Worst Stations and Markets for Local TV

[crainbebo]

I made a mistake when mentioning KAPP/KVEW's news set. It was a few months ago that they were using a backdrop of Kennewick behind the anchor. But now, they have this stupid green screen set behind the anchor...and I'm not confusing Mike Gonzalez with the new weather girl (obviously on a green screen). They are so cheap they have to use CGI graphics of TV monitors behind Gonzalez now.
I spend more time watching the other two newscasts that I don't notice 35/42, and they are dead last in the market in terms of news ratings.
Why is there so much turnover? Because Yakima is a starter market. They hire 22-year-old people out of journalism school. Then they get transferred to a bigger market. KEPR lost their weeknight sports anchor a couple of weeks ago along with Annie Andrews (the main anchor). A reporter and producer were transferred out of KIMA recently as well. KEPR now has Kathleen Jacob doing news alone (still no 2nd anchor since Terry Chick was fired due to his DUI about 1.5 years ago).

 

[hamster]

I saw that Martinsburg and Winchester still get both Washington and Baltimore television channels. I'm sure that's why local network stations didn't develop there. People didn't want to lose their news from the region.

It is convenient if you want extra NFL games on Sundays or if one of the markets preempt...

When I had attended a wedding in Stephens Ciy, Virginia ( a suburb of Winchester ) back in 2011 I noticed not only Winchester gets Baltimore's WBAL & WJZ ( and they still do ) but also Richmond's WWBT and WTVR and Charlottesville's WVIR as well. I was surprised by that since online Comcast didn't have those channels listed as even being available. Almost as if they were "hidden" channels. Back in the 80s Martinsburg cable ( Warner Amex ?? ) did offer he Harrisburg area's WLYH channel 15 and Altoona's WTAJ channel 10 but the catch was that if one had wanted to see those channels you really did have to hunt to find them. Kinda like with WBAL in Winchester. To get that channel back in the 80s one needed to have one of those early cable-ready sets and since few had them at the time VERY few locals knew about WBAL being available.

There is a reason though why Martinsburg gets WMAR on cable...one of their anchors Jamie Costello I am pretty sure is from there. One of those "hometown boy makes good" thing.

 

[mvcg66b3r]

WHTX is back, having signed on last September.

Another update on WHTX:

WHTX-LD now serves as a complete simulcast of WUVN.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WUVN

It changed its virtual channel from 43 to 18, same as WUVN.

RabbitEars TV Query: http://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?request=print_station&facility_id=26337

 

[ChocoMingo]

Soon, WHDH will be one of them, because of NBC's and Comcast's presumably broken promise about having NBC be avaliable OTA for everyone and not making people have cable just to watch NBC, because the signal would be bad, unless they have a CP to move WNEU to the Needham antenna farm.

 

[Mr Tony]

Soon, WHDH will be one of them, because of NBC's and Comcast's presumably broken promise about having NBC be avaliable OTA for everyone and not making people have cable just to watch NBC, because the signal would be bad, unless they have a CP to move WNEU to the Needham antenna farm.

Low powered station WTMU-LD lit up in the last couple days. Right now it is a simulcast on WNEU and covers Boston Proper and the suburbs

http://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?request=station_search&callsign=Wtmu

 

[ChocoMingo]

What about the south areas that can't get both, they will have to get cable (promise-breaker for NBC/Comcast), or if they are able to , get WJAR OTA, not as local as Boston (it's a Providence station), but will have to do for NBC, they could get local news from the others (WBZ, WFXT, and the supposedly #1, WCVB), which may or may not hurt NBC Boston's ratings.

 

[Mr Tony]

What about the south areas that can't get both, they will have to get cable (promise-breaker for NBC/Comcast),

There is no rule that says you need to cover the whole market OTA. As long as Boston and the burbs are covered that pleases the FCC,

Here in Minneapolis (which is a huge market by the way) NBC (KARE 11) has no coverage in most of the northern part of the market. ABC (KSTP) still has ANALOG translators in Brainerd and Bemidji (two big towns in the northern part of the market)

 

[mvcg66b3r]

Also, look at the schedules for Peoria's Big 4. You can't get through part of the morning without seeing an infomercial.
FOX: 6-7am, 7:30-9am
CBS: 9-10am
NBC: 11-11:30am
ABC: 11:30am-Noon

Starting next week, WYZZ is dumping the 8-9am infomercial hour for two court shows with Cristina Perez and Karen Mills. Otherwise, no improvement on this front.

WYZZ is down to just one half-hour of infomercials from 10:30-11am. No change at the other three stations. But at least local newscasts and syndicated shows are/will be in HD.

And if you think Peoria's Big 4 are infomercial crazy, look at WAOE: 6:30-7, 7:30-8, 9-10, 10:30-11am, 11:30-noon. They also have a religious program (Gospel Truth with Andrew Wommack) from 8-8:30.
http://tvschedule.zap2it.com/tvlistings/ZCSGrid.do?stnNum=20680&channel=11&aid=tvschedule

 

[ThePowerCow]

What about Ft. Worth, TX? All of their licensed TV (KXAS) and FM's moved to Dallas. Do they get local news coverage? It seems like the only time they cross into the 817 area code are for Cowboys & Rangers games.

 

[mvcg66b3r]

Hagerstown..WHAG & WJAL Enough has been talked about WHAG with NBC/Comcast dumping them and so forth but WJAL 68 had its own issues over the years. Transmitter destroyed by fire in early 2009, losing the WB many years ago and never hooked up with another network ever since and off & on layoffs over the years. WJAL once had a small news department but that is long gone.

From hamster on another thread:

About ten years ago Hagerstown, MD's WJAL channel 68 did air the John Waters flick with Tracy Ullmen and Johnny Knoxville called "A Dirty Shame". Considering that the movie was all about sex ( it was rated NC17 for goodness sake ) and WJAL called themselves "Family TV"....WEIRD !!! Obviously nobody was minding the store !!

 

[mvcg66b3r]

Two posts from hamster on other threads:

Even though most of the area is in the Washington DC DMA I guess Hagerstown, Maryland and the rest of the "4-state" region ( Chambersburg, PA, Martinsburg, WV and Winchester, VA ) could fit in here.

Hagerstown..WHAG & WJAL Enough has been talked about WHAG with NBC/Comcast dumping them and so forth but WJAL 68 had its own issues over the years. Transmitter destroyed by fire in early 2009, losing the WB many years ago and never hooked up with another network ever since and off & on layoffs over the years. WJAL once had a small news department but that is long gone.

Martinsburg..channel 60 now ION. Was once WYVN FOX 60. That failed mainly because the original owner had never owned a TV or even a radio station in the past. Pretty much a case of someone pouring a ton of money into a station only to rather quickly file bankruptcy and a very public bankruptcy at that. Things were so bad that the owner had actually went on its own airwaves saying "..This place is so damn broke we can't even pay to keep the Pepsi machine !!". Stories of collection agencies calling non-stop, equipment constantly breaking down, employees not getting paid..in the community WYVN became "We're Your Valley Nightmare". When PAX bought WYVN some years later the station actually had a staff and produced a few local shows too. Unfortunately Martinsburg's channel 60 today is pretty much a repeater for DC's ION 66..no Martinsburg local content.

Winchester....WAZT. Started in 1985 by Art & Virginia Stamler. For years the station did ok with a mix of religious shows and family shows including classic TV. WAZT for the longest time even had a news department. Sometime in the late 90s the Stamlers ran into personal money troubles ( a good bit of that was due to Virginia Stamler getting cancer and dying some years later ). The Stamlers sold their radio station WAZR to Clear Channel which became of top 40 station in Harrisonburg, VA to raise cash however the Stamlers still continued to have money woes and Art would sell WAZT I believe not long after the death of his wife and WAZT would face bankruptcy after the sale too. Station is still on the air. A few years ago someone had posted on the Northern Virginia Daily website that Art Stamler had end up filing personal bankruptcy even after selling WAZT and never could enjoy the benefits of being retired.

Then there was WHSV's TV3 Winchester ( ABC ). TV3 did pretty well for awhile but there were two issues. One was that the station was on the grounds of Winchester's Shenandoah University and during TV3's existence had a love/hate thing with TV3 Winchester ( Gray ) such as owner Gray not using interns from the university even though that was in the contract when the station was launched. Another issue which doomed them ( my opinion ) was Sinclair buying WJLA ABC 7. Among the local business community the story was that Sinclair wanted to make WJLA exclusive ABC in the Winchester region ( they had just bought WJLA ) and had planned on getting TV3 taken off cable despite being a local channel which would had crippled TV3 since most of their viewers were on cable. Actually true or not I don't know but I do know that once TV3 Winchester was suddenly shut down in December 2013 channel 3 went back to Harrisonburg's WHSV ABC 3 for a time only to get removed thanks to Sinclair. Today Comcast Winchester/Front Royal channel 3 is dark.

About ten years ago Hagerstown, MD's WJAL channel 68 did air the John Waters flick with Tracy Ullmen and Johnny Knoxville called "A Dirty Shame". Considering that the movie was all about sex ( it was rated NC17 for goodness sake ) and WJAL called themselves "Family TV"....WEIRD !!! Obviously nobody was minding the store !!

 

[mvcg66b3r]

Looks like just CBS and ABC. Most are from LA

http://tvschedule.zap2it.com/tvlist...setMyPreference=false&lineupId=CA04482:X&aid=

And the Palm Springs CBS is carried instead of the L.A. CBS.

Must be why the listings show KESQ-DT10 instead of KCBS

They just added KCBS, on channels 19 (!) and 1209.
http://tvschedule.zap2it.com/tvlist...rence=false&lineupId=CA04482:X&aid=tvschedule

 

[ftballfan]

Even though Wikipedia isn't always reliable, its article for WWPX says that a planned sale of then-WYVN in 1993 would have converted it to a CBS affiliate for the Winchester/Hagerstown area. If that would have happened, I think Hagerstown/Winchester would have officially been split off the Washington DC DMA. ABC would have been provided via cable carriage and/or translators of WJLA, WHSV, WJZ/WMAR, WTAE, and/or WHTM depending on location.

In my opinion, here are the counties that would have comprised the Hagerstown-Winchester-Cumberland DMA (along with some other possible DMA changes):
Almost certainly
MARYLAND: Allegany, Washington (both from Washington DC DMA)
VIRGINIA: Clarke, Frederick, Page, Shenandoah, Warren, Winchester city (all from Washington DC DMA)
WEST VIRGINIA: Berkeley, Hampshire, Hardy, Jefferson, Mineral, Morgan (all from Washington DC DMA)
Possible
PENNSYLVANIA: Franklin (from Harrisburg-Lancaster et al DMA; includes Chambersburg); Fulton (from Washington DC DMA; could have easily gone to Johnstown-Altoona DMA in this scenario)
WEST VIRGINIA: Grant (from Washington DC DMA; could have easily gone to Clarksburg-Weston DMA)

 

[newsmark]

What about Ft. Worth, TX? All of their licensed TV (KXAS) and FM's moved to Dallas. Do they get local news coverage? It seems like the only time they cross into the 817 area code are for Cowboys & Rangers games.

KXAS has a new building, but it's still in Fort Worth. KTVT's main studio is in Fort Worth. WFAA and KDFW both have staffed bureaus in Fort Worth. Fort Worth, Arlington and the midcities get more coverage than you might expect, being in the shadow of Dallas. But probably not as much coverage as they'd get if they were a separate market and not so close to another big city.

By my (very) rough estimate, a Fort Worth market would be about the size of the San Diego or Nashville markets (28 or 29). Of course, that would also knock Dallas down to 12 or 13 (Phoenix and Detroit, respectively).

 

[Mr Tony]

They just added KCBS, on channels 19 (!) and 1209.
http://tvschedule.zap2it.com/tvlist...rence=false&lineupId=CA04482:X&aid=tvschedule

no they didn't. Time Warner site still shows ONLY CBS Palm Springs on both the Time Warner setup and the "new" Spectrum setup

 

[hamster]

Even though Wikipedia isn't always reliable, its article for WWPX says that a planned sale of then-WYVN in 1993 would have converted it to a CBS affiliate for the Winchester/Hagerstown area. If that would have happened, I think Hagerstown/Winchester would have officially been split off the Washington DC DMA. ABC would have been provided via cable carriage and/or translators of WJLA, WHSV, WJZ/WMAR, WTAE, and/or WHTM depending on location.

In my opinion, here are the counties that would have comprised the Hagerstown-Winchester-Cumberland DMA (along with some other possible DMA changes):
Almost certainly
MARYLAND: Allegany, Washington (both from Washington DC DMA)
VIRGINIA: Clarke, Frederick, Page, Shenandoah, Warren, Winchester city (all from Washington DC DMA)
WEST VIRGINIA: Berkeley, Hampshire, Hardy, Jefferson, Mineral, Morgan (all from Washington DC DMA)
Possible
PENNSYLVANIA: Franklin (from Harrisburg-Lancaster et al DMA; includes Chambersburg); Fulton (from Washington DC DMA; could have easily gone to Johnstown-Altoona DMA in this scenario)
WEST VIRGINIA: Grant (from Washington DC DMA; could have easily gone to Clarksburg-Weston DMA)

The idea of a Cumberland-Hagerstown DMA was around as far back as the 50s and 60s when the FCC gave 25 and 31 for Hagerstown and two UHF channels for Cumberland. I think Cumberland's WTBO radio had the OK to launch one of the Cumberland channels back in the 50s. Unfortunately in those days Cumberland went into a severe economic decline which killed that. At one time that city had a population touching 40,000 today its half that.

The WYVN sale of 1993....Winchester's WUSQ radio was planning to buy that. WUSQ was so sure of that they even hired sales folks and news folks to service WYVN but the idea to move the station to Winchester was just too much for Martinsburg as thanks to local politics the station stayed in Martinsburg and WUSQ more/less said "forget it". Not that it matters but today the ION station there is just a repeater for DC's ION station and nothing more
Oh at the time WUSQ was planning to buy WYVN they were looking at buying Strasburg, VA's WFQX too. WUSQ got that one even though for the first two years the station remained in Strasburg. At the time it was reported that the local Strasburg and Shenandoah County, VA business community just like with WYVN in Martinsburg were concerned about that station moving to Winchester though in reality it was a personel thing at the time which prevented the move. In September 1995 when the last original WFQX jock was fired then the station moved to Winchester. Today Shenandoah County doesn't have any FM stations as they have all moved to either Winchester or Harrisonburg, VA.

 

[formeraa]

KXAS has a new building, but it's still in Fort Worth. KTVT's main studio is in Fort Worth. WFAA and KDFW both have staffed bureaus in Fort Worth. Fort Worth, Arlington and the midcities get more coverage than you might expect, being in the shadow of Dallas. But probably not as much coverage as they'd get if they were a separate market and not so close to another big city.

By my (very) rough estimate, a Fort Worth market would be about the size of the San Diego or Nashville markets (28 or 29). Of course, that would also knock Dallas down to 12 or 13 (Phoenix and Detroit, respectively).

Would the separate DMA's reflect the nearly visible dotted line between Dallas and Tarrant counties? (Inside joke...you have to live there to understand)

 

[mvcg66b3r]

no they didn't. Time Warner site still shows ONLY CBS Palm Springs on both the Time Warner setup and the "new" Spectrum setup

The TWC lineup indicates that CBS Palm Springs is in SD only. I'm pretty sure they broadcast in HD OTA on KPSP.

 

[newsmark]

Would the separate DMA's reflect the nearly visible dotted line between Dallas and Tarrant counties? (Inside joke...you have to live there to understand)

I do and I did.

Actually, I think the line wouldn't be so "nearly visible" if the TV and radio markets had never been joined. Oh, and if they'd never built DFW Airport in between them.

At one point, WFAA 8 in Dallas and WBAP 5 in Fort Worth both aired the Today show and other NBC shows simultaneously. That seems silly now but probably didn't at the time. WBAP's transmitter was in Fort Worth and didn't get a strong signal to all of Dallas.

There used to be a lot of animosity between the two cities, so maybe they would co-exist like Washington, D.C. and Baltimore.

 

[seatownmedia]

no they didn't. Time Warner site still shows ONLY CBS Palm Springs on both the Time Warner setup and the "new" Spectrum setup

To be clear, Time Warner, (Charter), runs Palm Springs affiliates for the networks. However, they do offer KCAL, an indie out of LA that shares its news departement with KCBS. This is a far cry from decades past when the full boat of LA stations was shown in Palm Springs/Indio. There may some localized areas around the desert that still receive the full LA lineup. Yucca Valley is not Palm Springs.