DMAs that should be merged into others

[Markxxx]

WLFI was an early station from the 50s. Like most of these markets, locals and politicians wanted to make sure they got a TV station. WLFI was owned by the same people who had stations in Bloomington, IN and Fort Wayne. Add to that Northern Indiana was certain to be a UHF island(s) and you wanted coverage.

In this case with Bloomington farther south of Indy, I'm thinking they wanted some coverage on the northern end of the market, the station owners, that is.

Bloomington has always been considered part of the Indy TV market. Even going back to when WTTV was on Channel 10, that channel was actually allocated to Indy in the late '40s. And WFAM-TV was never a satellite of WTTV, but they did carry some of Channel 4's local programming, notably kids shows and IU/Purdue basketball.

DMAs suffer from huge population shifts, especially out West. You see the East Coast having too many, and the Western half is still pretty isolated. But San Diego for instance was only allotted two VHFs. Los Angeles was allotted SEVEN COMMERCIAL VHFs. That wouldn't have happened if San Diego was a major city back them. Same for San Jose.

San Diego also had Tijuana and its allocations to deal with.

If you look in the Midwest you have a lot of mid sized towns, that are too small for more than one station and are too far apart to be combined. Look at Champaign-Springfield, IL market. It's too spread out and the networks need two channels each to cover it. It should be two markets.

Lafayette is also home to about 40,000 college students and an additional 5,000+ teachers.

They probably thought at one time Lafayette could be big enough to support at least two networks, NBC and CBS.

Lafayette has never had more than one commercial allocation, although WFAM-TV carried both CBS and NBC early-on.

Part of the reason WFAM/WLFI was able to stay on the air with a CBS affiliation is that, until the '80s (?) WISH-TV transmitted from the southeast side of Indy, rather than the NW side where they are now, and where WFBM/WRTV and WLWI/WTHR always were. WISH wasn't viewable in Lafayette without a good antenna or cable.

Exactly the company owned stations in Bloomington and that was too far south of Indy, so it made sense to own a station north of Indy. At that point, network affiliation wasn't an issue as much as getting income. Just because they have not had an additional allocation doesn't mean they couldn't have gotten another. Channels were not as static back then. If you look at allocations, you can see it might have been possible to combine other markets by moving transmitters.

For instance, you could conceivably move Champaign / Danville further south and get Terra Haute is only 61 miles as the crow files. It's 71 miles from Champaign to Springfield, which is in the same DMA.

 

[firepoint525]

Cape Girardeau MO and Paducah, KY (over 90 minutes drive) should not be in the same market

Disagree. Neither one of them is a big enough market (by itself) to support ALL of the "big three" networks, although Cape also picked up a FOX affil with KBSI in 1987. And by air miles, they really aren't that far apart.
Furthermore, they are both over 100 miles from St. Louis, and over 150 miles from Memphis.

but the stations only seem to cover news in one state or another, the NBC affiliate is Kentucky centric while the CBS stations is Missouri centric

Tell me about it. I grew up living in the extreme southernmost end of that market, in northwest Tennessee. There were exactly THREE counties in TN (Lake, Obion, Weakley) in the official coverage area of KFVS-12, although they would occasionally give the temp in Dyersburg (in Dyer Co.) in their weather reports. I understand that this is because channel 12 was on the cable system in Dyersburg.

Channel 6 in Paducah was a little better (for TN coverage). They had a Tennessee bureau (again, ironically enough, in Dyersburg) back when I lived in NWTN. The best channel for rural west TN coverage was actually channel 7 out of Jackson, the ABC affiliate that we usually watched.

 

[nomadcowatbk]

Cape Girardeau MO and Paducah, KY (over 90 minutes drive) should not be in the same market

Disagree. Neither one of them is a big enough market (by itself) to support ALL of the "big three" networks, although Cape also picked up a FOX affil with KBSI in 1987. And by air miles, they really aren't that far apart.
Furthermore, they are both over 100 miles from St. Louis, and over 150 miles from Memphis.

but the stations only seem to cover news in one state or another, the NBC affiliate is Kentucky centric while the CBS stations is Missouri centric

Tell me about it. I grew up living in the extreme southernmost end of that market, in northwest Tennessee. There were exactly THREE counties in TN (Lake, Obion, Weakley) in the official coverage area of KFVS-12, although they would occasionally give the temp in Dyersburg (in Dyer Co.) in their weather reports. I understand that this is because channel 12 was on the cable system in Dyersburg.

Channel 6 in Paducah was a little better (for TN coverage). They had a Tennessee bureau (again, ironically enough, in Dyersburg) back when I lived in NWTN. The best channel for rural west TN coverage was actually channel 7 out of Jackson, the ABC affiliate that we usually watched.

how many markets cover 4 or more states?

 

[firepoint525]

how many markets cover 4 or more states?

Well, obviously the Paducah/Cape market, for one.

But apparently, WPSD seems to think that their signal covers SIX states! Back in the day, they used to read letters from their mailbag at the end of the 6:00 Saturday evening news. They had a "regular contributor" from Evansville, IN, and on at least one occasion, even read a letter from a viewer in NE Arkansas! I never understood why the Evansville writer kept writing to channel 6, especially since Evansville is over 100 miles from Paducah, and has their own network affiliate stations.

 

[firepoint525]

how many markets cover 4 or more states?

Thought of another one, the market just south of Paducah/Cape. Memphis stations cover TN, AR, and MS, and the bootheel of Missouri.

 

[Poledo]

how many markets cover 4 or more states?

Tough one. Denver? Our little Mobile-P'cola-FWB market covers three.

As for the Mobile market being split up, we certainly have enough signals to pull it off. I've always assumed the weird setup came about because of all the millitary air traffic in this area. If you take air space out of the equation it would make a whole lot more sense if Mobile and Biloxi were combined to form one market and Pensacola-Fort Walton-Destin were combined to form a separate market. There is a little evidence that this may have been the original plan as the VHF/ABC affiliates were put in Biloxi and Pensacola, while I believe one of the Mobile CBS or NBC affiliates carried ABC as a secondary affiliation until the Pensacola ABC upgraded and moved it's tower west to cover Mobile. This lead th the creation of the two massive antenna farms on I-10 between Mobile and Pensacola but Fort Walton got the short end of the stick and was pretty much left with cable as their only option for reliable television reception.

 

[Mr Tony]

Tough one. Denver?

Denver only has 3
Nebraska
Colorado
Wyoming

 

[fybush]

WHAG in Hagerstown MD doesn't call its web presence "your4state.com" for nothing...their coverage includes bits of MD, PA, WV and VA.

 

[KeithE4]

how many markets cover 4 or more states?

If one includes Canadian provinces, Burlington/Plattsburgh covers NY, VT, NH, and Quebec.

 

[rwells2265]

how many markets cover 4 or more states?

Well, obviously the Paducah/Cape market, for one.

But apparently, WPSD seems to think that their signal covers SIX states!  Back in the day, they used to read letters from their mailbag at the end of the 6:00 Saturday evening news.  They had a "regular contributor" from Evansville, IN, and on at least one occasion, even read a letter from a viewer in NE Arkansas!  I never understood why the Evansville writer kept writing to channel 6, especially since Evansville is over 100 miles from Paducah, and has their own network affiliate stations.

I'm sure back then 6 had no trouble lapping into the SW extremities of Indiana with a good antenna and sensitive older receiver.  (those were some awfully bushy eyebrows on that monkey.... ;D)    Of course it's even possible he was watching Newsbeat 6 on an old pre-UHF set, and couldn't get NBC on his local Ch. 14.  Hey, stranger things have happened.  Perhaps he liked 6 better ... maybe he was a UK fan stuck inside of Indiana with the Wildcat blues again, and actually LIKED it when 6 blew up entire NBC primetime skeds for roundball.  But anyway.......

As for northeast Arkansas, WPSD was on most of the cable systems in Clay County - Piggott, Corning and Rector.  Ditto for KFVS.  Don't know about post-analog.

--Russell

 

[rwells2265]

And before I get flamed and/or given detention by a certain "500" person, let me explain my "eyebrow" reference to those who aren't familiar with the Paducah-Cape-Harrisburg market: The transmitter & tower for WPSD-TV 6 was, and is, located in the small town of Monkey's Eyebrow, Kentucky (along the Ohio River between Paducah and Cairo). 

And there you go.   

 

[KeithE4]

maybe he was a UK fan stuck inside of Indiana with the Wildcat blues again, and actually LIKED it when 6 blew up entire NBC primetime skeds for roundball.

Nobody in the state of Indiana cheers for K******y and lives to tell about it. ;D

 

[JackBauer112]

San Francisco/Sacramento/Monterey-Salinas. These are the markets that should be merged since one can get a good signal from each others markets.

 

[firepoint525]

I'm sure back then 6 had no trouble lapping into the SW extremities of Indiana with a good antenna and sensitive older receiver. (those were some awfully bushy eyebrows on that monkey.... ;D) Of course it's even possible he was watching Newsbeat 6 on an old pre-UHF set, and couldn't get NBC on his local Ch. 14. Hey, stranger things have happened. Perhaps he liked 6 better ... maybe he was a UK fan stuck inside of Indiana with the Wildcat blues again, and actually LIKED it when 6 blew up entire NBC primetime skeds for roundball. But anyway.......
As for northeast Arkansas, WPSD was on most of the cable systems in Clay County - Piggott, Corning and Rector. Ditto for KFVS. Don't know about post-analog.

You must have lived in that area, too! You know as much about it as me! ;D I seem to recall, however, that the "regular contributor" was a woman, known for, among other things, extreme leftwing opinions. I don't know much about TV stations in Evansville, but I am aware that they (Evansville) were in our TV Guide in northwest Tennessee!

And I seem to recall that channel 6 was indeed on cable in NE Arkansas. That particular letter writer was from Piggott. So can anyone top 6 states for one TV station? Six states for channel 6!

And before I get flamed and/or given detention by a certain "500" person, let me explain my "eyebrow" reference to those who aren't familiar with the Paducah-Cape-Harrisburg market: The transmitter & tower for WPSD-TV 6 was, and is, located in the small town of Monkey's Eyebrow, Kentucky (along the Ohio River between Paducah and Cairo).
And there you go.

Ah, yes, I remember every night at signoff, when channel 6 would proudly tell us that their transmitter site was located in Monkey's Eyebrow, KY. Then, despite reaching up to five other states, they would play "My Old Kentucky Home" right before going on to "The Star-Spangled Banner."

 

[wncc]

WCYB used to advertise that they covered a 5 state area. TN, VA, NC, WV, KY

 

[e-dawg]

Here's the markets I think should merge.

Eureka CA, should merge with Chico-Redding DMA market. (Eureka is too small to support it's own tv stations).
Helena MT, should merge with Great Falls MT DMA market. (Their NBC station serves both of the markets).
Bend OR, should merge with Portland or Eugene DMA market. (Bend is a very small market, the only TV stations that can support a news station is KTVZ).
Yakima-Tri-Cities WA, should merge with Spokane DMA market.
Twins Falls ID, should merge with Boise DMA market.
Glendive MT, should merge either with Great Falls or Billings DMA market.

 

[Mario500]

And before I get flamed and/or given detention by a certain "500" person, let me explain my "eyebrow" reference to those who aren't familiar with the Paducah-Cape-Harrisburg market: The transmitter & tower for WPSD-TV 6 was, and is, located in the small town of Monkey's Eyebrow, Kentucky (along the Ohio River between Paducah and Cairo).

And there you go.

Were you referring to me? Also why were you concerned about getting "flamed" or "detention"?

 

[KeithE4]

I've always wondered whether Central Illinois' primary DMAs would have evolved differently had that allocation stayed in Peoria and/or had Springfield held on to its initial Channel 2 allocation.

If WCIA-TV hadn't been successful at keeping WMAY-TV Channel 2 off the air, WICS probably wouldn't have lasted more than another year. At 18,000 watts ERP when they signed on, WICS, like most early UHFs, was essentially an LPTV. My guess is that NBC would have moved to Channel 2, leaving Channel 20 with ABC and what was left of Dumont. But it didn't happen, and the decision to reallocate Channel 2 to St. Louis and Terre Haute was the right one.

There wouldn't have been any way for one market to cover all of the main metro areas (e.g., Peoria, Bloomington/Normal, Springfield, Decatur, Champaign/Urbana, and Danville), but they're still close enough to each other for there to be a lot of overlap--and the region ended up with just two analog VHF stations (Champaign/Urbana-based WCIA and WILL).

Peoria/Bloomington is big enough, and far enough from the Quad Cities, Springfield, and Rockford to justify being its own market. Somehow I think Springfield/Decatur and Champaign/Urbana/Danville could have survived as separate markets, though, but the stations that were built would have had to expand quickly, and the old WCHU/33 Champaign and WAND/24 Danville (originally a standalone ABC affiliate) would not have merged as satellites of WICS.

 

[nomadcowatbk]

how many markets cover 4 or more states?

Thought of another one, the market just south of Paducah/Cape. Memphis stations cover TN, AR, and MS, and the bootheel of Missouri.

but I doubt their news covers the bootheel much

 

[fybush]

What's fun (at least for me) about discussions like this is that they bring three things into sharp contrast:

First, there's the desire so many denizens of these boards seem to have for precise order in all things. Radio/TV hobbyists, by and large, seem to really like lists and organization. (I have some armchair-psychologist ideas about why that might be, but that gets us off into TIO territory pretty fast, I suspect.) But whatever the reason, we like things to be consistent: if there's an affiliate of CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox in one market, we want to see the exact same lineup in the next market down the road - and if those stations can also be "CBS on 2, NBC on 4, ABC on 7," many of us seem to be especially gratified by that kind of careful order.

Second, there's the reality that we live in an enormous country with a remarkable diversity in the way our local communities are arranged. For someone like me who grew up in the northeast, accustomed to cities of 100,000-300,000 or so neatly spaced at 70-80 mile increments along the Thruway, it was a huge eye-opener to spend some time after high school in the very wide-open spaces of the intermountain west, where the nearest TV station of any kind was close to 300 miles away over multiple mountain ranges. Since then, I've had the privilege and pleasure of traveling through much of the rest of the country in between, seeing all the different ways we organize ourselves into local communities from coast to coast.

And third, we live in the only large nation on Earth that puts as much of an emphasis on local broadcasting as we do. The US broadcasting system is unique in the way it filters national networks down to local audiences through a patchwork of individually-licensed stations without any mandate for total national coverage.

I think it's pretty darned remarkable that in the course of seven decades of local TV history, all that chaos has managed to produce a system that now delivers all of the Big Four networks to nearly every TV viewer in America in a way that provides at least some reasonably local content (news and advertising) along the way. It's far from perfect, especially in the way it sometimes has preserved 1950s demographics (San Jose!) at the expense of subsequent population shifts...but I think it works better than many of us sometimes acknowledge.