If two markets were to merge to become one....what if ???

[mleach]

Look..I know the odds of any of this happening are next to ZERO but lets say WHAT IF the folks at Neilsen decided to start merging markets. What would it look like? Who goes to whom? Which markets who are currently two seperate markets should be merged into one?

Example..the now seperate Washington DC and Baltimore markets. If those two markets were to become one, what would it look like considering that each others local TV more/less makes it into each others city?

I see FOX staying with WTTG, CBS with WJZ and despite the recent rumors, NBC with WRC. For ABC, yeah I see them sticking with ABC. I believe WJLA puts out a good signal to Baltimore.

But that leaves WMAR ( ABC ), WUSA ( CBS ), WBAL ( NBC ), WDCA ( My Network ), WUTB ( My Network ), WBFF ( FOX ), WDCW ( CW ), WNUV ( CW ). What would happen to them?

Same thing goes with other close-by markets too. Isn't Buffalo TV available OTA in Rochester? If so what would a Buffalo-Rochester combined market look like?

 

[ShawnHill1]

Looking at Washington and Baltimore, if you were to combined their markets, they would have just over 3.4 million homes, which rank them 4th in the nation, just below Chicago and ahead of Philadelpha. As far as the channel and network assignments, I think would think Channel 4, 5, and 13 keep their affiliations, while I would based the ABC affiliation in Baltimore, that way yon can balance the "Big Four" affiliation out...ABC and CBS in Baltimore, and NBC and Fox in D.C. With the rest, you could convert one of the other VHFs to PBS (either WETA or WMPT), CW and/or MyNetwork could also end up on VHF.

Here's what would be my lineup (just using the channels above)...

2 ABC
4 NBC
5 Fox
7 PBS (MPT)
9 CW
11 My
13 CBS
20 Independent
26 PBS (WETA)
24 Univision
45 Telemundo
50 Ion

 

[Nate Wesley]

Alabama's Birmingham-Tuscaloosa-Anniston market (#40) used to be three separate Nielsen markets. I'd say the Fox/New World affiliation shakeup, the subsequent creation of a new unified ABC affiliate, and local cable lineups made it an easy choice for Nielsen to combine them all. Needless to say, advertising rates and salaries went up for everyone working in TV.

 

[Markxxx]

I finished a book called "Stay Tuned" about the history of radio/TV and interestingly enough NBC (its red and blue networks) and CBS tried to get the FCC to let them have "super stations" that would allow them great coverage and reduce the need for affiliates. (This was the radio side)

It was only after WLW's experiment with 500,000 watts that NBC and CBS gave it up. Seems that WLW extra expense of transmitters and electricity cost just made up for the extra money they could charge. So the revenue for WLW at 50,000 watts was the same as 500,000 watts. (WLW was out of Cincinnati)

Interestingly enough the west markets are so huge because the population is far spread out.

NY state probably has too many, with Utica and Syracuse being a likely candidate for combination.

Ohio's NE corner, Cleveland, Youngstown, Erie (PA) might be another case of too closely crowded markets.

 

[KeithE4]

Interestingly enough the west markets are so huge because the population is far spread out.

NY state probably has too many, with Utica and Syracuse being a likely candidate for combination.

Ohio's NE corner, Cleveland, Youngstown, Erie (PA) might be another case of too closely crowded markets.

Zanesville OH (NBC only) could be merged into Columbus. Lafayette IN (CBS only) could be merged into Indianapolis.

But Flagstaff/Prescott AZ (NBC semi-satellite of Phoenix, plus a few independents & Spanish-language full-powered satellites of Phoenix Class As) could be split off into its own market - about 300,000 population in 2 counties. which would make it somewhere around Market #150 or so - but I don't think any of the Big Four are interested in affiliating with markets that small anymore. It would also knock Phoenix down to about #16, which probably wouldn't make any of its stations very happy either.

 

[TheRob]

If two markets merged into one ... it would mean a lot more driving to cover stories on the chance that someone in town (x) has a diary.

 

[rch66]

Look..I know the odds of any of this happening are next to ZERO but lets say WHAT IF the folks at Neilsen decided to start merging markets. What would it look like? Who goes to whom? Which markets who are currently two seperate markets should be merged into one?

Example..the now seperate Washington DC and Baltimore markets. If those two markets were to become one, what would it look like considering that each others local TV more/less makes it into each others city?

I see FOX staying with WTTG, CBS with WJZ and despite the recent rumors, NBC with WRC. For ABC, yeah I see them sticking with ABC. I believe WJLA puts out a good signal to Baltimore.

But that leaves WMAR ( ABC ), WUSA ( CBS ), WBAL ( NBC ), WDCA ( My Network ), WUTB ( My Network ), WBFF ( FOX ), WDCW ( CW ), WNUV ( CW ). What would happen to them?

Same thing goes with other close-by markets too. Isn't Buffalo TV available OTA in Rochester? If so what would a Buffalo-Rochester combined market look like?

The thing is parent company owners - Hearst Argyle (WBAL), Gannett (WUSA) and the others are too big to be screwed by losing a network affiliation there. What would happen is the DC side would win in attracting the networks. Baltimore County and City of course would be screwed in less local news coverage to them, but of course big markets (like New York) span a great distance. Baltimore is economically functioning as a DC metro satellite city though, so there is some logic in just merging Baltimore in with DC altogether. In almost every economic aspect, its just a satellite city of DC now, and there is state commonality in counties.

I think its next to nil that any DMAs would merge. If anything, a small area that its own DMA is being more defined by DMA status. The stations are able to pick up secondary network affiliations, granted exclusivity in that regard, the cable system drops the out of market larger station.

 

[fybush]

Same thing goes with other close-by markets too. Isn't Buffalo TV available OTA in Rochester? If so what would a Buffalo-Rochester combined market look like?

Pretty much inconceivable, really.

It's 70+ miles from the Buffalo TV sticks to downtown Rochester. Even with a Big Freakin' Antenna on my roof a few miles southeast of downtown Rochester, my Buffalo TV reception is shaky at best (and nonexistent for the UHF stations that transmit from Grand Island). With rabbit ears, Buffalo TV does not exist in most of the Rochester market.

Not to mention that nobody in Fairport cares about a car crash in Hamburg, or vice versa.

As another poster noted, Syracuse/Utica is a more likely combination; there's only one local newsroom left in Utica, at NBC affiliate WKTV. But as it becomes ever easier to automate master control, and to provide "missing" networks (and the local ad avails that go with them) by way of DTV subchannels, the trend is toward further delineation of markets, not combining them. Charlottesville, Virginia is a great example of this, with its own ABC, CBS and Fox in recent years joining an existing NBC.

(This is true even out west - Bozeman, Montana, for instance, was once entirely satellites of Butte stations 50 miles away. Now KBZK-7 in Bozeman originates local news, and there are separate local ads and promos on the ABC and Fox affiliates. Only the NBC, KTVM, is a straight simulcast in both cities. Bend, Oregon is similar - it's gone from having no local stations as recently as 1977 to having - soon - a full complement of the Big Four doing local news.)

 

[jerseyfla]

I think the Gainesville, Florida market should be split up due the fact that the market area is so small, the University of Florida pretty much carries that market. Big fact, when WJXT in Jacksonville ditched CBS in 2002, WGFL picked it up because (IMO) of the network televising about 50% of the Gators football games plus a few regular season men's basketball games. What makes the market so weird is that back in the days before the WJXT-CBS fiasco up in Jax all you had was WCJB (ABC), WOGX (FOX, Which is technically a satellite of WOFL in Orlando), and WGFL (WB). WJXT which was the CBS affiliate in Jax has such a powerful signal it easily reaches Gainesville there for they were the defacto CBS affilliate for the market and there has never been an NBC affiliate, it seems like even to this day none of the NBC affiliates outside the market want to claim Gainesville for their coverage area, WESH says the area is theirs but I never see any stories from Alachua or any of the market's surrounding counties. The reason why I call a split is because newswise the only station there is WCJB, WGFL did simulcast news from current CBS affiliate WTEV in Jax but now their news is outsourced from a Fox station in Davenport, Iowa, and WOGX simulcasts WOFL's newscasts which rarely has stories from any of the 4 counties that make up the Gainesville DMA plus WOGX is based in Ocala which is technically in the Orlando DMA. I think they need to align Alachua County to Jacksonville, Levy County to Tampa, and Dixie and Gilchrist Counties to Tallahassee.

Another area that needs to be merged is Miami and West Palm Beach, there are so many people who commute from Palm Beach area to Broward or Dade County for work and vice versa. Palm Beach County can easily recieve signals from Miami and vice versa except for the northern half of the WPB DMA which is Indian River, St. Lucie, and Martin Counties but there really isn't much difference between the areas except for the laid back nature of the northern "Treasure Coast" counties.

Miami and West Palm if merged, the only sure shot from WPB would be WPTV which is one of NBC's best rated affiliates. WPEC is good station but not as good as WFOR (Plus, I think WPEC's new logo and look is ugly.)
4 WFOR (CBS)
5 WPTV (NBC)
7 WSVN (FOX)
10 WPLG (ABC)

 

[Tim-In-Houston]

Easily one of the markets that could be merged would be the Biloxi, MS and Hattiesburg/Laurel, MS markets. Biloxi is basically a sub-market of both Mobile and New Orleans and is seperated by only about 90 miles from all three cities. Biloxi has the ABC (Raycom's WLOX-13) and Fox (Morris Multimedia's WXXV) affiliates while Hattiesburg has only an NBC (Raycom's WDAM) and a CBS (Media General's WHLT-22, which is operated, basically, as a satellite of Jackson's WJTV-12).

WLOX could cover the southern half of the market, while WDAM covers the north (it works in North Mississippi where WTVA-9-Tupelo covers northeast MS well and WCBI-4-Columbus covers east central MS more, they are seperated by about 70 miles). Only the common ownership issues would need to be resolved, but when Raycom bought out Liberty, it was rumored they were wanting to get rid of WDAM anyway.

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

Zanesville OH (NBC only) could be merged into Columbus. Lafayette IN (CBS only) could be merged into Indianapolis.

I'd always wondered why WHIZ/18 didn't end up going with ABC and attaching itself to an expanded Wheeling/Steubenville/Southeast Ohio market (WTRF/7 NBC, WTOV/9 CBS, WOUC/44 PBS). But that's a moot point now, considering that WTRF is launching "ABC Ohio Valley" on WTRF-DT 7.3.

And as far as Columbus goes, I'm not sure what hole they'd fill at this point, with the Columbus TV market already including some rimshots (WWHO/53 Chillicothe, CW, and WSFJ/51 Newark, which is headed for TBN).

Though WHIZ radio is likely to eventually sell off 102.5 once it moves west, I don't see them interested in running either that or the TV outside of Zanesville.

Like Scott mentioned, even if it were considered, there's just not a lot of overlap/interest in news in such theoretical "merged market". In our example above, WHIZ doesn't care about either Wheeling or Steubenville for the most part, and 7/9 mostly don't pay any attention to anything west of I-77.

It's not like there aren't similar situations - in Roanoke/Lynchburg VA, WSET/13 exists outside of ABC programming primarily to serve Lynchburg and "Southside" (Danville, etc.), and has a very rudimentary Roanoke bureau. It's just one consideration.

As for this part of the world, well, though most of the big Cleveland sticks have significant viewership in Youngstown, that merger isn't happening anytime soon. And like most small markets, Y-Town has gained extra "network affiliiates" run out of existing stations (WFMJ/21 NBC runs DT-2 CW affiliate "WBCB", WKBN/27 CBS runs LPTV/DT-2 FOX affiliate WYFX). This, even despite the crummy economy!

And though Erie's in the same situation, there aren't a lot of economic ties between Youngstown and Erie, aside from parts of Western PA (Greenville, etc.).

Just some thoughts.

 

[arnoldevns]

If DC and Baltimore merged, you probably wouldn't see any affiliation changes. There are plenty of markets that have two separate population centers and two sets of affiliates for each. In Texas the Waco/Temple/Bryan market is really two markets in one. Waco/Temple/Killeen has one set of affilates and Bryan-College Station (about 85 miles away) has another set of affiliates. (all are satellites of the Waco/Temple/Killeen stations except for the PBS affiliate.
In fact, there are 3 PBS stations in the market: 1 for Waco (KWBU) 1 for Temple/Killeen (KNCT) and one for Bryan/College Station (KAMU)

 

[RadioDze]

Although Washington and Baltimore are separated by a mere 41 miles, I can't see the two markets becoming one due to mainly political reasons... Washington being the nation's capital and Baltimore being such a large city in its own right (though the Washington DMA is bigger than Baltimore, Baltimore is the nation's 20th-most populous city, larger than Washington, which falls around the mid-30s). As mentioned, just the logistics of trying to cover such a large area is a challenge.

In my home DMA, Raleigh-Durham-Fayetteville, NC (#27, I think), one could argue for a split as there's very little similarities between the Raleigh-Durham (northern) and Fayetteville (southern) halves of the market, or for that matter, the eastern part of the market (Rocky Mount-Wilson and Goldsboro). Raleigh, the state's 2nd largest city and state capital), Durham (4th largest), Cary (7th largest) and Chapel Hill (in the 20s with approx. 65,000 people) function mostly as a single area focused around Research Triangle Park. nearly 80 miles south, Fayetteville, home to Fort Bragg, is the state's 6th-largest city and comprises its own radio market. The city has two UHF commercial stations, one of which (WFPX-TV 62) isn't even seen in Raleigh or Durham and the other (WUVC-TV 40) serves as a Univision affiliate.

The two dominant news stations, WRAL-TV 5 and WTVD 11 (this is, until 2/17/1009, a two (commercial)-VHF market) make a really concerted effort to cover Fayetteville with news bureaus, dedicated reporters, etc. and, to a somewhat lesser extent, those communities on the eastern fringe of the market.

However, trying to cover so many communities of significant size over such a vast area means there's a lot of local news that doesn't get covered. Both focus extensively on weather, as this part of their coverage is probably one of the few things that grabs full attention of this large, 23-county market. And there's competition. Our market lost Robeson County (Lumberton) to neighboring Florence-Myrtle Beach several years ago and gained Northampton County from northeastern next-door neighbor Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News. WECT-TV 6, the NBC affiliate in Wilmington, NC, our neighbor to the southeast, has its analog tower in a place to target Fayetteville, thoough their news coverage isn't active there as it once was (Wilmington is the test market for early DTV conversion on 9/9/2008 and Fayetteville will lose WECT then as the station moves to a smaller UHF facility further southeast).

Of course, if it were split, we'd fall well below #27, as would the ad rates and salaries. And places like Durham would still lose coverage to what's happening in Raleigh, as is the case in the radio market. It's a (sometimes annoying) catch 22.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

St. Joseph, MO could be merged into Kansas City (St. Joseph only has an ABC affiliate on channel 2--the calls escape me right now--and IIRC a religious station on channel 16). I'm surprised when NBC in Kansas City moved from WDAF-4 to KSHB-41 because of the Fox/New World deal in 1994, that channel 2 didn't try to seek an NBC affiliation (particularly with NBC on top of the ratings then).

I also always thought that Quincy/Hannibal and Kirksville/Ottumwa (at least the Missouri side of the latter market and some of the Iowa counties, but perhaps not Ottumwa itself) could be merged (as KTVO-3 for years has acted as the defacto ABC affiliate for Quincy city proper and the Missouri side of the Quincy market--not to mention the ill-fated 1987-88 2000-foot tower that collapsed).

 

[tripinva]

WJXT which was the CBS affiliate in Jax has such a powerful signal it easily reaches Gainesville there for they were the defacto CBS affilliate for the market and there has never been an NBC affiliate, it seems like even to this day none of the NBC affiliates outside the market want to claim Gainesville for their coverage area, WESH says the area is theirs but I never see any stories from Alachua or any of the market's surrounding counties. The reason why I call a split is because newswise the only station there is WCJB, WGFL did simulcast news from current CBS affiliate WTEV in Jax but now their news is outsourced from a Fox station in Davenport, Iowa, and WOGX simulcasts WOFL's newscasts which rarely has stories from any of the 4 counties that make up the Gainesville DMA plus WOGX is based in Ocala which is technically in the Orlando DMA. I think they need to align Alachua County to Jacksonville, Levy County to Tampa, and Dixie and Gilchrist Counties to Tallahassee.

Coming soon to Gainesville, an NBC affil. Look for it on DT-9, perhaps in September...

Owned by the same group of folks who brought you WGFL.

- Trip

 

[jc]

Easily one of the markets that could be merged would be the Biloxi, MS and Hattiesburg/Laurel, MS markets. Biloxi is basically a sub-market of both Mobile and New Orleans and is seperated by only about 90 miles from all three cities. Biloxi has the ABC (Raycom's WLOX-13) and Fox (Morris Multimedia's WXXV) affiliates while Hattiesburg has only an NBC (Raycom's WDAM) and a CBS (Media General's WHLT-22, which is operated, basically, as a satellite of Jackson's WJTV-12).

WLOX could cover the southern half of the market, while WDAM covers the north (it works in North Mississippi where WTVA-9-Tupelo covers northeast MS well and WCBI-4-Columbus covers east central MS more, they are seperated by about 70 miles). Only the common ownership issues would need to be resolved, but when Raycom bought out Liberty, it was rumored they were wanting to get rid of WDAM anyway.

Your're forgetting two stations. WMAH-19 (PBS)MPB out of Biloxi and WKFK-7 a low power station out of Jackson Country although it makes you wonder why they don't cover the whole coast.

What do you mean WDAM covers the north half of the market? I thought WDAM could cover the southern part too.

 

[KML0224]

Channel 2 of Saint Joseph, MO is known as KQTV-TV. (I received an e-skip signal of them one summer here in Connecticut.)