Largest US city without OTA Network reception?

[genius]

It's not larger than Del Rio, Texas, but Nogales, Arizona will not have OTA American network service after the DTV transition. Only Tucson's Fox affiliate KMSB serves Nogales now from facilities in the Santa Rita mountains between Tucson and Nogales, but their digital facilities are on Mt. Bigelow northeast of Tucson. TV signals from Mt. Bigelow are blocked by the Santa Rita mountains. The only reason analog KMSB is in the Santa Rita mtns is that the station was licensed to Nogales before 1991.

Like Del Rio, Nogales has no LPTV translators operating in the are, but gets ample Mexican network OTA TV service from stations across the border.

I'm surprised Nogales has no translators from any of the Tucson stations. Here at KRQE we have over eighty translators across the state, some of them in backwater outposts.

 

[PhilJSmith67]

I wonder, in a situation like Nogales, if any of those stations licensed to Mexico would flip to English and try becoming an affiliate of a US-based network, like Fox-6 XETV Tijuana does for serving San Diego. They could continue running analog, too.

 

[dhett]

Not a chance. Spanish is the dominant language on the border. About 75 miles east of Nogales, Douglas has a full-service station and an LPTV station and both are in Spanish (Telefutura and Telemundo, respectively). In the Yuma AZ / El Centro CA market, two of the five full-service stations are Spanish (Univision and Telefutura), as are three of the five Yuma LPTVs (Televida Abundante, CadenaTres and Telemundo). Meanwhile, one of the big four networks, ABC, exists solely OTA as a digital subchannel of the Fox station, while PBS is only available OTA from one of the other two LPTV stations, and that's only because AZTV had to pull their signal off that channel due to Syndex issues in Dec 2006. In addition, there are seven Mexicali stations and two in San Luis Rio Colorado, all in Spanish.

Driving down I-19 from Tucson to Nogales, the distance markers are all metric. Approaching a firehouse in Nogales AZ, you'll see the typical sign showing a fire truck, but underneath is the word, "bombero" (fireman). Border officials speak Spanish by default, according to a former supervisor of mine, who is Canadian and had to go to Nogales to renew his paperwork.

Of all the TV stations on the Mexican side of the border, XETV 6 Tijuana, XHDTV 49 Tecate, and XHRIO 2 Matamoros are the only ones I know that broadcast in English.

 

[JeeperOne]

Hi everyone:

Channel 10 must be a new station because the only ones I know of in Texas are in Amarillo, Corpus Christi and Waco/Temple.

You can scratch Amarillo because it has SEVERAL stations that cover it without any problems at all (4, 7, 10 & 14 - I may also have missed one or two on top of this group too). The only one that has problems is 65, which I believe is low-powered to begin with.

Cheers

 

[KML0224]

I'm well aware that city has a few stations. It's just strange that in a state with that big of a population base that there's a spot with nothing. Safe to say it wouldn't apply in Connecticut. We'll get over the air from Hartford/New Haven (me), Albany/Schenectady (up in Salisbury maybe?), New York City (not here), Springfield, MA (not quite) and Providence (RI)/New Bedford (MA) (occasional audio of ABC 6 on 87.7 FM a few times).

 

[silverthree]

Of all the TV stations on the Mexican side of the border, XETV 6 Tijuana, XHDTV 49 Tecate, and XHRIO 2 Matamoros are the only ones I know that broadcast in English.

XERV 9 Reynosa and XHAB 7 Matamoros, while broadcasting in Spanish the majority of the time, do air English language infomercials. This happens mostly on the weekends, but I have seen an infomercial in English at on a weekday afternoon on XHAB before. A lot of XERV's Saturday morning schedule is filled with English infomercials. Of course they're aimed at the Texas side.

 

[azumanga]

A lot of XERV's Saturday morning schedule is filled with English infomercials. Of course they're aimed at the Texas side.

That I don't understand -- why would a Spanish-language station show infomercials in English? How many anglophones watch Spanish (or other non-English) channels with regularity?

 

[dhett]

Many do. That's why Spanish-language TV and radio get such high ratings. Many who function day-to-day in English still prefer to get their entertainment in their native languages.

Why they would stick around to watch an infomercial in English is beyond me.

 

[louisNatl]

I am surprised that nobody mentioned San Juan, PR. The major networks are on LPTV stations that do not even cover San Juan. Only PBS, The CW, and Univision are the major networks that cover the city well.