I know that parts of New Hampshire and Vermont are in the Boston TV market, and it's been that way for as long as I can remember. But with the population of cities like Manchester over 100, 000 and Nashua not to far from that, why hasn't a new TV market are been created for Southern and Central New Hampshire and adjacent areas of Vermont? I think New Hampshire is in a seperate TV market from Boston. As far as the area there not having their own CBS and NBC stations, I would think that with the changeover to digital that CBS and NBC could be on the digital subchannels of ch. 9 or 50.
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BOSTON TV MARKET
- Thread starter alg2468
- Start date
Hard to say if it would work. A prime example would be channel 21 of Concord. They were once a CBS affiliate at the end of the 1980s. Emphasis on were. It'd be cool to have it something like this:
ABC 9 (Manchester) [* NOW]
PBS 11/49/52 (Durham/Littleton/Keene) [* NOW]
CBS 21 (Concord) [Have CW on a subchannel?]
FOX 50 (Derry) [Have MY on a subchannel?]
NBC 60 (Merrimack)
I didn't mention WNNE-TV (NBC) channel 31 of Hartford, VT (White River Junction), since that's a portion of the Burlington/Plattsburgh DMA.
ABC 9 (Manchester) [* NOW]
PBS 11/49/52 (Durham/Littleton/Keene) [* NOW]
CBS 21 (Concord) [Have CW on a subchannel?]
FOX 50 (Derry) [Have MY on a subchannel?]
NBC 60 (Merrimack)
I didn't mention WNNE-TV (NBC) channel 31 of Hartford, VT (White River Junction), since that's a portion of the Burlington/Plattsburgh DMA.
Plain and simple, without the Southern NH portion, Boston could fall below the top ten in market size.
ssetta said:
I don't think in Concord itself but I live in Suncook and WNNE is on Comcast Ch 22. I think most of the communities around Concord have WNNE on 22 instead of Government Access.
As far as Southern NH becoming it's own DMA... I find that highly doubtful. I think we would need at least one more major affiliation if not two. With CBS owning WBZ and Fox owning WFXT I don't see a FOX or CBS affiliate coming here and it would not surprise me if NBC someday bought WHDH. Why would the networks want to compensate another affiliate when they have an affiliate (or O&O) people in Southern NH already watch?
You have to remember Nielsen establishes TV markets not the government.
Also remember these markets were created in the 50s for the most part.
The best example is San Jose a city of 95,000 (in 1950) and today it has 950,000 or more people and is bigger than San Francisco or Oakland. Today it is big enough and far enough from San Francisco to be it's own market, but it's not.
Conversely Washington and Baltimore are only 35 miles apart, but are seperate for political reasons. Same for Boston and Providence. As you can see by a map the eastern states have more markets even with overlapping coverage than the west, because that is where the population was in the 50s.
There are lots of examples of semi-markets but now with DTV several of them like Bowling Green KY are getting multiple affiliates on digital subchannels.
That said markets are not always the best, especially when you get big cities like NY City which is just a bit smaller than the entire state of New Jersey but it overshadows that state. So NH gets overshadowed by Boston.
Markets are a funny thing, but if you read the history you can see the FCC established allocations so that each area would have TWO VHF stations (where possible) because only NBC and CBS were a sure bet at the time.
Also remember these markets were created in the 50s for the most part.
The best example is San Jose a city of 95,000 (in 1950) and today it has 950,000 or more people and is bigger than San Francisco or Oakland. Today it is big enough and far enough from San Francisco to be it's own market, but it's not.
Conversely Washington and Baltimore are only 35 miles apart, but are seperate for political reasons. Same for Boston and Providence. As you can see by a map the eastern states have more markets even with overlapping coverage than the west, because that is where the population was in the 50s.
There are lots of examples of semi-markets but now with DTV several of them like Bowling Green KY are getting multiple affiliates on digital subchannels.
That said markets are not always the best, especially when you get big cities like NY City which is just a bit smaller than the entire state of New Jersey but it overshadows that state. So NH gets overshadowed by Boston.
Markets are a funny thing, but if you read the history you can see the FCC established allocations so that each area would have TWO VHF stations (where possible) because only NBC and CBS were a sure bet at the time.
I'm in Windham County, Vermont quite often, mostly in the north end of Brattleboro. I've often wondered why they weren't included into the Burlington (VT)/Plattsburgh (NY) DMA instead. Montpelier is their capitol, not Boston. My guess is that it has to do with their neighbors to the east in Keene (Cheshire County, NH), which is a few miles to the east on Route 9. You hear that town get clustered with Brattleboro quite often, especially when listening to local radio (good examples are WTSA-FM 96.7 of Brattleboro and WKNE-FM 103.7 of Keene). My old TV band Sony Walkman could never receive any signal of the nearby VHF stations, not even channel 9 from Manchester. My guess it's because of the hills in the Monadnock Region (the name for that portion of the Connecticut River Valley).
Having spent a lot of time in that neck of the woods it's amazing how terrain rules. Go 10 mi E of Brattleboro towards Keene or 10-15 mi W toward Bennington and all the Boston locals are present. I imagine that people down by the river in Brattleboro had hit or miss reception of the Boston channels (w/ outdoor antennas) before cable.
With digitals, wouldn't you now have entirely new TV markets? I can't imagine the digitals penetrating BB where you could get the lower Boston VHF's w/ some luck and a good rig.
With digitals, wouldn't you now have entirely new TV markets? I can't imagine the digitals penetrating BB where you could get the lower Boston VHF's w/ some luck and a good rig.
Going back in time a bit, Channel 3/WCAX Burlington was added to Southern Vermont only in the past 15-20 years with a shot from Mt. Ascutney I believe. It replaced WFSB channel 3 Hartford CT at the CBS station on cable there. WFSB was also the channel of choice for folks in extreme southern Vermont for years before cable & satellite became available. WFSB zooms right up the valley and other CT stations are also viewable in southern VT/southwestern NH. New Hampshire for the most part has always been covered from outside the state, save for WMUR, public TV and a repeater up in Berlin somewhere. The addition of channel 50 was most welcome, so much so that when it became a shopping channel for a while a few years ago viewers were up in arms about it. Only fairly recently could satellite users in Windham County legally get Burlington VT channels because of their being considered part of the Boston market. I wish the powers that be the best of luck in getting New Hampshire it's own market. It seems it all comes down to location-location-location.
A
argytunes
Guest
CrankyYankee said:
CrankyYankee...
Maybe it also comes down to MONEY & INTERESTED INVESTORS? ???
Risk takers are rare right now...which certainly doesn't help the broadcast industry!
By the way...I wonder how many radio-info readers recognize your Stan Freberg quote from Volumn 1 of his "United States of America" CD? I remember the entire "Christopher Columbus" routine which featured Stan (playing Columbus) along with Marvin Miller (as the chief) and Jesse White as the real estate agent!
Still "moving...and a great bit" after more than 40 years in existance!
argytunes
KML-224 said:
When WMUR was purchased by Hearst-Argyle.
KML-224 said:
I'm pretty sure that it has had that affiliation since 1954 when it signed on. WMUR signed on to offer New Hampshire viewers as an alternative to Boston stations providing better reception and a place for local news.
The whole story is here: http://www.wmur.com/station/825921/detail.html
Although it is a sister station of WCVB and the other Hearst-Argyle owned-properties, it still operates quite independently and has an excellent committment to state and local news.
That won't happen. One major factor is that CBS and Fox own the stations in Boston. It's not small broadcaster(s) community running the stations.alg2468 said:
Even if Fox and CBS were to see the incremental revenue of starting NH stations, the resulting problem would be that that area can no longer be also part of Boston DMA. WMUR is just a one station grandfathered scenario, and Hearst profits on that exclusive niche.
Cable companies would refuse carrying the additional duplicative channels - it'd also cuts into their local advertising income revenue.
Also, Nielsen's DMA system is that counties are exclusive to one DMA.Nielsen would revise the DMA maps as a split of that from the Boston market - as The Viking mentioned above, meaning the original Boston stations lose market standing nationally. Thus, a negative sum gain.
Likewise, if Baltimore were to merge with Washington, not only does the city of Baltimore lose, but Hearst, CBS, Sinclair, EW Scripps would also. The four would prevent such from every getting idea. These are big broadcasters. CBS a network itself. Neither would want Baltimore to lose network statuses for the stations to become Spanish and religious stations for the entire DC metropolitan area.
In the end, even though population and demographics may have shifted (e.g. San Jose), and VHF and UHF allocations from the past may no longer mean as much as they do now, historic precedence wins.
rch66 said:
That's not entirely true. In Arizona, southern Apache County is in the Phoenix DMA, while northern Apache County (the Navajo Nation) is in the Albuquerque DMA. In California, western Riverside County is in the Los Angeles DMA, central Riverside County makes up the entire Palm Springs DMA, and eastern Riverside County is in the Phoenix DMA.
A question from a non radio/tv pro. How can an area be considered a DMA when one cannot receive any OTA broadcast stations? For example in eastern Riverside county you obviously cannot pick up any Phoenix TV stations. Same thing as the county that is divided by the Phoenix and Alb TV markets.
And it's probably that way in a lot of other areas like West Texas where presumably the only TV watching is by the wildlife/ maybe a sheepherder with a 200 ft tower and super hi gain antenna.
And it's probably that way in a lot of other areas like West Texas where presumably the only TV watching is by the wildlife/ maybe a sheepherder with a 200 ft tower and super hi gain antenna.
I remember as a kid living in S. Lowell MA playing around with tv reception and getting Ch. 9 from Manchester, most programing was at the local level,BRNout said:
as far as their affilliation it was a mix of networks at that time, Dumont, CBS and ABC, dont rememder any NBC shows. The one program that I remember the most was a local afternoon dance show after school were I would check out the girls at that time. Boy that brings back memories - Status