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Less talked about markets?

D

dustintv

I think everyone on this particular board knows the issues of the Rochester, Syracuse and Buffalo markets, and maybe to a lesser extent Albany. Maybe even the burg markets like Utica and Elmira.

But I never hear anything about Plattsburgh. I've only been up there twice, and the only station I saw was WCAX, who at the time(I don't know if they still do) had a full news hour at six then aired CBS News at 7. Kind of interesting for a smaller market like Plattsburgh/Burlington.
 
That certainly is an interesting market. The stations have the duty of covering both Plattsburgh, NY and Burlington, VT. The two cities are relatively close to each other, but having Lake Champlain in the middle makes for some unique arrangements. There aren't any bridges across the lake... only ferries. Definitely not optimal for getting news stories back and forth in a timely matter.

I could look all this up, but I'm being lazy. I believe WPTZ is in Plattsburgh and WCAX is in Burlington. Both stations have facilities on the "opposite" side of the lake for feeding stories back to the station. I believe one or both may even have a full studio on the other side of the lake -- or at least, used to. WVNY, the ABC affiliate, was in 3rd place for the longest time, and may very well still be. Last I knew, they didn't even have news at 11pm -- just a 5-minute update and then some syndicated fare to fill the remaining 30 minutes until Nightline comes on.

WCAX was for a long time, under family ownership, and thus, spent big bucks on toys and talent. I think that ended a few years ago. I'm not sure if they are (or were) #1 in the market, but from an outside viewpoint, it sure seemed it.

WPTZ is owned by Hearst-Argyle, which actually has a pretty strong TV group, and is also fairly generous with the checkbook. Of course, a lot of the "slickness" to WPTZ can be attributed to bigger sister stations in markets like Boston and Orlando... usually graphics packages and music that are commissioned for the big stations are also made available to the smaller stations. WPTZ also benefits from some sort of deal where it is "the" NBC affiliate shown on cable in Montreal. Even though those numbers don't count for Nielsen, they still help the station bring in some coin from the other side of the border.

WPTZ also has an interesting setup with a "satellite" station it owns in Southern Vermont. I don't remember exactly where "WNNE Channel 31" is located, but I've seen it on cable when I've gone on skiing trips in that part of the state. Basically, they simulcast the first block of WPTZ's news, then a dedicated channel 31 anchor does the "really local" news for one segment, and they re-join WPTZ for the remainder of the show. It's quite an unique setup, though I'd imagine that one poor WNNE anchor must be busting his/her hump every day as a one-man band just to get those 5-6 minutes of news on the air. I highly doubt the bureau is staffed by more than 2 or 3 people.

I haven't been out there in at least 3 years, so I hope someone else will correct me if I am wrong, but since there weren't any other replies, I figured I'd contribute what I did know about the market.
 
Bob:

WPTZ is indeed in Plattsburgh and WCAX in Burlington. TV31 is located in White River Junction. You can see there stick when driving down I 91 on the Vermont side of the river. It's not a very powerful station either and I remember having to really work the rabbit ears in nearby Queechee to obtain a good picture.
 
Thanks Bob for the very informative post!

The WVNY situation sounds a lot like the situation with WWTI in Watertown where they were forced to cancel the typical 1/2 hour newscasts but still do five-minute news updates. And Hearst-Argyle owns WPTZ? Now that's classy, especially for a smaller market like Plattsburgh! Glad to hear they cover Vermont well, as Vermont has always seem to me as being the backwater of New England and the Northeast.
 
IIRC, WNNE has their studios in White River Jct. and their stick is in Windsor. However, a good slice of their audience is in New Hampshire - communities such as Hanover, Lebanon, Claremont and even (via cable) Keene. They are carried on cable as far south as Brattleboro, as far north as St. Johnsbury (maybe even farther) and as far east as the suburbs of Concord, NH - though not in town thanks to the intrusion of a local gov't access channel (there are 3). Not sure where the line is between carriage of channel 31 and channel 5 in central Vermont....though it probably falls somewhere near Montpelier/Barre.

So, despite a pitiful OTA signal, WNNE really gets a lot of coverage in central New England. Interesting to see newscasts featuring WPTZ stories about NY State when watching 'local' TV in a place like Henniker, New Hampshire.
 
BRNout said:
Interesting to see newscasts featuring WPTZ stories about NY State when watching 'local' TV in a place like Henniker, New Hampshire.
Click to expand...

I guess that's typical for when you have a "smaller" station covering a pretty large area.

I could say the same for News 10 Now on cable out of Syracuse. They're on TimeWarner south beyond Cortland, east as far as Herkimer/Ilion, and north waaaaaay up to the Canadian border. I believe the coverage follows the border almost all the way to Plattsburgh. Because they have reporters scattered through several bureaus (Watertown, Potsdam, Rome, Cortland, etc.) you're guaranteed to see plenty of "far away" stories no matter where you're watching.

I don't know how far WCAX and WVNY get out on cable, but I'd suppose it's a similar situation for them. Burlington is the only TV market in Vermont.

Anyway, there's lots more about these stations on Wikipedia. I found the WNNE page first, it's very informative:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WNNE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WPTZ
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WCAX
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WVNY

As always, remember that anyone can post anything on Wikipedia... but these seem to be mostly accurate. Common sense usually tells you what's legit and what isn't.
 
BRNout said:
IIRC, WNNE has their studios in White River Jct. and their stick is in Windsor. However, a good slice of their audience is in New Hampshire - communities such as Hanover, Lebanon, Claremont and even (via cable) Keene. They are carried on cable as far south as Brattleboro, as far north as St. Johnsbury (maybe even farther) and as far east as the suburbs of Concord, NH - though not in town thanks to the intrusion of a local gov't access channel (there are 3). Not sure where the line is between carriage of channel 31 and channel 5 in central Vermont....though it probably falls somewhere near Montpelier/Barre.

So, despite a pitiful OTA signal, WNNE really gets a lot of coverage in central New England. Interesting to see newscasts featuring WPTZ stories about NY State when watching 'local' TV in a place like Henniker, New Hampshire.
Click to expand...


I live in Allenstown, NH which is even closer to Concord (and only about 10 miles from Manchester) and on our cable lineup is WNNE.
 
The Plattsburgh-Burlington stations also serve Montreal and much of eastern Quebec. The cable carriage of these stations are microwaved all the way out to the Gaspe Penninsula.

When I was in college, Potsdam Newchannels (now TW Cable) used to pick up WPTZ via an antenna at their local head-end. Wonder if that has changed or not. Was a pretty mediocre signal...
 
jiminCT said:
When I was in college, Potsdam Newchannels (now TW Cable) used to pick up WPTZ via an antenna at their local head-end. Wonder if that has changed or not. Was a pretty mediocre signal...
Click to expand...

I was about to assume, since TW Cable runs the show, that they'd be getting NBC from WSTM in Syracuse. Seems that Syracuse is the central command for all their systems reaching up into the North Country.

But much to my surprise:
http://www.potsdam.edu/content.php?contentID=42683F6BFBFC1BA731D12DCEFE33D132

They're still piping in WPTZ! (Everything else is from Watertown though.) Hopefully the signal quality is better today. Also looks like the campus is using TimeWarner for internet and phone too... when I went to the college's homepage and searched "cable" there were pages mentioning RoadRunner, and another page said "unlimited local and long distance" phone service in dorm rooms. That's much better than the SUNY school I went to, where we paid nearly $100 a year for ethernet connections and a few cents per minute for phone calls.
 
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