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Another station is signing off: WKDH-DT/Tupelo-Columbus

What's the closest next ABC station to Tupelo? WPTY?

-crainbebo
 
crainbebo said:
What's the closest next ABC station to Tupelo? WPTY?

-crainbebo
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The eastern side of the market would be served by WCFT-33 (Tuscaloosa-Birmingham), the northern side of the market would be served by WBBJ-7 (Jackson, TN), and the southern side of the market would be served by WTOK-11 (Meridian). One would expect WCBI-4 (CBS on 4.1, CW on 4.2 and MNTV on 4.3) from Columbus to add another subchannel to their broadcast roster.
 
The cable firm may even ending up turning to a network O&O far away from Tupelo.

Cable systems in the Caribbean and Latin America pick up a satellite feed of WABC-TV Channel 7, the network's New York City flagship, and dish owners in the U.S. living far outside the service area of any affliiate get WABC as well. Could work out the same for cable companies outside any ABC affiliate's DMA. In that case, folks in Tupelo will be treated to WABC-TV's Eyewitness News, which is a viewing experience unlike any they've had before.
 
Any chance that WBBJ, WCFT or WTOK would make a last-minute purchase of WKDH to use it as a satellite? Do those stations have much syndicated material that would duplicate any of the other Tupelo stations' offerings?...
 
crainbebo said:
What's the closest next ABC station to Tupelo? WPTY?

-crainbebo
Click to expand...
WPTY in Memphis would seem to be the closest to the market. The Jackson Tn station would be pushing the limits on reception depending on where the local cable company has its headin.
 
MarcB said:
1069_KIFR said:
For me, Not since KRON in San Francisco lost their NBC affiliation!
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That doesn't count since they're still on the air.
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But the KRON is dead with bad content. Ok Back to WKDH-DT in Tupelo If the market has Dish users and Directv users then they might use the Disney O&O's like KGO-TV for Dish, KABC-TV for Directv and WABC-TV for Directv until all the TV providers can get an agreement with the nearest ABC Affiliate in Tupelo.
 
msugrad2000 said:
Northland Cable in Starkville used to carry WAPT Jackson, MS before WKDH came on the air.
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Metrocast, which succeeded Northland in Starkville in 2008/2009, still carries WAPT (I left Starkville in 5/2009). I imagine, unless one of the three remaining stations (WCBI-Columbus, WTVA-Tupelo or WLOV-West Point) puts ABC on a subchannel, the cable companies will just split the market.

WKDH is, in reality, no great loss. WTVA didn't program it very well, keeping the best syndicated shows for itself and LMA'd WLOV. It's no wonder Southern Broadcasting wasn't making money off it.

There's 6 or 7 ABC affiliates, depending on location, that could cover the market easily via cable:

WBBJ-Jackson, TN (north)
WAAY-Huntsville (northeast)
WCFT-Birmingham (east)
WTOK-Meridian (southeast)
WAPT-Jackson (southwest)
WABG-Greenville (west)
WPTY-Memphis (northwest)

WKDH's OTA signal was pretty weak outside Tupelo anyway, so again, no great loss to those without cable.
 
Rick Rose 2.0 said:
Maybe it will end up on a subchannel
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I'm going to speculate that you've got it.

I did some digging in the ownership reports on the FCC website & reaffirmed something I thought I remembered seeing -- that there is a pretty close relationship between the ownership of WKDH and that of WTVA. To wit, WKDH is owned by two people by the last name of "Spain" (I believe they're brothers) -- while the 51% owner of WTVA is also a Spain. (sister? wife? mother?) And, it appears the ownership reports for both stations were filled out by the same person. These aren't technically co-owned stations, but the relationship is awfully close.

So my theory is...

- Suspend operation of WKDH.
- Offer channel 45 to the FCC in the incentive auction.
- Request a channel-sharing arrangement, where WKDH and WTVA share use of WTVA's channel 8. (this way, both stations retain must-carry rights)

They collect some money in the incentive auction and save the cost of operating the channel 45 transmitter, while retaining all the revenue and cable/satellite carriage benefits of having two stations.

Is it possible they've temporarily moved ABC to WTVA channel 9.2? (indeed, it would be legal & technically feasible to run it as channel 45.1 over the WTVA transmitter, as long as the WKDH license remains valid) The one problem I have with my theory is that you'd think they'd want continuity with the ABC operation -- that they wouldn't shut down channel 45 until the channel sharing arrangement was in place & WKDH was operating on channel 8. That, and operating it as a WTVA subchannel doesn't invoke must-carry.
 
At least that station got to sign on the air-- WMWC from Galesburg, IL was supposed to in 2001 but was blocked, and now the CP expires in two days!
 
An interesting side note to all this... In 1981, a pirate radio station in New Britain, CT started using the call-sign WKDH for it's AM & FM broadcasts, eventually dropping the AM signal and moving to Middletown. When WKDH-TV signed on, the pirate ended up adding "-FM" so as not to confuse anyone searching online for either station. That station is no longer on FM (who knows, it might be back someday) but it is online as a live365 station. I won't link to it for obvious reasons, a search is easy enough.
 
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