> > > Just seems odd and an increased
> > > expense for an area pretty far away that may have little
>
> > or
> > > no impact on ratings by adding these local bureaus.
> >
> > Yes, they do have an impact on the ratings. The entirety
> of
> > the Lehigh Valley, including Berks County and excluding
> > Warren County in New Jersey (which is in the NYC DMA) is
> in
> > the Philly DMA, meaning they get books and will be getting
>
> > people meters too.
> >
>
> Don't forget Carbon County (Wilkes Barre DMA). Now that
> county is friggin far, and not mentioned in Philly news.
> Carbon County related news is occasionally on WFMZ.
>
> BTW, are you sure Lehigh's ratings really make a difference?
> I could be wrong, but heard elsewhere, that ratings are
> more important in the MSA, even though DMA HH count puts
> Philly at #4. In NJ, it's Burlington, Camden and
> Gloucester that are part of the Philadelphia MSA as well as
> DMA. From what I understand it's ratings are far more
> important in those counties, much more than Atlantic,
> Cumberland, Cape May, Salem and Mercer, even if all the
> latter combined has equal HH count to the three mentioned
> first.
>
> One extreme, the Denver DMA spans over 100 miles over many
> counties, and I doubt Denver stations care at all about
> counties outside some few core ones.
>
> As far as Philly stations and Lehigh Valley, there has been
> little attempt to get NYC and Scranton stations off the
> cable system there, which will dilute viewership from Phila.
> stations. NYC is over 80 miles and not significantly
> viewed over the air either, and Scranton is duplicating.
>
> D.C. stations pushed Baltimore stations off the dial, in
> counties (like PG MD) that were worth more than counties in
> VA (60 miles away), where some Baltimore TV is still on
> cable.
>
> Whatever the case with out of market signals and ratings,
> the Philly stations, of course, do not want a competing
> network station in Lehigh Valley itself.
>
the Lehigh valleys population is exploding especially with Philly and NYC commuters commuters. I would think it would be wise to include that population in the numbers(although I'm no expert, not sure exactly what numbers make a difference where) Contrary to what many Philadelphians believe, the Lehigh valley is not all farmland and sheep farmers LOL.
-- both cable systems in the Lehigh valley(RCN and Service electric)used to carry only 2 Scranton stations (WNEP 16 and WBRE 28). Both have dropped 28 several years ago. the only Scranton station now is 16 on the Cable Systems.