut-abc-roster Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scrabbleship 427 Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 Has Hearst/any prior owner of WCVB tried to get WMUR's ABC affiliation taken away? Because the whole reason Hearst even owns WMUR is to keep them from competing with WCVB. Not that I'm aware. Until Imes bought WMUR, it was a basket case and of little threat to WCVB. If Hearst was serious about competition, they would've gotten WMUR taken off of the Massachusetts systems it is on and WCVB off of New Hampshire/Maine systems a la WGBH/NHPTV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scrabbleship 427 Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 TVSpy (don't have the link handy and my iPad is giving me fits) is reporting that WRC would receive most of the market (as expected) with the possibility of WBAL picking up a county or two to the west of their viewing area. A while back I was looking into cable carriage in western Maryland and was surprised that in some areas 11 was carried along with WHAG. I think few if any systems carry just WHAG. I know Hagerstown, Front Royal VA, Martinsburg WV also get WRC, Frederick and Winchester VA WRC and WBAL, and Cumberland WJAC. I think some cablecard customers on the Virginia side also get WVIR. If anything this forces Atlantic Broadband in Alleghany County to add WRC and maybe restores some lost WBAL coverage in the Eastern Panhandle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnothy 43 Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 Has Hearst/any prior owner of WCVB tried to get WMUR's ABC affiliation taken away? Because the whole reason Hearst even owns WMUR is to keep them from competing with WCVB. Their weekday schedules used to be pretty much identical before WCVB expanded their newscasts. WMUR has always been a well respected station due to the New Hampshire primary coverage and debates. Since Hearst now owns both, they probably don't care which station viewers are watching for ABC. Both are available on satellite throughout the Boston market. But can someone answer for me why Manchester itself isn't its own DMA when there are other smaller DMAs that survive with one or two counties? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoldenShine9 1509 Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 Not that I'm aware. Until Imes bought WMUR, it was a basket case and of little threat to WCVB. If Hearst was serious about competition, they would've gotten WMUR taken off of the Massachusetts systems it is on and WCVB off of New Hampshire/Maine systems a la WGBH/NHPTV. A similar example would be WKYT and WYMT, both in the Lexington market but WYMT focuses on the eastern counties which is no man's land for any other signals. They cooperate a lot but have largely separate news operations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jerseyfla 196 Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 If WHAG were to affiliate with another network, I could easily see ABC. When I think of intermarket secondary stations or short market stations (pre-Digital TV) the majority of those stations are ABC affiliates like WWSB, WCJB, and WLOX. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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