TOP 50 TV markets 1963 vs. 2013

[gregg75]

Just curious as to how the markets have changed since 1963. This is on the national board too, but we like our retro stuff here also. Hard to believe that Wheeling WV was #25 in 1963 (#157 today). Among the Top 50 Denver has moved up the most (from #47 to #17).

Today is from http://www.tvb.org/media/file/TVB_Ma..._2013-2014.pdf 1963 is from http://www.americanradiohistory.com/...-Page-0009.pdf (which wasn't easy to locate).

Top 50 1963 markets vs. (2013) + or -
1. New York (1)
2. Los Angeles (2)
3. Chicago (3)
4. Philadelphia (4)
5. Boston (7) -2
6. Detroit (11) -5
7. San Francisco (6) +1
8. Cleveland (19) -11
9. Pittsburgh (23) -14
10. Washington (8) +2
11. Providence, R. I.(53) -42
12. St. Louis (21) -9
13. Hartford -New Haven, Conn. (30) -17
14. Dallas -Ft. Worth (5) +9
15. Cincinnati (35) -20
16. Minneapolis -St. Paul (15) +1
17. Baltimore (27) -10
18. Indianapolis (26) -8
19. Kansas City, Mo. (31) -12
20. Seattle- Tacoma (13) +7
21. Milwaukee (34) -13
22. Buffalo, N. Y. (52) -30
23. Atlanta (9) +14
24. Miami (16) +8
25. Wheeling, W. Va.- Steubenville, Ohio (157) -132
26. Houston (10) +16
27. Dayton, Ohio (64) -37
28. Harrisburg -Lancaster- Lebanon -York, Pa.(43) -15
29. Charlotte, N. C. (25) +4
30. Sacramento- Stockton, Calif. (20) +10
31. Columbus, Ohio (32) -1
32. Portland Ore. (22) +10
33. Toledo (76) -43
34. Grand Rapids -Kalamazoo, Mich. (39) -5
35. Birmingham, Ala. (44) -9
36. Memphis (50) -14
37. Lansing, Mich. (115) -78
38. Johnstown -Altoona, Pa. (103) -65
39. Albany -Schenectady -Troy, N. Y. (58) -19
40. Tampa -St. Petersburg, Fla. (14) +26
41. Syracuse, N. Y.(85) -44
42. Nashville (29) +13
43. Louisville, Ky. (49) -6
44. Charleston- Huntington, W. Va. (65) -21
45. New Orleans (51) -6
48. Saginaw -Bay City -Flint, Mich. (68) -20
47. Denver (17) +30
48. Greenville -Spartanburg, S. C.-Asheville,N. C. (37) +11
49. Oklahoma City (41) +7
50. Greensboro -Winston -Salem, N. C.(46) +4

 

[bpatrick]

What should be obvious is the movement of people from the Frostbelt to the Sunbelt, as many of the industrial jobs in the Northeast and the Michigan/Ohio/West Virginia area went overseas (same with the steel industry in Birmingham). In my part of the country, the Research Triangle multiplied the population in Raleigh/Durham above anything I could imagine when I lived there in '63, banking replaced the textile industry in Charlotte, and Atlanta has experienced tremendous growth since the '80s (Atlanta is the business hub of the Southeast just as Dallas is for the Southwest). Also, there's Silicon Valley in California. And as fuel costs rose after 1973, a lot of people decided to head for warmer climes rather than pay increased heating bills.

In the I-85 corridor, Greenville/Spartanburg/Asheville was not on that list in 1963 but should be today; textiles have been replaced by more diversified industry and the population growth has been remarkable in the last 20 years or so. Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point has missed a lot of the growth (some of it by choice), and Birmingham, which some students of the South would say is an extension of the corridor even though it is not on 85, isn't even considered Sunbelt despite the growth of the city as a medical facility since the late '70s. Pierce and Hagstrom, in their "Book of America," consider the Sunbelt to be the I-85 corridor from Raleigh to Atlanta, then skipping over to Dallas (bypassing Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana) on I-20 and extending on to Southern California; they also include Florida, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio.

 

[BD Sullivan]

I'm surprised that Cleveland is still that high at 19. They've lost more than half their population since then.

 

[gregg75]

Pulled this info (most is from Wikipedia) for 1963 Dallas, Denver, Wheeling

Dallas
(pop. 1960 - 679,685 - 2010 1,197,816)
metro 1960 - 1,850,658 - 2010 6,371,773
1963 TV stations
KRLD 4 CBS
WBAP 5 NBC
WFAA 8 ABC
KTVT 11 Ind.
KERA 13 NET

Denver
(pop. 1960 - 493,887 - 2010 600,158)
metro 1960 - 1,017,461 - 2010 2,543,482
1963 TV stations
KCTO 2 Ind.
KCNC 4 NBC
KRMA 6 NET
KLZ 7 CBS
KBTV 9 ABC

Wheeling WV
(pop. 1960 - 53,400 - 2010 28,486)
metro 1960 - 190,342 - 2010 153,172

1963 TV stations
WTRF 7 NBC/ABC
WSTV 9 CBS/ABC Stubenville, OH.
Wikipedia also said they could pick up Pittsburgh's 1963 stations
KDKA 2 CBS, WTAE 4 ABC, WPXI 11 NBC, WQEX 16 NET, WQED 13 NET

 

[KML0224]

How in the hell was Hartford/New Haven #13?

(We fall just short of 1 million TV households today.)

 

[Tim-In-Houston]

Are the DMA counties set by the FCC or does Nielsen have a say in this? Could it be possible (in the case of Wheeling/Steubenville) that some of these markets were re-drawn over the intervening years to add and/or subtract counties? Even with the movement of population away from the frost belt to the sun belt, I have hard time believing there wasn't something more at work for that market to drop so far (especially with the population numbers posted by gregg75).

 

[gregg75]

Hear ya.......something just doesn't sound right about Wheeling. But almost 200,000 metro may have been a lot more impressive in back in 1960. I doubt any city in Georgia had that, except Atlanta.

Could Pittsburgh have gotten some of Wheeling's counties over time?

 

[trusty]

Are the DMA counties set by the FCC or does Nielsen have a say in this?

One word: Cable.

 

[johnnya2k6]

Atlanta has experienced tremendous growth since the '80s (Atlanta is the business hub of the Southeast just as Dallas is for the Southwest).

The real growth for Atlanta started after they won the rights to host the 1996 Olympics. They probably jumped to the Top 10 after tax breaks lured much of the entertainment industry (and Tyler Perry) here, with Pinewood Studios building their first U.S. lot in nearby Fayetteville and popular shows like The Walking Dead, Vampire Diaries, Family Feud, and Drop Dead Diva all being done here.

Compare that to Fairbanks; they didn't take off themselves until the pipeline construction boom in the mid-'70s, resulting in more schools and subdivisions being built, new shopping malls (if you call them that), a public transportation system (MACS), and a more spacious, modern public library to replace the already outgrown one we've had for decades.

 

[gregg75]

No, Atlanta has been going for some time. Probably the late 80's and early 90's were a good time here. We like to build new things and then tear them down 20 years later to build something NEWER.

 

[semoochie]

A couple of places missing from this list are San Diego and Phoenix.

 

[dhett]

That's because the list was for top 50 in 1963. Neither Phoenix nor San Diego were top 50 then, and Phoenix may not have even been a top 100 market then.

 

[nomadcowatbk]

Orlando isn't on that list, the 1963 list is mostly Midwestern and Northeastern

 

[FredLeonard]

Keep in mind that these are rankings, so we are talking about relative positions. A market can gain population and drop down because other markets gained more populations.

It's not about cities. A city loses population but people are moving to the 'burbs, so market population is not affected. People are staying in the same market.

Nielsen draws market areas. Supposedly they are based on what people stations people watch (in any given county). Back before cable was a big factor, people in fringe areas put up roof antennas and often they had a choice of stations in two (or more) different cities. Central New Jersey could watch New York or Philly. Much of Maryland could watch DC or Baltimore. With cable, things got locked in and once a county was assigned to a market, that was all that they could see on cable. This would also affect market population.

And, yes, A/C made a big difference. More businesses and households moved to the sunbelt. A major factor in business moving South was lower operation and labor costs but often such moves would not have happened because of oppressive summer weather - before air conditioning.

Just shows: Major league baseball teams should not have been allowed to move and the leagues should not have been allowed to expand West of St. Louis or South of DC. Baseball was a lot more interesting when cities had two (or three) teams. And professional football should not be allowed in any place without crisp fall weather (nor hockey where it doesn't freeze).

 

[bpatrick]

Yes, but when you're talking about the expansion of professional sports teams you're ignoring the one factor behind it--and it's represented with a dollar sign. Why else do you think that practically every team in the NBA gets into the playoffs? And that the baseball playoffs last virtually the entire month of October when, once upon a time in many of our lifetimes, there was one playoff--the World Series--best NL team vs. best AL team, best four out of seven, the thing's done before the first frost appears in some areas.

But even in areas "where it doesn't freeze" hockey will draw if the local team has a winning image--the Carolina Hurricanes are a good example. OTOH, two teams have come and gone in Atlanta; neither the Flames nor the Thrashers were winners there.

And to elaborate on your point about the assignment of each county to one market: I live in the Raleigh/Durham market; two counties that border mine are in Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point. Despite this, we get WFMY/2 Greensboro and WGHP/FOX8 High Point, despite the local cable company's best efforts to remove them (WFMY's been part of our town's viewing since 1949; WGHP since 1963). IIRC, the cable companies have to look at the stations' shares of audience, and I suppose WFMY and WGHP draw enough viewers in our county to warrant staying on cable; OTOH, Athens, GA, for years brought in Greenville/Spartanburg/Asheville and Augusta, but people watched Atlanta anyway, so those out-of-market stations were gradually taken off.

As for Phoenix and San Diego, it goes back to what I said about movement into the Sunbelt, especially since the '70s, and yes, the population centers in 1963 were almost entirely in the Frostbelt. Raleigh/Durham wasn't even close to the top 50 in 1963; today it's almost in the top 25.

 

[ShawnHill1]

No, Atlanta has been going for some time. Probably the late 80's and early 90's were a good time here. We like to build new things and then tear them down 20 years later to build something NEWER.

LOL...namely the downtown domed football stadium, and the former Olympic stadium-turned-ballpark down the highway.

 

[landtuna]

That's because the list was for top 50 in 1963. Neither Phoenix nor San Diego were top 50 then, and Phoenix may not have even been a top 100 market then.

The 1960 census shows the population of Arizona as just over 1.3M which would have made Maricopa County (the Phoenix metro area) about 1M of that. The metro area was growing like a weed in those days so I am estimating that by 1963 the population would have been close to 1.2M for the metro area. There were four TV stations in the Phoenix area then, three network affiliates and one independent. I am not familiar with the other smaller markets listed in this thread but would assume that a market area of over 1M would have been well within the top 100 and perhaps even at the bottom end of the top 50.

 

[KeithE4]

There were four TV stations in the Phoenix area then, three network affiliates and one independent.

Not to nitpick, but...it was 5 stations. KAET Channel 8 went on the air in 1961. Also, Phoenix was probably the smallest market at the time with a VHF independent (KPHO-TV 5).

 

[blizzard59]

For anyone curious about the 1963 rankings, you may want to view the March 1963 issue of Television Magazine, also archived at AmericanRadioHistory.com, itself an absolute must-visit website for anyone interested in United States radio and TV history. The feature article in the March 1963 issue was an in-depth profile of the top 100 TV markets in the US at that time, beginning on page 77 of the PDF and continuing nearly to the end of the publication. Due to methodologies, the list differs somewhat from the one in the first post of this thread, even though that one also came from Television Magazine. One of the problems in researching that era of TV was that, unlike today with Nieslen, there was no single authoritative source in determining market definitions and rankings, so data can often differ from source-to-source, or even among the same source.

Anyway, again, view the March 1963 issue of Television Magazine for a detailed look at the top 100 TV markets in 1963 (plus a whole lot of neat advertisements and other articles).

 

[landtuna]

Not to nitpick, but...it was 5 stations. KAET Channel 8 went on the air in 1961. Also, Phoenix was probably the smallest market at the time with a VHF independent (KPHO-TV 5).

How could I have forgotten good old KAET? One reason was I wasn't living in AZ in 1961. My folks had moved us to CA in 1960 so I missed the sign-on of KAET.

Other interesting facts, of which I am sure you already know, was that KPHO (RF 5) was not only the first independent but also the first TV station in AZ with a sign-on date of December 4, 1949. It was the only TV station in AZ until 1953. At one time KPHO was affiliated with NBC, ABC, CBS and Dumont gradually losing those affiliations one by one until once again independent in 1955. This lasted until 1994 when KPHO became the new CBS affiliate in Phoenix. It also hosted the USA's longest known children's program, "Wallace and Ladmo" which ran 36 years.