DirecTV provides WCAU-HD from Philadelphia with the Salisbury stations.
Fios and Comcast however provide WBAL-HD and analog throughout the market, with the addition of WRC analog coverage in the MD side, and WCAU analog coverage in the DE side as well.
Charlie Ergen's Dish Network, that likes to go rogue, doesn't provide local channels (or ABC, CBS, Fox) into Salisbury, but supplements NBC via WHAG, which is a somewhat lousy NBC option from the other side of MD.
Mark said:
Possibly because NBC has an O&O in DC. WRC is on cable systems in the area, they might lose that if NBC was on a subchannel of a local station
I was actually thinking it had more to do with WBAL. As in Hearst collects the retransmission revenue from cable operators in Salisbury, as it is the primary NBC, so it's additional revenue to WBAL's bottom line. That in turn is accepted because NBC would rather WBAL stay as NBC for Bmore, than it switch to ABC. In addiiton, it's somewhat granted to keep Monterey CA and some other markets with NBC on the primary channel as well, than ABC securing all of Hearst's best stations.
The downside is NBC suffers from weaker exposure in the Salisbury market by not having an affiliate. The networks generally want affiliates in neighboring markets of an O&O market.
For example, FOX had WTTG and WTXF, but in the end, FOX granted WBOC the subchannel of FOX affiliation, as reaching those homes via OTA and local affiliate, trumped just WTTG/WTXF O&Os covering the market vicariously.