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Most Big Four affiliates on one system
- Thread starter ftballfan
- Start date
I'm surprised Surfside didn't have WCBD for ABC, being so close to Charleston. And after all these years, I still think WCIV should be NBC and WCBD ABC.DrC said:
I stayed on the south end with my parents, though it was still in the Myrtle Beach city limits. Amazingly the whole cable lineup fit on a card the size of a business card. There were also three channels of FM music, but I didn't really listen to those. I remember junk, not music. And they were channels 11, 12 and 13, not 10, 11 and 12 like the card said. I don't remember what was on 10 but it may have been the weather channel by that time. A camera kept moving back and forth across gauges, with an ad for Deer Track Villas on one end. The audio was NOAA weather radio.
Mark said:
sometimes they will air different sports
vchimpanzee said:
At the time, I had a booklet which came with the TV Factbooks I constantly pored over at the reference section of the library (one day the librarian said I could keep it, since it was just an insert and I was photocopying it - I was thrilled). It listed every full-power TV station in the US, and I used it to check off every station I'd DXed or seen on a trip. I remember fiddling with a small cig-lighter-powered B&W TV in my parents' car when we drove down to Charleston on the trip so I could check WCBD and WTAT off my list of stations (I'd checked off the rest when I saw them on cable).
I imagine the Myrtle Beach system must have been around since the late 50s or early 60s, since the OTA reception there was very limited. Was surprised there were no translators, considering the population of the area. All I could pick up in Surfside Beach OTA was WGSE 43 and a very staticy WBTW 13 (granted, it was on that small B&W TV with a rod antenna).
I remember those 'business card' lineups - my grandparents saved one for me from a stay in northern Georgia, circa 1984. Twelve-channel system with all the network affiliates in Atlanta and Chattanooga, plus WTBS and HBO and I think ESPN. Maybe CNN. TeleScripps Cable Television was the company name. I still have it somewhere.
Comcast in Chambersburg, PA carries 3 NBC affiliates, as well as two ABC, two Fox and two CBS stations.
NBC:
4-WRC
8-WGAL
12-WHAG
The most local NBC affiliate, WHAG, has the worst of the 3 positions, and isn't even carried on HD.
The HD feeds appear to be sourced from the Harrisburg market as this is now Harrisburg DMA, and DirecTV and Dish Network offers Harrisburg TV stations.
At one point this decade, I believe this area became part of the DC market, primarily driven by WHAG, when Hagerstown merged into DC.
WHAG truly serves little purpose as a NBC affiliate and has lost syndicated content like Oprah, Wheel/Jeopardy. I wouldn't be surprised for NBC to buy it from Nexstar to make it DC's Telemundo station.
NBCUniversal bought out WWSI in Atlantic City and now is integrating a duopoly between WCAU/WWSI. I think the DC market falls right about the same level in Hispanic TV HH as DC.
However, once WHAG loses NBC, the DC connection to Chambersburg will be eliminated and the Harrisburg TV stations will essentially get all the DC stations off the lineup. The DC stations are too far to be significantly viewed over the air, and don't have an edge on the COL distance to keep carriage.
NBC:
4-WRC
8-WGAL
12-WHAG
The most local NBC affiliate, WHAG, has the worst of the 3 positions, and isn't even carried on HD.
The HD feeds appear to be sourced from the Harrisburg market as this is now Harrisburg DMA, and DirecTV and Dish Network offers Harrisburg TV stations.
At one point this decade, I believe this area became part of the DC market, primarily driven by WHAG, when Hagerstown merged into DC.
WHAG truly serves little purpose as a NBC affiliate and has lost syndicated content like Oprah, Wheel/Jeopardy. I wouldn't be surprised for NBC to buy it from Nexstar to make it DC's Telemundo station.
NBCUniversal bought out WWSI in Atlantic City and now is integrating a duopoly between WCAU/WWSI. I think the DC market falls right about the same level in Hispanic TV HH as DC.
However, once WHAG loses NBC, the DC connection to Chambersburg will be eliminated and the Harrisburg TV stations will essentially get all the DC stations off the lineup. The DC stations are too far to be significantly viewed over the air, and don't have an edge on the COL distance to keep carriage.
tripinva said:
I figured that was driving the carriage of the channel on the system, since it's the closest ABC affiliate technically.
Perhaps the cable deletion had to do with retransmission. Disney likely wanted the cable systems(Service Electric, RCN) to pay for WPVI at the retransmission rate it has set. The cable systems might have been like "oh, we'll manage with free WNEP". WPVI/ABC might have had to deter that choice and get WNEP off the system.
It's also worth noting that WPVI at some point began going out of it's way in stating servicing the "Delaware and Lehigh Valley". While KYW, WTXF and WCAU have some marginal news to the Lehigh Valley, none of the those competing stations to WPVI will state servicing the Lehigh Valley like that.
Also, I believe Fulton County, PA, is part of the Washington, DC DMA. I thought it was with Altoona-Johnstown. When did Franklin County, PA become part of the Harrisburg DMA, anyway?
ding12 said:
KML-224 said:
WFMZ still produces a lot of news. I think WPVI has a deal with the station over having a local news bureau of it's own there.
WPVI's website states news bureaus in Jersey Shore, Wilmington and Trenton along with Philly.
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=resources/inside_station/station_info&id=6030692
pkffrom724 said:
I don't know. I just discovered it as part of this thread, when searching if Chambersburg still gets all three NBCs. Upon looking at the Comcast lineup, I then noticed the HD feeds were sourced from Harrisburg and then I checked Dish and DirecTV, and saw that those two were also providing Harrisburg stations over DC. From my memory, I remembered the area as being part of DC DMA.
I assume DirecTV and Dish customers who were activated with DC locals still have DC, while new subscribers get Harrisburg.
It's the HD feeds that are interesting. I wonder if Comcast was offering DC first, and then switched to Harrisburg upon the DMA switch.
The sad thing is WHAG couldn't keep this area. While the county is small and likely meaningless to DC, it still doesn't help that the station's sole purpose was to augment the DC market. It also doesn't brand itself as NBC25 and it lost the popular syndicated shows. I don't what value it offers to NBC.
Atleast with WMGM40 in Atlantic City, it still wears the NBC uniform and brands itself as NBC40. It has Ch.4 cable positioning, between 3 and 6, so it overall increases exposure of NBC, even on cable significantly.
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