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Largest TV DMA without a PBS affiliate?

J

joebtsflk1

In a recent thread about earliest remembered TV viewing, one commenter talked about how Rockford IL never had its own PBS outlet. Seems like Rockford would have been of sufficient size to have warranted at least the construction of a full-power repeater. Chicago's WTTW wasn't that far away, but it never happened.

Are there markets larger than Rockford without a PBS affiliate providing an OTA signal?
 
Rockford is market #136, for what it's worth.

Bakersfield, market #126 has only a translator for Fresno's KVPT despite having two full-power commercial stations.
 
Tyler, TX is the largest (according to Rabbitears) without a PBS in the market
Beaumont, TX is next
Then Rockford

Alot of markets in Texas dont
Sherman
Wichita Falls
Abeliene
Laredo
Victoria

Then there are the 1 station markets like Mankato, MN and Lafayette, IN

Santa Barbara and Bakersfield have translators
 
looks like KERA in Dallas id=s on cable in those Texas markets

KERA-TV also serves as the default PBS station for the Abilene, San Angelo and Tyler/Longview/Lufkin/Nacogdoches markets, as well as the Texas side of the Sherman/Ada market; none of these areas have PBS members of their own
 
KERA was also carried on cable in the Odessa-Midland and Amarillo markets before they got their own PBS stations. (KERA, KTVT (then-independent), WFAA (ABC) and KXTX (then-Independent) were all on a microwave system that distributed them through that part of Texas.

(I don't think KERA was ever on cable in Lubbock, but the others might have been.)
 
I think the Lufkin/Nacogdoches part of the Tyler market gets KUHT on cable. In Beaumont, KLTL is likely available OTA in at least part of the market, but isn't on cable (KUHT is on cable there)
 
What these markets without a PBS member station have in common is that they are located in highly populated states that do not have a statewide PBS network/simulcast, as many of the lesser populated states do (21 states have statewide PBS networks; a few others [namely Louisiana, Oregon, and Wisconsin] have partial statewide networks).

Smaller cities and markets in the states where a statewide network of PBS stations was never created were often left to fend for themselves as far as establishing an over-the-air presence for PBS. In many cases, public universities stepped up to provide the infrastructure and financial support needed to get PBS programming on the air in their local communities. However, this didn't happen everywhere, as the Rockford market demonstrates. Northern Illinois University in DeKalb would have been a fine candidate to set up a PBS station receivable in Rockford and the surrounding area, but such a thing never materialized, even though the table of analog channel allotments did specifically allow for a non-commercial station licensed to DeKalb to be brought on air.
 
There are networks in ME, NH, VT and CT for New England. RI works with just one station. Did MA ever classify WGBH, WGBX and WGBY as a statewide PBS network?

At least for cable, Comcast in New Britain, CT carries WGBY from Springfield. Time-Warner in Portland, ME carries WENH-TV channel 11 from Durham, NH. For some reason, my mother's Frontier service, one town over from me, carries WNET and, for whatever reason, channel 50 from Montclair, NJ. It used to be known as NJN.
 
unclehonkey said:
Then there are the 1 station markets like Mankato, MN and Lafayette, IN
Click to expand...

Soon, Tampa Bay will be a one-station market... :( WUSF is being sold to the spectrum...so sad for my little sister watching the .2 kids subchannel... :(

How will parents explain what happened to the station to the kids?!
 
He meant one station markets, as in that market only had one commercial TV station in it:

WLFI-TV (CBS) channel 18 Lafayette, IN
KEYC-TV (CBS) channel 12 Mankato, MN
 
Jonathan7157 said:
Soon, Tampa Bay will be a one-station market... :( WUSF is being sold to the spectrum...so sad for my little sister watching the .2 kids subchannel... :(

How will parents explain what happened to the station to the kids?!
Click to expand...


WUSF is the PBS "red-headed stepchild" in Tampa.
WEDU has always been the primary PBS station.
The University of South Florida is probably tired of subsidizing the WUSF TV operation.
 
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