Baltimore, MD (July 24, 1999)

[ftballfan]

Source: http://www.matthewsittel.com/tvg/cl/19990724_coba_8019d9_cl.jpg

2 - Baltimore County Government / Local Origination
3 - Cinemax
4 - Showtime
5 - HBO
6 - ESPN
7 - Home Team Sports
8 - Sneak Prevue
9 - Nickelodeon
10 - E!
11 - QVC
12 - WMAR (ABC 2 Baltimore)
13 - USA Network
14 - WNUV (WB 54 Baltimore)
15 - WBFF (FOX 45 Baltimore)
16 - Fox Family Channel
17 - CNN
18 - Headline News
19 - TV Guide Channel
20 - PAX National Feed
21 - WBAL (NBC 11 Baltimore)
22 - WMPB (PBS 67 Baltimore)
23 - WJZ (CBS 13 Baltimore)
24 - WUTB (UPN 24 Baltimore)
25 - Comcast Network
26 - WETA (PBS 26 Washington) / MOR Music (when WETA is off)
27 - AMC
28 - Turner Classic Movies
29 - Bravo
30 - TNT
31 - TBS SuperStation
32 - TV Land
33 - Sci-Fi Channel
34 - History Channel
35 - A&E Network
36 - BET
37 - WHUT (PBS 32 Washington) / TBN (when WHUT is off)
38 - Discovery Channel
39 - TLC
40 - Animal Planet
41 - Comcast Home Theater 4
42 - Cartoon Network
43 - Game Show Network
44 - Comedy Central
45 - Lifetime
46 - HGTV
47 - HSN
48 - Food Network
49 - Style
50 - Comcast Home Theater 2
51 - MTV
52 - VH1
53 - TNN
54 - CMT (3am-3pm) / Comcast Home Theater 3 (3pm-3am)
55 - OLN
56 - ESPN2
57 - ESPN Classic
58 - Golf Channel
59 - Speedvision
60 - CNBC
61 - MSNBC
62 - Weather Channel
63 - Comcast Home Theater 5
64 - Disney Channel
65 - HBO Family
66 - HBO Plus
67 - The Movie Channel
68 - Starz!
69 - Encore
70 - Comcast CCTV
71 - CCBC 1 (featuring Kaleidoscope)
72 - CCBC 2 (featuring Knowledge TV)
73 - Education Channel
74 - C-SPAN
75 - C-SPAN 2
76 - Leased Access
77 - EWTN
78 - TBN
79 - Univision
80 - Playboy Channel
81 - Spice
82 - Comcast Home Theater 1
83 - Local Access

 

[IM42A]

Not a single commercial Washington station. That's kind of strange. How long has that been going on?

 

[ftballfan]

Not a single commercial Washington station. That's kind of strange. How long has that been going on?

My best guess is WDCA was the last one standing, and it was likely replaced by the PAX national feed when that network launched in 1998 (PAX is on cable 20).

 

[fybush]

Not a single commercial Washington station. That's kind of strange. How long has that been going on?

Since syndex would have blacked out nearly everything except local news, I'd expect.

 

[IM42A]

Since syndex would have blacked out nearly everything except local news, I'd expect.

When I lived in northern Virginia, they took Baltimore 2/11/13 off the cable (Cox IIRC) in 1988, but left WBFF and WNUV. I'm pretty sure both of those were still on cable when we moved away in 1996. WBFF had been solidly Fox 45 throughout that time frame, and I don't believe they blacked it out or overlaid it with Fox programming from WTTG. I don't know what was going on with WNUV as I hardly ever watched it, per Wikipedia they went with UPN in 1995.

I want to say that two or three Washington commercial stations remained on Baltimore cable for a time, but I don't have specifics, I want to say WRC and WTTG but I don't have a source for that.

Blackouts and program overlays (showing the in-market affiliate's network programming when the out-of-market affiliate is airing it at the same time) is clumsy and disruptive by its very nature. It's really hard to see the point of it, unless the home market has a fear that viewers in marginal areas will start watching the out-of-market stations instead, and that the county where this is happening will undergo changing viewing habits and end up in the adjacent market's DMA. Losing a relatively large county can reduce a market's size considerably, such as happened when Athens County OH left the Charleston-Huntington market (which has shrunk drastically in recent years and can't afford to lose many more counties), always an awkward fit, and became part of the Columbus DMA. Athens has few naturally-occurring ties to either Charleston or Huntington, Huntington is difficult to get to from Athens, and people from Athens have little reason ever to go to Charleston, whereas Columbus is a straight shot up US 33 and is the state capital (and a large city) on top of that.