KION-TV in Monterey to Shut Down all News Operations

[IM42A]

It's interesting that you bring up Palm Springs. One of my old radio buddies and his family live in Yucca Valley. There lies a trio of cities starting with Yucca Valley, then Joshua Tree, and about 15 miles further is Twentynine Palms and the military base before highway 62 fades into nothingness on its way to Arizona. The closest shopping, fun and civilization center is about 35-40 minutes down the hill where Palm Springs and the other Desert Cities of the Coachella Valley are. Yet, the radio/TV stations from down there don't clearly get in to the three cities. They have a handful of radio stations (and some translators of CV stations) of their own, yet for TV purposes, This valley is considered part of the Los Angeles market and all of the LA stations broadcast from translators there and are on cable there. Palm Springs stations are not represented at all. That bothers my buddy, since they are about 30 road miles from Palm Springs and about 120 road miles from LA. He wishes he had at least one "local" station for news and such. To him, "local" includes the Coachella Valley because it's at least close enough and a lot of the economic trips that can't be made in Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree and 29 Palms (they have one giant Super Walmart and several big retaurant chains, but not all of them and no Target or other big box stores) means that residents must travel to the Coachella Valley (or Apple Valley/Victorville, which I think is considerably farther). There is one radio station licensed to Yucca Valley, 106.9 KDGL, that straddles a mountain between the two valleys and serves both of them, although it focuses more on Palm Springs. I'm surpised there are not more stations up there to serve both areas.

You'd think that the Palm Springs stations would have translators there. Whether the major Los Angeles stations would balk at this, I do not know.

I'm assuming it's Nielsen's privilege to split counties in any way they see fit, to demarcate markets according to actual viewing patterns. Riverside Central occupies a narrow slice of the county, all the way down to the Salton Sea, leaving Riverside West and a very sparsely populated Riverside East, and this provides protection for the Palm Springs stations, the only reason for its existence. Obviously what few viewers there are in Riverside East have to get their LA stations via either cable, satellite, OTT, or translator. The LA market reaches all the way up to Inyo County, and unless something has changed since 2018, Esmeralda County NV. When you don't have any local OTA stations at all, viewers probably prefer large-market stations to those from smaller markets. Something really momentous would have to happen in Bishop or Goldfield before LA news would cover it, but large-market stations tend to have more professionally-presented newscasts as well as a greater selection of independent stations with more diverse programming.

 

[derek20la]

I have to think that split counties come and go depending upon need in any one year to do it. On what I suppose is the same map as you cite, there are only a handful, a few in California (including Riverside Central which comprises the Palm Springs market, sounds like a high school or something)

There is also Kern County that is a split TV market; the western half is Bakersfield, and the eastern half is Los Angeles.

 

[derek20la]

The SF stations generally had to be blocked out when they were carrying the same network programs, although for a few years I remember MPTV running both KNTV and KGO freely in prime time. That may have been laziness, or it may have been because both stations were technically outside our market.

I remember as late as 1991 and the first half of 1992, MPTV carried KTVU 2, KRON 4, KPIX 5, and KGO 7. At the time, both stations were always viewable. They never did blackouts. I distinctly remember watching The Simpsons and flipping between channel 2 (KTVU) and 3 (KCBA) as the two were slightly delayed from each other. The 1992 Cable TV Act put an end to it; afterwards MPTV started blacking out OOM duplicated programs and soon after announced the SF stations would be dropped from the lineup. I can't remember what replaced them. I think their system only had 36 or 42 channels when TCI bought them out in 1994.

 

[powers]

Yes, I understand that there are a lot of sparsely populated areas that don't have any local stations of their own, and may be hundreds of miles from any larger city that has any or several television stations of their own. You also have weird overlaps in places like Orange County and the Inland Empire where the LA stations by default cover those areas as well. They have very few stations of their own, but are several miles from LA proper. But in the case of Yucca Valley/Joshua Tree/29 Palms (I think collectively that's called the Morongo Valley or maybe is just the High Desert) they are very close to an area that has a whole slate of TV stations covering all of the major networks (except PBS) and because they serve as an economic center for the area (I don't think Coachella Valley advertisers would shun the High Desert for business, but do you really think Los Angeles advertisers think they are going to get an entire slew of consumers coming out there from the High Desert? People are much more likely (and do, as my friends suggest) to travel in to the Palm Springs area for things they can't get up in the High Desert than go all the way to LA. To me it would be similar to, say, Riverside, deciding that they would be served by San Diego TV stations instead of LA stations. To me, it just doesn't make sense. If you are in a remote area, more than an hour from any medium or large TV market, then yes, it makes sense to go with the largest major market, or pick and choose if there are areas to choose from.

 

[powers]

I remember as late as 1991 and the first half of 1992, MPTV carried KTVU 2, KRON 4, KPIX 5, and KGO 7. At the time, both stations were always viewable. They never did blackouts. I distinctly remember watching The Simpsons and flipping between channel 2 (KTVU) and 3 (KCBA) as the two were slightly delayed from each other. The 1992 Cable TV Act put an end to it; afterwards MPTV started blacking out OOM duplicated programs and soon after announced the SF stations would be dropped from the lineup. I can't remember what replaced them. I think their system only had 36 or 42 channels when TCI bought them out in 1994.

I lived in Monterey from 1970-1989 and my Dad (and up until last year my Mom) still live in the area. I remember KTVU, KRON, KPIX and KGO being blacked out. They would show informercials and the MPTV-produced "The Monterey Show." In the late 80s, MPTV decided to unblock KGO/7. I don't know why they did it, except that maybe because of how far away KNTV was, it wasn't under the same restriction since KNTV was not truly "local." I remember on visits that KTVU was still on Comcast (the new owners that had absorbed MPTV) up until the early 2000s at least, and then when they were dropped, a couple of KTVU newscasts were simulcast by the Fox station because they had been so popular. Now it seems like the KPIX newscast will serve a similar role.

 

[SCV_Ears]

The whole thing is still odd. A lot of money had been thrown into the KION et al newsroom the last few years trying to break KSBW's stranglehold on the top spot. They reintergrated sports into the newscast the last couple of years and had just lured away, somehow, Lee Solomon, KSBW's veteran meterologist. The early evening news had one of the Judge Judy shows as a lead-in.

Me? Always found the KION newscasts a bit choppy, like they'd start telling a story during the 5 p.m. show, then urge you to hear the rest of it on the 5:30 show. Uh, no. And KSBW has a lot more resources at hand as a Hearst station, getting state news from KCRA and Washington news from the Hearst bureau there. Wonder if NPG just gave up.

After KNTV left the ABC, KGO programmed a "station' on local cable systems, even with some magazine-type shows geared toward the Central Coast. But it all disappeared after KSBW put ABC on 8.2.

 

[IM42A]

There is also Kern County that is a split TV market; the western half is Bakersfield, and the eastern half is Los Angeles.

It is indeed. Several California counties are split. It is more common there, than in any other state.

 

[IM42A]

Me? Always found the KION newscasts a bit choppy, like they'd start telling a story during the 5 p.m. show, then urge you to hear the rest of it on the 5:30 show.

I have to think that they do that, to make sure you watch the 5:30 show as well. That is even done within single newscasts with the weather. I was watching WSOC Charlotte the other night at 11 pm, and their meteorologist came on at the beginning and started discussing the impending storms. Then he announced that he would have more later. I had to sit through several stories of no interest to me, before I could find out the full story on the approaching weather. For something that important (severe weather affects everyone), it would have been nice to lead off with that story, and to cover it in-depth.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

It was weird. KNTV San Jose was the ABC affiliate for the Salinas-Monterey market (not just an OOM default affiliate, but the actual affiliate), and while SC county was split, so far as I am aware, neither part of SC County was ever in the Salinas-Monterey market. Pretty sure KNTV tilted their signal to the south to protect ABC affiliate KGO, and presumably, to give better coverage the Salinas and Monterey areas. So you had a situation where one of the three major network affiliates was not actually within its own market. AFAIK there is no absolutely strict requirement that a station assigned to a given market is geographically within that market, again, in-market stations, not just default infill stations where one or more networks don't have in-market affiliates.

I cannot swear my life that San Jose and its part of SC county were never in the SM market, not without poring through years' worth of Broadcasting Yearbooks, but I don't recall ever seeing it. I don't imagine that the SF market would have cottoned to the idea of losing San Jose with its large population.

I remember back when KNTV was transitioning from Monterey ABC affiliate to NBC O&O for San Francisco in 2001, the transition team at the station branded KNTV as NBC3/Currently NBC Bay Area back when the aim was to get the rest of the Bay Area to cable to the rest of the market. Except the 2001 transition team (Granite to NBC Universal) for KNTV did not consider that Solano County is a split county between Sacramento and San Francisco and parts of the county get KCRA Sacramento as the NBC affiliate given that parts of the county is closer to the Walnut Grove TV transmitters plus parts of the county is in the Sacramento Valley and Delta regions than they are to Mt. Sutro and the San Bruno mountains where Bay Area FM and TV stations are located but then again KNTV was waiting for approval to move their transmitter from Loma Prieta Peak to San Bruno mountains when that took place.

 

[IM42A]

I remember back when KNTV was transitioning from Monterey ABC affiliate to NBC O&O for San Francisco in 2001, the transition team at the station branded KNTV as NBC3/Currently NBC Bay Area back when the aim was to get the rest of the Bay Area to cable to the rest of the market. Except the 2001 transition team (Granite to NBC Universal) for KNTV did not consider that Solano County is a split county between Sacramento and San Francisco and parts of the county get KCRA Sacramento as the NBC affiliate given that parts of the county is closer to the Walnut Grove TV transmitters plus parts of the county is in the Sacramento Valley and Delta regions than they are to Mt. Sutro and the San Bruno mountains where Bay Area FM and TV stations are located but then again KNTV was waiting for approval to move their transmitter from Loma Prieta Peak to San Bruno mountains when that took place.

I struggle to understand how anyone thought the "NBC3" moniker for KNTV was a good idea, when you had another NBC affiliate on channel 3 in an adjacent market, but then again there's "NBC 10 Boston" with fellow NBC affiliate WJAR-10 Providence right next door.

Unless they were looking for the lowest fake-channel number possible (KTVU is, of course, channel 2 in the Bay Area), their existing channel 11 would have done just fine.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

I struggle to understand how anyone thought the "NBC3" moniker for KNTV was a good idea, when you had another NBC affiliate on channel 3 in an adjacent market, but then again there's "NBC 10 Boston" with fellow NBC affiliate WJAR-10 Providence right next door.

Unless they were looking for the lowest fake-channel number possible (KTVU is, of course, channel 2 in the Bay Area), their existing channel 11 would have done just fine.

Let's just say the 2001-2002 team at KNTV didn't consider that Fairfield and Suisun city are one of the largest cities to be located within close proximity to where the TV DMA lines are drawn. I don't expect that team to get all the details of the SF TV market given their history focusing on San Jose and Monterey prior to the 2001-2002 TV season.

Also back when those were drawn in the 1950's Fairfield didn't have the population size it has today when the DMA maps were drawn and when KOVR had to move their transmitter to get the South half of the Sacramento Valley and the north end of the San Joaquin Valley. Yes hence KOVR COL is officially Stockton but its transmitters had to aim for Sacramento specifically to get the ABC affiliation for the Valley and "Not take viewers away from KGO" in the 1950's.

It even got referenced in a 1985-1986 promo by KTXL with Leslie Nielsen to explain not just the strength of tv news equipment in the 1980's, Satellite Trucks as the cutting edge technology, the competition among Sacramento TV stations back then but also included a reference on Solano County being a split into two TV Markets like Vallejo and Benicia are in the San Francisco Bay Area TV market, Vacaville and Dixon in the Sacramento TV market, Fairfield and Suisun within the area where Nielsen draws the lines between SF and Sacramento TV markets.

 

[IM42A]

It even got referenced in a 1985-1986 promo by KTXL with Leslie Nielsen to explain not just the strength of tv news equipment in the 1980's, Satellite Trucks as the cutting edge technology, the competition among Sacramento TV stations back then but also included a reference on Solano County being a split into two TV Markets like Vallejo and Benicia are in the San Francisco Bay Area TV market, Vacaville and Dixon in the Sacramento TV market, Fairfield and Suisun within the area where Nielsen draws the lines between SF and Sacramento TV markets.

To the extent that everyday viewers even understand the concept of discrete TV markets, it would be awfully hard to explain why part of a county is in one market, and part of the county is in another market.

 

[SCV_Ears]

I remember back when KNTV was transitioning from Monterey ABC affiliate to NBC O&O for San Francisco in 2001, the transition team at the station branded KNTV as NBC3/Currently NBC Bay Area back when the aim was to get the rest of the Bay Area to cable to the rest of the market. Except the 2001 transition team (Granite to NBC Universal) for KNTV did not consider that Solano County is a split county between Sacramento and San Francisco and parts of the county get KCRA Sacramento as the NBC affiliate given that parts of the county is closer to the Walnut Grove TV transmitters plus parts of the county is in the Sacramento Valley and Delta regions than they are to Mt. Sutro and the San Bruno mountains where Bay Area FM and TV stations are located but then again KNTV was waiting for approval to move their transmitter from Loma Prieta Peak to San Bruno mountains when that took place.

Always curious why KNTV was not allowed space on Sutro Tower instead of going to Mt. San Bruno. Were they blocked by other tenants?

 

[IM42A]

Always curious why KNTV was not allowed space on Sutro Tower instead of going to Mt. San Bruno. Were they blocked by other tenants?

Doesn't look that way. The reason is far more straightforward, they simply have to provide primary coverage to San Jose, their COL. They can "move a station" wherever they want, but at the end of the day, the COL is the COL.

Sutro Tower - Wikipedia.

 

[IM42A]

(delete duplicate post)

 

[IM42A]

I had to look up the reference to "the Nut Tree". It is a lifestyle center (term in commercial real estate for large multi-use business and retail developments, often with such things as housing, amusements, and so on, in addition to shopping) whose name comes from a fruit stand that morphed into much, much more. It's kind of a destination and it serves as an unofficial demarcation point between the San Francisco and Sacramento greater metropolitan areas (or something like that).

I traveled by it on I-80 forty years ago this fall, but I wasn't familiar with the area. and it wouldn't have registered with me as anything other than just another shopping center. It was very early in the morning.

 

[inari]

I traveled by it on I-80 forty years ago this fall, but I wasn't familiar with the area. and it wouldn't have registered with me as anything other than just another shopping center. It was very early in the morning.

It's basically a shopping center now. It does have a small train with a short little loop as well as a few other things but the main purpose is a shopping center.

The Nut Tree was different before they levelled the whole thing and turned it into a shopping center with national brands. It had it's own local restaurant and featured a train with a much longer track around the property. It was a common meeting place where someone from the Bay Area and someone from the Sacramento area could kind of meet in the middle.

 

[xkxrx]

I struggle to understand how anyone thought the "NBC3" moniker for KNTV was a good idea, when you had another NBC affiliate on channel 3 in an adjacent market, but then again there's "NBC 10 Boston" with fellow NBC affiliate WJAR-10 Providence right next door.

Unless they were looking for the lowest fake-channel number possible (KTVU is, of course, channel 2 in the Bay Area), their existing channel 11 would have done just fine.

The reason they called themselves NBC3 was because that was the channel you tuned to if you had cable TV. It didn't make much sense to those of us who still received the channel over the air, but I guess they determined more people in the Bay Area were watching them on cable since the OTA signal didn't cover the entire market.

 

[Mark Roberts]

I struggle to understand how anyone thought the "NBC3" moniker for KNTV was a good idea, when you had another NBC affiliate on channel 3 in an adjacent market, but then again there's "NBC 10 Boston" with fellow NBC affiliate WJAR-10 Providence right next door.

Unless they were looking for the lowest fake-channel number possible (KTVU is, of course, channel 2 in the Bay Area), their existing channel 11 would have done just fine.

That’s what NBC negotiated with AT&T Broadband (which later was bought by Comcast) in 2001. You answered your own question: it was thought that channel position mattered and 3 was the lowest available. It might also have helped that it was “next door”, so to speak, with KRON on 4. I suspect that most people in the Bay Area, even in the eastern edges, wouldn’t have known what KCRA was. A pretty reliable principle is that, given a choice of network affiliates between a big market and a smaller market, people will gravitate to the station in the bigger market. Vacaville and vicinity in Solano County might have been an exception, but in the vast majority of the Bay Area, 3 was just another position in the channel lineup.

After a couple of years, KNTV rebranded as “NBC Bay Area”, which it still is.

The reason they called themselves NBC3 was because that was the channel you tuned to if you had cable TV. It didn't make much sense to those of us who still received the channel over the air, but I guess they determined more people in the Bay Area were watching them on cable since the OTA signal didn't cover the entire market.

That’s also the theory of why NBC thought KNTV would work. My half-joking theory is that, given the geographic ignorance of anything west of Pennsylvania that prevails among people in New York City, not to mention a lack of understanding of the distances in California, that NBC executives couldn’t tell the difference between “San Francisco”, “San Jose”, “San Leandro”, “San Lorenzo”, “San Rafael”, etc. They might have bought a TV station in San Lucas if there had been one.

 

[IM42A]

A pretty reliable principle is that, given a choice of network affiliates between a big market and a smaller market, people will gravitate to the station in the bigger market.

But then you have quirky situations where Nielsen doesn't split large counties. Polk County FL is assigned to the Tampa market, but its far northeastern corner is just a few miles from Walt Disney World. We stayed in Davenport, just inside the Polk County line, when we went to WDW, and the cable carried Tampa stations with, IIRC, only WFTV-9 from Orlando.

That’s also the theory of why NBC thought KNTV would work. My half-joking theory is that, given the geographic ignorance of anything west of Pennsylvania that prevails among people in New York City, not to mention a lack of understanding of the distances in California, that NBC executives couldn’t tell the difference between “San Francisco”, “San Jose”, “San Leandro”, “San Lorenzo”, “San Rafael”, etc. They might have bought a TV station in San Lucas if there had been one.

Long story short, NBC needed a new affiliate in the Bay Area, and it ended up being KNTV San Jose, which had a desirable VHF channel. The way it rattled out, Salinas-Monterey lost their ABC affiliate, which ceased to be an issue with the advent of digital, KSBW was able to pick it up using a subchannel.