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Should there be more affliates in underserved areas?

R

RFLA

This is a thread I've decided to move on my own that was started as part of a discussion on New Orleans radio and TV that has side tracked to another issue that is affecting parts of Louisiana in relation to Television in Louisiana (and other "rural" areas)

The discussion was centered on should a move be made to get new or increased power/coverage of TV stations on the air so they could become affliates to serve areas that while they are getting served today, may not be getting the level of service they should expect or may possibly loose service once DTV is forced upon us.

The original thread was started by Triparishradiotv and is linked here:
http://www.radio-info.com/mods/board?Post=537217&Board=louisiana

Some of the issues that have come up was the lack of quality for Alexandria with CBS and to a small part FOX (since it's on translators there currently), Lafayette with no NBC affiliate technically, Lake Charles that has no local ABC or CBS affliates (sharing with Beaumont,TX and Lafayette) and Houma which even though covered technically now by New Orleans and Baton Rouge, has a potential market size as big or bigger than Alexandria or Lake Charles yet has had no full power TV stations in over 30 years.

Please feel free to discuss here

RFLA
 
In a town the size of Lake Charles, I don't think there is enough advertising dollars to support another full power station. The Fox station gave a local news operation a shot and could not make it work financially. So, Lake Charles has only one local news operation.

Same thing happened in Hattiesburg, MS. WHLT (CBS) tried a local news operation. Their parent company poured a huge amount of money into it hoping to compete with WDAM (NBC). After two years, they threw in the towel.

Point is, even if you assign more full power stations to a small market, will that market support it?
 
> In a town the size of Lake Charles, I don't think there is
> enough advertising dollars to support another full power
> station. The Fox station gave a local news operation a shot
> and could not make it work financially. So, Lake Charles
> has only one local news operation.

>
> Same thing happened in Hattiesburg, MS. WHLT (CBS) tried a
> local news operation. Their parent company poured a huge
> amount of money into it hoping to compete with WDAM (NBC).
> After two years, they threw in the towel.
>
> Point is, even if you assign more full power stations to a
> small market, will that market support it?
>


I find the markets support the stations ,maybe not the full power of Like a New Orleans station but still a full power station for that market. I am starting to see however, where the markets can't support the the News organizations (only so many viewers wanting to see news in the area) like you describe...

Here in Houma/Thibodaux currently I would see the need for 1 to 1.5 major news outlets period.... If a new station would come on, it could pair with say Guaranty or Comet/Courier.. Or do like I've seen years ago (I don't know if it still is happening)in Mississippi and run 15 minutes of local and switch to the main station for sports and weather.
Martin Folse has a good operation coming with KFOL-CA (aka HTV10) but he would IMO have to get away from the cable access channel mentality the station has an air of to hopefully become a affliate some day. He could do his regular programming and say ally with say UPN and have a sucessful station (like KWBJ-LP has in Morgan City allying with WB at night and locally programming during the day at times).

The Houma area is starting to grow (and I figure you see this in your own business here)...It's not the small sleepy area it used to be. Many from before katrina, Hating city life, moved to Houma where they could enjoy most of what a city offers but still be a lot more layed back and open... The full effects on Migration probably won't be really known for about 4 or 5 more years IMO because right now we could overbuild for the market that would be left if they move back home to New Orleans.

New Orleans stations have a habit of glancing over the Bayou region (IMHO Baton Rouge stations sometimes serve the community better than NOLA)... Houma was considered not to have the people wanting to buy ratings books so was never added to the Arbitrons..However with the growth, possibly look for more money to be poured in here and Arbiton and others realizing there are people here wanting demo info more than the county survey.

If The New Orleans channels do glance us over when DTV becomes the norm, I would like to see translators or other CA or Full power stations taking over and providing for the area like Tri-Parish will be needing in the near future...


BTW, Here is the rundown by city of Newscasts that I know:

Alexandria (KALB), Houma (KFOL-CA), Morgan City (KWBJ-LP) and Lake Charles (KPLC) only have 1 TV news outlet

Baton Rouge and Lafayette only have 2 major (WBRZ which is co-owned with the Advocate and WAFB But I'm not counting Ch. 33's occasional newsbreaks)and so does Lafayette (KATC and KLFY)

Surprising is Monroe and Shreveport. Monroe has three channels doing news (KTVE (but is technically a El Dorado,Ark station) sister station KARD (which does a 9pm newscast, and KNOE)for the small population they have but as I explained,each has it's niche...
Same with Shreveport with 3 newscasts (KTAL (technically a Texarkana station),KTBS,KSLA) but Shreveport also has the area to cover with Texarkana and parts of Texas in the viewership of the station.

The winner is New Orleans with 4 1/2... WWL,WDSU,WVUE,and WGNO all run newscasts. WPXL 49 runs WDSU's TV news 1/2 hour late so that is my half


So in my feelings currently a regular power TV station may need to be in Houma's future before we wind up being totally dependant on stations 50 miles away


Edit- Looking for something else, Found something interesting.. There has been another full power Broadcaster supposedly trying to make a go of it in Houma in the 1980's but later being discontinued for some reason (the call was KNHH ch. 11 and was supposedly listed in the 1986 Broadcast yearbook and here is the info I could find on it http://www.recnet.com/cdbs/fmq.php?...d=&lond=&city=&state=&party=&party_type=LICEN )




RFLA<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by RFLA on 09/16/05 02:30 AM.</FONT></P>
 
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