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Ocean County

R

Radiojoe18

I was visitng a friend in Ocean Gate, Ocean County tonight and during NBC 10's 4 PM broadcast Comcast scrolled a message across the screen stating that Effective (I BELIEVE it was Wednesday) WCAU would only be able to be viewed on Digital Cable. Whats the deal with that? What regions does it affect? ALL of Ocean County? Is it JUST WCAU or all Philadelphia Tv stations?

Just curious.
 
WMGM doesn't reach up there. It's probably Comcast's ploy of saving bandwith - a pretty lousy plan for viewers; they'll probably quietly drop it from digital a year later. NBC 10's weather coverage is more relevant [to Ocean County] than WNBC 4's coverage.
 
Radiojoe18 said:
WMGM doesn't reach up there
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Could Comcast look to Add WMGM to include Ocean County?

Now there went the best weather at 5 O'clock. Hopefully that Fox 29 Newscast starts soon!!
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Unfortunately - Comcast can't add WMGM in Ocean County; maybe the southern portion of the county - where the station has a trace of a signal, but that's unlikely. Comcast wouldn't want to add WMGM and NBC4/NBC10 wouldn't permit it even if Comcast did want to add them.
 
I'm in Southern Ocean County.

We also lost NBC 10.

Over-The-Air: WMGM's analog signal comes in fair to good here, WMGM's digital signal comes in strong.

The idea of adding WMGM to the cable lineup here has been considered a couple of times by Comcast, however they would have to deal with SYNDEX and they felt it wasn't worth it.

We have many residents who work in Atlantic County and they would like to have the NBC40 news, unfortunately I don't think we'll ever see it.
 
If something terrible were to happen in Southern Ocean County, I'm sure NBC 10 would among the first to cover it - not the NY NBC; WMGM wouldn't have the resources. Major snow storm or flood affecting Southern NJ, WNBC wouldn't cover it. It'd have to reach the 201 area code region of NJ before a NYC station would report, run a scroll bar, or interrupt programming. Last time I checked, Beach Haven was 56 miles from Philadelphia and, Beach Haven is 78 miles from New York, NY.

But, NBC doesn't care - they are NY centric. If Comcast were to drop WNBC 4 (from basic, require full digital cable) in Trenton, you'd probably see NBC stepping in and preventing Comcast from doing so. NBC would probably negotiate and direct them to drop NBC10 instead. And Comcast' solution for viewers to just tune to CN8 - oh wait, they don't do news anymore. Not only is it bad for those in Ocean County, it's indirectly bad for the Philly region, as the Ocean County area will have less identification with the Philadelphia and Southern NJ area over time, esp. if more Philadelphia stations are obscured and later dropped off the cable lineups. It's anyways Comcast' approach towards Philadelphia - limit its reach so nobody cares about the city outside of it, over time. It'd be entirely different if Ocean County were to get its own local NBC affiliate - and WNBC be pushed off also, but that isn't the case.
 
JerseyShor said:
I'm in Southern Ocean County.

We also lost NBC 10.

Over-The-Air: WMGM's analog signal comes in fair to good here, WMGM's digital signal comes in strong.

The idea of adding WMGM to the cable lineup here has been considered a couple of times by Comcast, however they would have to deal with SYNDEX and they felt it wasn't worth it.

We have many residents who work in Atlantic County and they would like to have the NBC40 news, unfortunately I don't think we'll ever see it.
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Comcast doesn't want to add WMGM. They tried pulling it off the cable system from Vineland, NJ, Cumberland County. WMGM in the Southern NJ area, affects Comcast's advertising: the small mom & pop businesses have a choice of somewhere else to advertise on TV. WMGM petitioned its stay on the system; Comcast had to keep them but sorta gave their disproval and put them on Ch.99 (made viewers have to change channels to find them). WMGM didn't want to change channel locations (from Ch.21 to Ch.99). As Vineland was closer to Wildwood (in miles from City of License calculation) than Philadelphia, WMGM was able to remain on the Vineland cable system.

Maybe Fios could carry WMGM however in Southern Ocean County. As Ocean County is NYC DMA, however, WMGM has no mandatory claim into the area and is not significantly viewed.
 
I need to revise my statement from above: WMGM may have a way into Comcast of So. Ocean County - through a market modification petition. WMCN-DT, as an independent station with no historical carriage or [significantly viewed] viewership and in a different DMA, got into Ocean Co. that way. Two things, however: Comcast would use means to resist, and WMGM isn't intent on expanding cable coverage. They have had opportunity to get on Dish Network and DirecTV for coverage for years, in the Philadelphia DMA, and haven't done so.

As far as NBC 10 being dropped off analog cable - it may actually have to do with WMGM, indirectly. The cable regulations give the nearest network affiliate carriage rights for mustcarry, when it has historical carriage and significantly viewed.

It is why WGAL 8 in Lancaster is still carried in Reading, PA - because WGAL is the closest NBC and thus, used must-carry to keep carriage. NBC10 has coverage agreement for the entire DMA, and thus NBC 10 is on cable in Reading and Wildwood, where another NBC station is closer.

However, in Southern Ocean County, which isn't Philadelphia DMA, the nearest NBC affiliate (by distance) is WMGM, not WCAU. So, WCAU doesn't have the must-carry protection that Lancaster's WGAL 8 has in Reading, PA. In Northern Ocean County, WNBC has a slight distance advantage by 5-10 miles as the crow flies.

WMGM isn't intent on expanding coverage, though, for the Southern part. And, WNBC is safe in that they are in same DMA. [Despite that, WCAU should be the NBC affiliate on all tiers of cable there - because it is a lot closer in distance than WNBC (in the southern Ocean County) and unlike WMGM, it has resources; its news also covers Southern NJ and shore- unlike WNBC news]
 
Just another reason to NOT subscribe to CrapCast. I believe Cablevision did the same thing in Seaside Heights/Seaside Park, dumping KYW-TV from their lineup a few years ago. I like Philly TV better than NYC, which is good, because I cannot receive the full NYC complement of stations via antenna, despite being in the NYC DMA. All the Philly stations, including WCAU, come in just fine.

And the weather on all of the Philly stations is relevant to those of us in Ocean County, much more so than the New York broadcasts.
 
I have never been to Philly or South NJ but I was wondering since NBC owns the TV stations in NYC and Philadelphia, wouldn't it be kind of dumb for WMGM-TV to push for any carriage, cause then all NBC would do is to pull, or not renew WMGM's affilation with NBC
 
Mark said:
I have never been to Philly or South NJ but I was wondering since NBC owns the TV stations in NYC and Philadelphia, wouldn't it be kind of dumb for WMGM-TV to push for any carriage, cause then all NBC would do is to pull, or not renew WMGM's affilation with NBC
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Probably - but NBC seems okay with Nexstar's WHAG 25 from Hagerstown MD being on Dish Network in D.C..

Whether one is in the wealthier nearby areas surrounding D.C. or the more remote counties out, he can get NBC 25 now with NBC4, on Dish Network. For that matter, if a viewer close to D.C was to go for OTA HD, I'm sure Baltimore's WBAL-DT would show up easily in the scan. Yet, I'm sure majority of D.C. DMA residents will still choose to watch NBC on WRC4 even if another NBC station was on the dial, as WHAG's and WBAL's news is a lot less relevant, and both look like smaller market stations. Still, in the 90s, WBAL was dropped from cable systems on WRC's request.

Likewise, I'm sure the same with Philly DMA residents - that most will continue to watch NBC10 and NBC wouldn't care if WMGM was on Dish Network and DirecTV. Maybe NBC10 wouldn't like WMGM on cable in Camden County, however - because cable has more TV HH, and it'd be competing right against WCAU.

As for WMGM getting on cable in Southern Ocean County - that stretch of land is among the least importance to the NYC or Philly stations. Still, for the benefit of those in that area, they should be given something local.

WMGM could always play the "we are the only local TV news-source for Atlantic City... and we'd be forced to cancel our news if we didn't have a network affiliation" - if NBC ever tried pulling affiliation from it, giving NBC a bad reputation. Yes, technically, NBC could strike a deal with Council Tree Broadcasting, The Telemundo owner (WWSI 62) to just relay WCAU on a digital subchannel, boosting WCAU's over the air signal. [Still wouldn't deal with the local Atlantic City/Cape May news aspect that WMGM provides]

From stations like WMGM and WHAG - maybe NBC gets a small portion of their local advertising revenue. I'd think the small additional exposure to the network couldn't be enough to justify the affiliations, as the affiliations compete against O&O viewership.
 
Don said:
Just another reason to NOT subscribe to CrapCast. I believe Cablevision did the same thing in Seaside Heights/Seaside Park, dumping KYW-TV from their lineup a few years ago. I like Philly TV better than NYC, which is good, because I cannot receive the full NYC complement of stations via antenna, despite being in the NYC DMA. All the Philly stations, including WCAU, come in just fine.

And the weather on all of the Philly stations is relevant to those of us in Ocean County, much more so than the New York broadcasts.
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If I recall correctly, Cablevision dumped KYW on WNBC's request [or demand] - back when KYW was a "competing" NBC affiliate. NBC made it clear to Westinghouse that they couldn't negotiate cable retransmission on that system. From what I know - WMGM only does must-carry and doesn't get any retransmission from Comcast.

As both WCAU and WNBC are co-owned, with NBC negotiating with Comcast - WNBC shouldn't be threatened by WCAU, (it's only NBC and Comcast here, not several of cable systems and competing NBC stations like back in the 90s). I believe this time around, it stemmed from Comcast's ploy to save bandwith. NBC might have had a say - they probably could have negotiated that WCAU stay on the analog dial [but that would probably have pushed WNBC to exclusive digital only status] instead.
 
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