Smallest COL by population

[JayR]

...KTVO, channel 3 (now RF ch. 33) Kirksville MO.

This was the tv station that was pranked when they read birthday and anniversary names on the air.

;D

 

[K6JHU]

I would nominate KHWY in Essex, California (pop 89) but I believe it is temporarily silent. BTW, this is not a rimshot to anywhere. Nothing in any direction for 50 miles (at least).

 

[ftballfan]

I would nominate KHWY in Essex, California (pop 89) but I believe it is temporarily silent. BTW, this is not a rimshot to anywhere. Nothing in any direction for 50 miles (at least).

Except an interstate runs through its signal. And it could be used to rimshot Needles and/or Laughlin/Bullhead City

 

[davideduardo]

Except an interstate runs through its signal. And it could be used to rimshot Needles and/or Laughlin/Bullhead City

Needles is such a poor market that its local stations have a spotty history of remaining solvent.

KHWY is part of Highway Radio, a group of 8 FMs up and down the highway leading beween SoCal and Las Vegas. The concept was to sell visitors on the shows, attractions, restaurants and hotels in Vegas as they drove to Sin City.

In an era of satellite radio, specialized tastes and MP3 players, it has been hard to maintain that group, I understand. The main studio is located in Barstow, CA.

 

[ftballfan]

Except an interstate runs through its signal. And it could be used to rimshot Needles and/or Laughlin/Bullhead City

Needles is such a poor market that its local stations have a spotty history of remaining solvent.

KHWY is part of Highway Radio, a group of 8 FMs up and down the highway leading beween SoCal and Las Vegas. The concept was to sell visitors on the shows, attractions, restaurants and hotels in Vegas as they drove to Sin City.

In an era of satellite radio, specialized tastes and MP3 players, it has been hard to maintain that group, I understand. The main studio is located in Barstow, CA.

It would make a nice signal for K-Love or another religious or public radio outlet.

 

[K-Billy]

While technicality it COL is Hays, KS, KOOD, the flagship station of "Smokey Hills Public Television" has it's main studios in Bunker Hill, KS, population 95.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunker_Hill,_Kansas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoky_Hills_Public_Television

 

[davideduardo]

It (KHWY) would make a nice signal for K-Love or another religious or public radio outlet.

It would still have the problem of covering essentially no local residents and being totally dependent on vehicular traffic on the freeway to Las Vegas for listeners.

This is the desert west where it can be 60 or 70 miles between settlements... or even single structures. It's not the rural Northeast where in the 12 miles between towns like Suttons Bay and Northport there are villages like Omena and Peshawbestown every few miles.

How many people going to "Sin City" do you think would listen to a Christian station on the way?

 

[Gregg]

Poland Spring, Maine, is the COL for Channel 8 (virtual and digital) WMTW, the ABC affiliate for Portland. The municipality has a little over 5000 residents, so I'd guess this is the smallest COL for a network affiliate in the East.

At one time, Channel 8 and 94.9 WHOM (originally WMTQ) were co-owned and had their transmitters on top of Mount Washington, the tallest peak in the East. WHOM originally was a weather station, transmitting conditions on top of the mountain down to the national weather office in Boston. It transitioned to a commercial FM station under FM originator Major Edwin Armstrong, and its signal still can be heard throughout New Hampshire and much of Maine, Vermont and The Eastern Townships of Quebec.

With the FM transmitter already on top of Mt. Washington, the owners also put a TV transmitter up there as well. Even though it put a great signal into Portland, the largest city north of Boston, the tower was too far from Portland to make that its City of License. So the owners put the studios for Channel 8 in an inn in the resort community of Poland Spring, about 30 miles north of Portland, and close enough to the mountain to make it Channel 8's City of License. A couple of years before the digital switchover, WMTW moved to a tower in West Baldwin ME, since the digital signal from Mt. Washington wouldn't be able to serve Portland and its growing suburbs to the south.

Even though its studios are in Portland, 94.9 continues to use the COL of Mt. Washington. Nobody really lives on the mountaintop, where weather conditions are so severe that the transmitter building has chains to hold it down against the severe winds and no trees grow. But for the tourists who come up in the summer, there is a small post office booth in the visitors center so they can have their postcards postmarked "Mount Washington." And if a community has a post office, it can be a COL.

 

[ftballfan]

A station in Northern Michigan has applied to move from Ludington to Thompsonville (pop. 441) and transmitting from near Karlin in order to target the Traverse City area (micropolitan area population 143,372).

 

[fybush]

Poland Spring, Maine, is the COL for Channel 8 (virtual and digital) WMTW, the ABC affiliate for Portland. The municipality has a little over 5000 residents, so I'd guess this is the smallest COL for a network affiliate in the East.

Maybe not.

NBC affiliate WPTZ-TV 5 is still shown in CDBS as being licensed to "North Pole, NY," despite a rulemaking a few years ago to change it to Plattsburgh, where its studio is located. North Pole is an unincorporated hamlet within the town of Wilmington, pop. 1250.

And WWNY-TV 7 is now licensed to Watertown, but it started out down the road licensed to Carthage NY, which today has a population of only 3800 or so.

WMGM-TV 40 in Wildwood, NJ is also a contender, with about 5300 year-round residents - and so is High Springs, FL (Gainesville-market CBS affiliate WGFL), with just 3,863 people.

 

[purpledevil]

I'll nominate KHMR. A 10,500 Watt, 474 foot tall classic rock station licensed to Lovelady, TX. Populaton: 608. Runs fully automated, when on the air, with only an ID mentioning the COL every 30 minutes.

 

[davideduardo]

A station in Northern Michigan has applied to move from Ludington to Thompsonville (pop. 441) and transmitting from near Karlin in order to target the Traverse City area (micropolitan area population 143,372).

That is quite a jump, but it still would be a smaller facility at the southern edge of a really big rated radio market extending all the way up to Emmit County and the straits. It will likely only cover the immediate TC area, while the whole market is much more extensive.

 

[ftballfan]

A station in Northern Michigan has applied to move from Ludington to Thompsonville (pop. 441) and transmitting from near Karlin in order to target the Traverse City area (micropolitan area population 143,372).

That is quite a jump, but it still would be a smaller facility at the southern edge of a really big rated radio market extending all the way up to Emmit County and the straits. It will likely only cover the immediate TC area, while the whole market is much more extensive.

The station mentioned is only able to move close to TC due to the 100kW second adjacents being in Charlevoix and Gaylord respectively (and there's a 50kW-equivalent co-channel in Cheboygan)

 

[1L6E6VHF]

A station in Northern Michigan has applied to move from Ludington to Thompsonville (pop. 441) and transmitting from near Karlin in order to target the Traverse City area (micropolitan area population 143,372).

That is quite a jump, but it still would be a smaller facility at the southern edge of a really big rated radio market extending all the way up to Emmit County and the straits. It will likely only cover the immediate TC area, while the whole market is much more extensive.

I wouldn't be surprised if the station winds up getting paired with a station further north. I don't think there is any market with more multi-transmitter FM services than northern lower MI.

 

[davideduardo]

I wouldn't be surprised if the station winds up getting paired with a station further north. I don't think there is any market with more multi-transmitter FM services than northern lower MI.

Actually, there is... and it's a top 15 market... Puerto Rico. It takes 4 AMs at minimum and 3 fill B FMs to cover most of the market, and even then there are gaps.

 

[ftballfan]

A station in Northern Michigan has applied to move from Ludington to Thompsonville (pop. 441) and transmitting from near Karlin in order to target the Traverse City area (micropolitan area population 143,372).

That is quite a jump, but it still would be a smaller facility at the southern edge of a really big rated radio market extending all the way up to Emmit County and the straits. It will likely only cover the immediate TC area, while the whole market is much more extensive.

I wouldn't be surprised if the station winds up getting paired with a station further north. I don't think there is any market with more multi-transmitter FM services than northern lower MI.

There are only a few that don't have multiple FMs (WLXT, WLDR, WMKC, WGFM, WKHQ). Speaking of multi-transmitter FM services, I think WQEZ and WMKC are the only stations owned by Northern Star that were never part of the Bear at one point or another.

 

[w9wi]

On a related note, were there analog VHF allocations that were unused anywhere before the transition?

This, too, is a database search:


AK Anchorage *9
AK Dillingham *2, 10
AK Fairbanks 13
AK Juneau 10
AK Ketchikan 2, *9
AK Seward 3
CA Alturas 13
CA Willits 11
CO Lamar 12
FL Islamorada 9
FL Key West *13
HI Hilo *4
HI Lihue 3, *8, 10, 12
KS Liberal 5
LA Houma 11
MT Anaconda 2
MT Billings *11
MT Butte *2
MT Glendive 13
MT Havre 11
MT Miles City *10
NV Goldfield 7
NV McGill *13
NV Tonopah 9
NM Gallup *8, 10
NM Silver City 10, *12
NY Utica 4
OK Guymon 9
SD Seneca *2
TX Alpine 12
TX Boquillas 8
TX Brady 13
TX Fort Stockton 5
TX Marfa 3
TX Presidio 7
TX Sonora 11
UT Price 3
UT Richfield 8
UT Vernal 6
WY Sheridan 9

Agana, Guam *4, 10
Christiansted, Virgin Islands *3, 6