We might as well do all four major broadcast networks. Lets not forget CBS the #1 network. What are CBS's strongest affiliates?
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What Are CBS's Strongest Affiliates?
- Thread starter radiolives
- Start date
WFSB-TV channel 3 of Hartford has always preformed well around here. Their newscasts at 6 and 11 pm are #1 nearly every book. They've been with CBS since 1960 or so. WVIT-TV (NBC) channel 30 of New Britain challenges them at times. WTNH-TV (ABC) channel 8 of New Haven may do better in New Haven County (and in out-of-market Fairfield County to an extent), but as a statewide whole, it's clearly WFSB.
If you based it on the loudness strength of the station versus the rest in the same market I'd put the KCBS/KCAL duopoly on the board. Christ those two channels are LOUD!
WWL-4 in New Orleans has been very, very strong for over 30 years, and the ratings prove it.
CBS affiliate WRAL-TV 5 in Raleigh is a perennial market leader, even when it was ABC (before WTVD-11 in Durham became an ABC O&O in 1985 and they swapped networks). WRAL owns and uses their news brand on the market's Fox affiliate, WRAZ-TV 50, as well. Raleigh is basically a two-horse town, TV-wise.
Ken said:
I will give you two in New England. WCAX-Burlington, VT and WABI Bangor, Maine.
The absolute worst CBS affiliate in my opinion... WTVH-Syracuse.
The station of record for Columbus, Ohio is by far WBNS. The Media Generally Cheap WCMH (which still uses nbc4i.com for their website long after only Apple can get away with using "i") and the Sinclair Fox/ABC cluster are much lower, and despite losing Ohio State sports to ESPN and the Big Ten Network they still do quite well with the coaches and athletes shows it can air.
And WWL is strong because they have the backstop of WUPL to pass off the terminally low "Early Show" to air their Today-dominating 4-hour local news, along with all of the goodwill built up through their coverage of Katrina.
For Baltimore WJZ is as equally strong as WBAL, with the Sinclair cluster just as strong and WMAR out of it. Another thing I noticed when I was near Fort Knox to visit my sister is that WLKY is pretty strong despite a UHF hamstring and coming in late to the market, not until the 1960's (they got lucky when WHAS switched to ABC for Derby rights in the 90's that eventually got lost to NBC and WAVE).
And WWL is strong because they have the backstop of WUPL to pass off the terminally low "Early Show" to air their Today-dominating 4-hour local news, along with all of the goodwill built up through their coverage of Katrina.
For Baltimore WJZ is as equally strong as WBAL, with the Sinclair cluster just as strong and WMAR out of it. Another thing I noticed when I was near Fort Knox to visit my sister is that WLKY is pretty strong despite a UHF hamstring and coming in late to the market, not until the 1960's (they got lucky when WHAS switched to ABC for Derby rights in the 90's that eventually got lost to NBC and WAVE).
mrschimpf said:
I thought CBS wanted all locals to air The Early Show on their own network. It was said local newscasts at to stop at 7am for The CBS Early Show. How is WWL able to pull this off?
I often wonder how CBS allows WFMY to get away with running
its "Good Morning Show" to 8 AM, then airing "The Early Show"
on a one-hour delay from 8-10.
Back on topic: WRAL was, at one time, the fourth-highest-rated
CBS affiliate in the country. I'd like to know if KELO Sioux Falls, SD,
and KOLN Lincoln, NE, are still as dominant as they were 20-30 years
ago.
WDBJ Roanoke, VA, holds onto number one in its market, but its
audience is aging out; ABC affiliate WSET Lynchburg may be in the
best position to eventually take over the number-one slot. Likewise,
in Charlotte, WBTV has lost a lot of ground to WSOC (that could change
when WSOC loses Oprah).
Besides WLKY, one other former ABC affiliate is doing far better with CBS:
WTSP Tampa/St. Petersburg; its one drawback is not related to its network,
but to its transmitter's being north of the other Bay Area stations' and thus
unable to adequately cover Sarasota/Bradenton, which, I believe, relies more
on WINK Ft. Myers for CBS.
its "Good Morning Show" to 8 AM, then airing "The Early Show"
on a one-hour delay from 8-10.
Back on topic: WRAL was, at one time, the fourth-highest-rated
CBS affiliate in the country. I'd like to know if KELO Sioux Falls, SD,
and KOLN Lincoln, NE, are still as dominant as they were 20-30 years
ago.
WDBJ Roanoke, VA, holds onto number one in its market, but its
audience is aging out; ABC affiliate WSET Lynchburg may be in the
best position to eventually take over the number-one slot. Likewise,
in Charlotte, WBTV has lost a lot of ground to WSOC (that could change
when WSOC loses Oprah).
Besides WLKY, one other former ABC affiliate is doing far better with CBS:
WTSP Tampa/St. Petersburg; its one drawback is not related to its network,
but to its transmitter's being north of the other Bay Area stations' and thus
unable to adequately cover Sarasota/Bradenton, which, I believe, relies more
on WINK Ft. Myers for CBS.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned WSEE in Erie, PA. I know they carry some of the top-rated syndicated shows such as Ellen and Wheel of Fortune & Jeopardy! I also know that for years, it was available on DirecTV as the national CBS feed for the East Coast. However, I'm not positive, but I somehow think they had slightly different programming, and even a different logo for their satellite feed. I think it's even seen in a few other countries over satellite.
WTHI-TV in Terre Haute Indiana is probably the strongest CBS affiliate in the nation. They said a few sweeps periods ago (May 2009, maybe?) that they won every single timeslot through the book. Can't hurt that their competition comes only from two Nexstar stations and a low budget, signal-challenged PBS.
13WMAZ Macon is among CBS's top 5 affiliates in ratings and audience share. For a few years, it and WWL battled it out for the top slot in the CBS stable of stations. In primetime, it achieves a 17-20% higher rating than the average CBS station. Ironically, The Early Show trounces the other two network morning shows in Macon. The Young and The Restless has demos that are higher than almost all of the other station's prime shows.
WCTV Thomasville-Tallahassee and WTOC Savannah are powerhouse CBS stations, too. Both have the usual solid local news operations.
In the case of WWL and WFMY, their preemption/time delay of The Early Show is because of grandfather agreements with the network. Those stations have probably aired local news in those slots for many years so the network chooses not to force them to abandon them for the network show. WTOC Savannah, another monster strong CBS station, shifts The Early Show to an 8am start.
WCTV Thomasville-Tallahassee and WTOC Savannah are powerhouse CBS stations, too. Both have the usual solid local news operations.
In the case of WWL and WFMY, their preemption/time delay of The Early Show is because of grandfather agreements with the network. Those stations have probably aired local news in those slots for many years so the network chooses not to force them to abandon them for the network show. WTOC Savannah, another monster strong CBS station, shifts The Early Show to an 8am start.
WHIO in Dayton, OH (per Wikipedia) was ranked last year as the #1 CBS affiliate in the country.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHIO-TV
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHIO-TV
Also, WWL has had the highest-rated local newscasts in the country, with numbers for the 6:00 and 10:00 posting in the double digits.benwolf said:
Even "A Sunday Journal", hosted by the late essayist Jim Metcalfe in the '70s, beat out all the network shows!
bpatrick said:
While you are right about the audience aging out for WDBJ actually this holds true for Roanoke in general, I doubt WSET will ever become the big cheese in that market mainly due to two reasons...
1. WSET is of course a Lynchburg station and Roanoke is the "bigger" city. I just cant see very many people in Roanoke switching away from their city's WDBJ and WSLS in favor of Lynchburg's WSET unless its strictly to catch a show on ABC, not their news.
2. The younger crowd in the market more/less means the New River Valley-Blacksburg ( Virginia Tech )....a bit of a ways from Lynchburg and WSET. I wouldn't be surprised that when it comes to ABC in that region, a good chunk of the younger crowd gets it online while for CBS, NBC and FOX its from nearby Roanoke.
Actually the station that has the highest chance in the market ( IMO ) to beat WDBJ is FOX 21 & 27 only because they are acctually a Roanoke AND Lynchburg TV station not just Roanoke OR Lynchburg's.
Fox 21/27 airs WSLS-10's news. I don't know anyone in the eastern half of the market who regularly relies on 10, just as I don't know anyone in the western half of the market who relies on 13. Maybe it's just me, but I don't see WDBJ going anywhere since people from the whole market watch it.
- Trip
- Trip
WBTV Channel 3 here in Charlotte was (and maybe still is) a very big CBS affiliate. Their main competition, WSOC-TV the Cox ABC affiliate has been strong too for many years. The others are on UHF so for a long time it was a 2 horse race.
I do know that CBS News operated a regional bureau out of the station. There were also stories of during a strike in NYC, WBTV did the network switching for the CBS-TV feed. There were also rumors that CBS paid WBTV a bundle to stay with the network when WSOC dropped NBC to pick up ABC.
I do know that CBS News operated a regional bureau out of the station. There were also stories of during a strike in NYC, WBTV did the network switching for the CBS-TV feed. There were also rumors that CBS paid WBTV a bundle to stay with the network when WSOC dropped NBC to pick up ABC.
tripinva said:
The interesting thing about this market is that even though WDBJ ranks at the top, I believe WSLS has a bigger coverage area. Not sure about the south but the other day I discovered that WSLS is now available on cable..in Harrisonburg. Not to be outdone C'Ville's WVIR had expanded their coverage too since they are now on Comcast in both Winchester and Front Royal.
WDBJ-WSLS, I have always heard the story that five years ago ( 2005 ) WSLS actually came very close to top WDBJ in the news ratings only to find themselves in 2006 having a "problem" with their two weathermen Marc Lamarre and Jamie Singleton. Gwad what drama ! ! Drugs, nude photos, gay sex parties, etc...even though both ended up getting canned from WSLS over these issues, the rumors about those two private lives such as "Marc Lamarre had died of a drug overdose while having sex in a hot tub"" were so much for WSLS that the station actually had to bring back Lamarre to WSLS for an interview only to prove to the viewers that he had NOT died.
Had none of this happened ( Singleton-Lamarre ) or at least kept their firings private rather than going public with it...I wonder if WSLS would had been able to beat WDBJ?
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