Does station coverage from an adjacent market not count because it's not in that market?

[mardek1995 200]

Say for example you live in Sherman, TX. Would you be more likely to watch KTEN 10.3 or WFAA? Or how about this: let's say you live in west CT (like, I dunno... Danbury). Would you be more likely to watch WTNH or WABC? And in both of these cases, would the one whose signal reaches the markets in question not count because its in an adjacent market?

[PAnderson1 27]

From what I've heard, WTNH provides more coverage of that area, so I guess you'd watch the station that's in your state. But, I've heard WABC had the stronger signal back then, so I honestly don't know.

[nathannah 2437]

I have Green Bay station access in my market, but Nielsen only counts ratings for my area for Milwaukee stations. This is why Fox has become very strict about outskirt markets and strictly allows only one affiliate to be carried on paid providers; our area lost Green Bay's Fox affiliate on cable due to that.

[PitCleTV 9]

I've known people in the Youngstown market who would regularly watch WOIO, WUAB, WPXI and KDKA, which were carried on local cable companies. I think those people preferred out-of-town stations, because...they weren't crappy newscasts, like WFMJ, WKBN and WYTV, really used to be.

[johnintx 20]

Say for example you live in Sherman, TX. Would you be more likely to watch KTEN 10.3 or WFAA? Or how about this: let's say you live in west CT (like, I dunno... Danbury). Would you be more likely to watch WTNH or WABC? And in both of these cases, would the one whose signal reaches the markets in question not count because its in an adjacent market?

 

1) As was mentioned earlier, Nielsen only rates stations in the local DMA. In your Sherman example, they would only rate KTEN and KXII, though all of the Dallas-Fort Worth affiliates are carried there on cable and can be received via antenna. Locals can and will watch whatever channel they desire, especially if it comes from a larger market. However, Nielsen will only track viewership in the local DMA.

2) When affiliates from two markets are carried on a cable system, normally only the affiliates of the home DMA are carried in HD. For example, earlier this year I went on a business trip to a location in WI barely in the Milwaukee DMA, but slightly closer to Madison. The local cable company carried the Milwaukee affiliates in HD and the Madison affiliates in SD.

3) When an out-of-market affiliate is carried, it will often be blocked during certain time periods (network programming) upon request of the local affiliate. For example, I was in San Angelo several years ago. The cable company carried both the San Angelo translator of KTXS-Abilene and WFAA-Dallas. During prime time, the WFAA feed was blocked in place of the Abilene ABC feed, and the Abilene feed was carried on both channels. At 10:00, the WFAA cable channel was free to show WFAA local news, while the KTXS channel showed its local news.

[Ntropolis 596]

I remember when WMBF signed on, there were folks in the Myrtle Beach/Florence market that were disappointed because they liked WIS for their state capitol coverage.

[nomadcowatbk 149]

I have Green Bay station access in my market, but Nielsen only counts ratings for my area for Milwaukee stations. This is why Fox has become very strict about outskirt markets and strictly allows only one affiliate to be carried on paid providers; our area lost Green Bay's Fox affiliate on cable due to that.

 

same thing happened in St Joseph MO, KNPN bumped WDAF off cable there

[mardek1995 200]

I remember when WMBF signed on, there were folks in the Myrtle Beach/Florence market that were disappointed because they liked WIS for their state capitol coverage.

WFAA and KOCO once served as the de facto ABC affiliates for Sherman and Ada with the former being the one serving the Sherman side and the latter serving the Ada side, and this went on until KTEN got the ABC affiliation on its .3 subchannel in 2010.

[SFTV 527]

In San Diego under Southwestern Cable which then became Time Warner. Back in the 90's, we used to get KCOP 13 as our UPN affiliate until 1999 when XDTV (UPN 13 / My TV 13) formed

 

We used to get KTLA 5 on ch 14 but during the day when Pre WB and WB programming existed, KTTY (which then became KSWB) had coverage rights and blacked out most of KTLA programming except for some daytime programs, weekend film festivals and KTLA News.

 

I just remember when ktla news @ ten ended and went straight to friends at 11pm. Sometimes we would get lucky and catch the first 10 min of friends until someone at Time Warner would be like "oh sh*t I forgot to flip the switch." And the screen would go straight to Paid Programming or KTTY carries right to local programming seen on Cable 5 / Over the Air 69.

 

Not sure if this counts but when KSWB ceased it's news operations, KNSD took over the evening newscasts while KTLA would simulcast KTLA Morning News under WB5 Morning News with local cut ins.

[tyrannical bastard 3954]

Satellite has really established the "boundaries" of local markets by tying markets to zip codes, with little hope of offering "significantly viewed" stations to viewers. (I know that has changed, but I sure haven't seen it....if ANYONE has any evidence of this happening, I would like to know...)

 

Retransmission consent and networks like FOX have clamped down even more. Enter digital TV with multicasting capabilities....this has effectively eliminated out-of-market TV stations and "de-facto" affiliates from filling in a market. This sometimes adds to the consternation of local viewers who lost a far superior out-of-market affiliate to a local station that grabbed the network and nothing more, usually depriving of them of the "local" news they once had on the out of market station.

 

http://www.dishuser.com/TVMarkets/City Maps/Denver.gif

It gets really weird out west, where people who live in remote portions of Colorado, Wyoming or Nebraska, where they may be closer to a market like Grand Junction or Cheyenne, but instead, get Denver stations.

Denver has to be one of the ONLY markets in the US that actually has islands of counties removed from a contiguous area.

 

But for cord cutters, if they live in an area that is close to different markets, they have choices of where they can get their news from simply because the stations are out there and if they can be picked up, they can be watched...

[nathannah 2437]

I've known people in the Youngstown market who would regularly watch WOIO, WUAB, WPXI and KDKA, which were carried on local cable companies. I think those people preferred out-of-town stations, because...they weren't crappy newscasts, like WFMJ, WKBN and WYTV, really used to be.

 

Exactly why I watch the GB stations. Compared to the tightly-formatted and crime-heavy Milwaukee shows, Green Bay's usually just focus on a couple crimes then some courthouse b-roll, then onto government stories (and weather forecasts that are comprehensive solely on market range alone). WLUK's news is much better than WITI's, but unless you have an antenna, you can't watch it in my area. Contracts with cable companies have also effectively starved out out-of-market stations, which are stuck in SD-only while the market stations get HD and all their subchannels, and we're quickly shunning anything SD and sticking to the 1000's, 600's or wherever your HD tier is.

[mardek1995 200]

Exactly why I watch the GB stations. Compared to the tightly-formatted and crime-heavy Milwaukee shows, Green Bay's usually just focus on a couple crimes then some courthouse b-roll, then onto government stories (and weather forecasts that are comprehensive solely on market range alone). WLUK's news is much better than WITI's, but unless you have an antenna, you can't watch it in my area. Contracts with cable companies have also effectively starved out out-of-market stations, which are stuck in SD-only while the market stations get HD and all their subchannels, and we're quickly shunning anything SD and sticking to the 1000's, 600's or wherever your HD tier is.

And the problem with starving out-of-market stations is about to be displayed in Boston should NBC put their programming on WNEU. In fact, there's an entire thread dedicated to it right here.

[NEOMatrix 1299]

Next door in Lawrence County, PA, Comcast has dropped the Youngstown locals into the 100s even though they got decent ratings in New Castle. In fact, due to Western PA's hilly terrain, New Castle was better off getting Youngstown locals (especially WYTV vs WTAE) than getting Pittsburgh locals. The Achilles heel has always been pay-TV and the NFL due to WFMJ (and later, WKBN, but only sometimes) being forced to carry the Browns when New Castleans wanted to watch the Steelers and was forced to watch WPXI (or KDKA, or WPGH).

[rkolsen 1684]

I'm a bit confused as to your question. Are you referring to Nielsen ratings? Or viewing a station whose DMA ends the next county over but covers your county better than the one in your DMA?

 

I believe Nielsen only rates stations that are in your DMA. I'm not sure how they handle areas or counties that are within two DMAs (like Baltimore & Washington stations in Anne Arundel County, Md) or areas where there are no full power stations in a market where a distant station is piped in (like in the Eastern Shore of Maryland - part of Salisbury DMA which has a low power NBC that barely covers the city it's licensed too and WBAL and WRC are piped in).

 

If I were an OTA viewer and received stations from two DMA's I'd likely choose to watch the one that covers my area the best. If I live in an area where there is little to no news I'd probably they choose the stations that put on the best newscast.

[Eat News 4745]

In San Diego under Southwestern Cable which then became Time Warner. Back in the 90's, we used to get KCOP 13 as our UPN affiliate until 1999 when XDTV (UPN 13 / My TV 13) formed

 

We used to get KTLA 5 on ch 14 but during the day when Pre WB and WB programming existed, KTTY (which then became KSWB) had coverage rights and blacked out most of KTLA programming except for some daytime programs, weekend film festivals and KTLA News.

 

I just remember when ktla news @ ten ended and went straight to friends at 11pm. Sometimes we would get lucky and catch the first 10 min of friends until someone at Time Warner would be like "oh sh*t I forgot to flip the switch." And the screen would go straight to Paid Programming or KTTY carries right to local programming seen on Cable 5 / Over the Air 69.

 

Not sure if this counts but when KSWB ceased it's news operations, KNSD took over the evening newscasts while KTLA would simulcast KTLA Morning News under WB5 Morning News with local cut ins.

 

Grandma News reminds me of the days on Mission Cable (Now COX) when we got all the LA stations 4,5,7,9,11,13 on the original channels except (KNXT CBS)

Cable TV was 12 channels only(rotary dial ready) none of it was blacked out....all in living color.

[MidwestTV 1232]

Kansas City is also one of those large markets that overlaps others, specifically Topeka and St. Joseph. Granted, St. Joe is pretty much THE smallest market in the entire country and has their own ABC and Fox affiliates, but you can still easily get the KC stations (sans WDAF since they're not carried at all).

 

It's weirder for KC and Topeka because KC overlaps like half of Topeka's market or something. For one example, Douglas County, KS technically isn't in KC's DMA, yet all of the KC stations cover it. As such, you get both NBC and CBS affiliates from KC and Topeka, but only the KC Fox and ABC affiliates. Pretty certain it's similar with most of northeastern Kansas. If one looks at the severe weather tickers, they'll see that the maps contain the entire KC and most of Topeka market. It's been my observations that most stations only have their exact DMA boundaries in their weather crawls.

[NEOMatrix 1299]

Over in Youngstown, Time Warner carries both WKBN and WOIO (and before 2007, WUAB). As far as network programming, there has NEVER been a blackout of CBS programming, although WOIO is carried only in SD while WKBN is in HD. In Trumbull County, Time Warner carries both Cleveland AND Youngstown Big 4 locals in SD and HD even though Trumbull County is Youngstown DMA.

Armstrong Cable (the cable company in most of suburban Mahoning County and some parts of Trumbull County) dosen't carry any out-of-market COMMERCIAL stations, but instead, carries WQED from Pittsburgh (and for a while, carried WQED in HD until it was replaced by WNEO in the same slot).

[news89 468]

Over in Youngstown, Time Warner carries both WKBN and WOIO (and before 2007, WUAB). As far as network programming, there has NEVER been a blackout of CBS programming, although WOIO is carried only in SD while WKBN is in HD. In Trumbull County, Time Warner carries both Cleveland AND Youngstown Big 4 locals in SD and HD even though Trumbull County is Youngstown DMA.

Armstrong Cable (the cable company in most of suburban Mahoning County and some parts of Trumbull County) dosen't carry any out-of-market COMMERCIAL stations, but instead, carries WQED from Pittsburgh (and for a while, carried WQED in HD until it was replaced by WNEO in the same slot).

Just to the south TWC carries WJW in HD on Channel11. Also carries all 4 ytown stations in HD. Carries KDKA and WPGH in SD. We use to have WUAB until 2006, wytv enforced synd rules.

[C Block 1566]

Also keep in mind that as long as we're talking news coverage, pretty much every station (or at least ones I'm most familiar with) have shared content agreements with stations in adjacent markets, even if you don't realize it as a viewer. So even if you're in a small market viewing area, chances are your newscast will be filled in with regional news from nearby cities that's taken not from any wire service but directly from a news partner. Some of these partnerships can be a little strange and not fall on affiliate lines, but, they work, and it sucks if you don't have a good partner in a certain market.

[TriangleTriadMediaNews 267]

Here in Fredericksburg VA we get all of the DC locals, along with WRLH/FOX and WTVR/CBS from Richmond (along with most Richmond & DC radio stations easily available here as well. Most of the time I notice that Richmond & DC both do a great job covering local news here, although WTVR has a slight edge when it comes to severe weather coverage.

[mardek1995 200]

Also keep in mind that as long as we're talking news coverage, pretty much every station (or at least ones I'm most familiar with) have shared content agreements with stations in adjacent markets, even if you don't realize it as a viewer. So even if you're in a small market viewing area, chances are your newscast will be filled in with regional news from nearby cities that's taken not from any wire service but directly from a news partner. Some of these partnerships can be a little strange and not fall on affiliate lines, but, they work, and it sucks if you don't have a good partner in a certain market.

Dont many of these shares content agreements now come from stations in nearby cities owned by the same company as the local station (WFAA and KCEN/KAGS as of recently and even network O&Os like KPIX and CBS 13) not just of the same affiliation like it used to be?

[C Block 1566]

Dont many of these shares content agreements now come from stations in nearby cities owned by the same company as the local station (WFAA and KCEN/KAGS as of recently and even network O&Os like KPIX and CBS 13) not just of the same affiliation like it used to be?

 

Yes. In pretty much any station group (even small ones), there's a way for producers to look at rundowns of other stations and pull scripts and video directly from them without the other station really even knowing you've copied their story. This is great if you're a producer in a big station group or if a station in an adjacent market is in the same station group. But there are also special sharing agreements for many stations in adjacent markets even outside station groups or affiliations.

 

Of course, you can also pull content from stations outside your group or your own agreements on network or CNN wires (if you're a CNN affiliate), but that's only if the content makes it there. One thing that is cool about being a CNN affiliate is that you can request content from another station through CNN, though that's a slightly laborious process.

[AJClementeFan69 477]

Also keep in mind that as long as we're talking news coverage, pretty much every station (or at least ones I'm most familiar with) have shared content agreements with stations in adjacent markets, even if you don't realize it as a viewer. So even if you're in a small market viewing area, chances are your newscast will be filled in with regional news from nearby cities that's taken not from any wire service but directly from a news partner. Some of these partnerships can be a little strange and not fall on affiliate lines, but, they work, and it sucks if you don't have a good partner in a certain market.

 

For example, I believe KTRK in Houston partners with KEYE for Austin stuff.

 

In Milwaukee/Green Bay WTMJ and WGBA partner with the Morgan Murphy stations (WISC/WKBT) for Madison/La Crosse footage.

 

This leads to WLUK partnering with WMTV based off their previously shared NBC affiliation. I'd imagine this ends when Gray buys WBAY.

 

Not sure if any of these are formal contracts or just informal agreements.

[C Block 1566]

^^^

 

Yes, exactly. I've never really asked how these agreements work. Some I think are laid out formally, while others may just be an informal 'I'll give you this if you give me this from time to time' sort of thing. I presumed we paid one partner because we were a small market station, and we got so much more out of lifting content from them than they ever got from us.

[nathannah 2437]

For example, I believe KTRK in Houston partners with KEYE for Austin stuff.

 

In Milwaukee/Green Bay WTMJ and WGBA partner with the Morgan Murphy stations (WISC/WKBT) for Madison/La Crosse footage.

 

This leads to WLUK partnering with WMTV based off their previously shared NBC affiliation. I'd imagine this ends when Gray buys WBAY.

 

Not sure if any of these are formal contracts or just informal agreements.

 

The ABC stations in Wisconsin are pretty informal and tied up with each other; even if WBAY drops out of collaborating with WKOW for the most part once they're integrated into Gray, they'll still have some kind of bare agreement, and it'll still share UpFront and news coverage with WISN from Milwaukee. WITI and WLUK are very tied up though, to the point where the "John Doe, Fox 11 News" tag on Green Bay stories are overlaid with "Fox 6" tags if they air there and vice versa.