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Worst Stations and Markets for Local TV

RadioPatrol said:
Palm springs is a cursed DMA because its near the bigger Los Angeles DMA and should merge with Los Angeles TV DMA.
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None of the LA signals is easily (if at all) receivable in Palm Springs via OTA methods... we are in a valley totally cut off from LA broadcast signals.

Because the market has a fairly high household income level, there are 5 channels (3 English and 2 Spanish) that have decent local news coverage. They all have mobile units, street reporters, competent anchors and decent sets.

Palm Springs is a $30 million dollar TV market: it is 146th in population but 121st in revenue which is 25 rank positions higher than its population rank.

Merging with the LA DMA would decimate the local stations and likely result in local news coverage being reduced or eliminated. That would be unfortunate, as the Coachella Valley has its own unique environment where even the weather is significantly and sometimes dramatically different from Coastal California.

Palm Springs, far from being a "cursed" DMA is actually a very prosperous one with a different economy, different demographics, a different climate and different interests than Los Angeles.
 
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DavidEduardo said:


None of the LA signals is easily (if at all) receivable in Palm Springs via OTA methods... we are in a valley totally cut off from LA broadcast signals.

Because the market has a fairly high household income level, there are 5 channels (3 English and 2 Spanish) that have decent local news coverage. They all have mobile units, street reporters, competent anchors and decent sets.

Palm Springs is a $30 million dollar TV market: it is 146th in population but 121st in revenue which is 25 rank positions higher than its population rank.

Merging with the LA DMA would decimate the local stations and likely result in local news coverage being reduced or eliminated. That would be unfortunate, as the Coachella Valley has its own unique environment where even the weather is significantly and sometimes dramatically different from Coastal California.

Palm Springs, far from being a "cursed" DMA is actually a very prosperous one with a different economy, different demographics, a different climate and different interests than Los Angeles.
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Palm Springs is one of very few markets where none of its stations have any out of market cable carriage AFAIK
 
ftballfan said:
Palm Springs is one of very few markets where none of its stations have any out of market cable carriage AFAIK
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I believe the cable systems in the 29 Palms - Yucca Valley - Joshua Tree area, which is in San Bernardino County, carry the Palm Springs stations.
 
Last I checked, Comcast Palm Springs offered all L.A. local stations, but it might be at a higher service level.

Yakima/Tri-Cities, WA is a mess. So many departures and very few new hires. These stations must be in trouble. The difference between local news coverage today and just a decade ago is tremendous. The difference between local news coverage today and two decades ago is immense. Shame on the owners in East Central Washington.
 
seatownmedia said:
Last I checked, Comcast Palm Springs offered all L.A. local stations, but it might be at a higher service level.
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I don't know of any part of Palm Springs or the metro that is served by Comcast. I believe all the desert area is served by Time-Warner and, in certain areas, Frontier FiOS.

While Time Warner carries many of the LA channels, all syndicated and network shows are blocked. FiOS only carries one of the independent channels from LA, but much of its syndicated product is blocked. I have both services, and am quite familiar with the channel array.
 
Even though most of the area is in the Washington DC DMA I guess Hagerstown, Maryland and the rest of the "4-state" region ( Chambersburg, PA, Martinsburg, WV and Winchester, VA ) could fit in here.

Hagerstown..WHAG & WJAL Enough has been talked about WHAG with NBC/Comcast dumping them and so forth but WJAL 68 had its own issues over the years. Transmitter destroyed by fire in early 2009, losing the WB many years ago and never hooked up with another network ever since and off & on layoffs over the years. WJAL once had a small news department but that is long gone.

Martinsburg..channel 60 now ION. Was once WYVN FOX 60. That failed mainly because the original owner had never owned a TV or even a radio station in the past. Pretty much a case of someone pouring a ton of money into a station only to rather quickly file bankruptcy and a very public bankruptcy at that. Things were so bad that the owner had actually went on its own airwaves saying "..This place is so damn broke we can't even pay to keep the Pepsi machine !!". Stories of collection agencies calling non-stop, equipment constantly breaking down, employees not getting paid..in the community WYVN became "We're Your Valley Nightmare". When PAX bought WYVN some years later the station actually had a staff and produced a few local shows too. Unfortunately Martinsburg's channel 60 today is pretty much a repeater for DC's ION 66..no Martinsburg local content.

Winchester....WAZT. Started in 1985 by Art & Virginia Stamler. For years the station did ok with a mix of religious shows and family shows including classic TV. WAZT for the longest time even had a news department. Sometime in the late 90s the Stamlers ran into personal money troubles ( a good bit of that was due to Virginia Stamler getting cancer and dying some years later ). The Stamlers sold their radio station WAZR to Clear Channel which became of top 40 station in Harrisonburg, VA to raise cash however the Stamlers still continued to have money woes and Art would sell WAZT I believe not long after the death of his wife and WAZT would face bankruptcy after the sale too. Station is still on the air. A few years ago someone had posted on the Northern Virginia Daily website that Art Stamler had end up filing personal bankruptcy even after selling WAZT and never could enjoy the benefits of being retired.

Then there was WHSV's TV3 Winchester ( ABC ). TV3 did pretty well for awhile but there were two issues. One was that the station was on the grounds of Winchester's Shenandoah University and during TV3's existence had a love/hate thing with TV3 Winchester ( Gray ) such as owner Gray not using interns from the university even though that was in the contract when the station was launched. Another issue which doomed them ( my opinion ) was Sinclair buying WJLA ABC 7. Among the local business community the story was that Sinclair wanted to make WJLA exclusive ABC in the Winchester region ( they had just bought WJLA ) and had planned on getting TV3 taken off cable despite being a local channel which would had crippled TV3 since most of their viewers were on cable. Actually true or not I don't know but I do know that once TV3 Winchester was suddenly shut down in December 2013 channel 3 went back to Harrisonburg's WHSV ABC 3 for a time only to get removed thanks to Sinclair. Today Comcast Winchester/Front Royal channel 3 is dark.
 
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In conversing with people in the Hagerstown area apparently WHAG has no national news stories on their local news. They said as example the Dallas shootings all WHAG had was a story on how local police is reacting. Nothing on the actual issue in Dallas.

I know they are an Independent now but I'm sure there is some news source for non network stations to get national news stories and video ;)
 
DavidEduardo said:


I don't know of any part of Palm Springs or the metro that is served by Comcast. I believe all the desert area is served by Time-Warner and, in certain areas, Frontier FiOS.

While Time Warner carries many of the LA channels, all syndicated and network shows are blocked. FiOS only carries one of the independent channels from LA, but much of its syndicated product is blocked. I have both services, and am quite familiar with the channel array.
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So basically only newscasts from LA are carried (along with any syndicated shows that aren't cleared by the Palm Springs stations). Unrelated, but TWC Palm Springs carries many local sports stations: Fox Sports West, Prime Ticket, AND Fox Sports San Diego along with TWCSN (both English and Spanish) and SportsNet LA
 
hamster said:
Even though most of the area is in the Washington DC DMA I guess Hagerstown, Maryland and the rest of the "4-state" region ( Chambersburg, PA, Martinsburg, WV and Winchester, VA ) could fit in here.

Hagerstown..WHAG & WJAL Enough has been talked about WHAG with NBC/Comcast dumping them and so forth but WJAL 68 had its own issues over the years. Transmitter destroyed by fire in early 2009, losing the WB many years ago and never hooked up with another network ever since and off & on layoffs over the years. WJAL once had a small news department but that is long gone.

Martinsburg..channel 60 now ION. Was once WYVN FOX 60. That failed mainly because the original owner had never owned a TV or even a radio station in the past. Pretty much a case of someone pouring a ton of money into a station only to rather quickly file bankruptcy and a very public bankruptcy at that. Things were so bad that the owner had actually went on its own airwaves saying "..This place is so damn broke we can't even pay to keep the Pepsi machine !!". Stories of collection agencies calling non-stop, equipment constantly breaking down, employees not getting paid..in the community WYVN became "We're Your Valley Nightmare". When PAX bought WYVN some years later the station actually had a staff and produced a few local shows too. Unfortunately Martinsburg's channel 60 today is pretty much a repeater for DC's ION 66..no Martinsburg local content.

Winchester....WAZT. Started in 1985 by Art & Virginia Stamler. For years the station did ok with a mix of religious shows and family shows including classic TV. WAZT for the longest time even had a news department. Sometime in the late 90s the Stamlers ran into personal money troubles ( a good bit of that was due to Virginia Stamler getting cancer and dying some years later ). The Stamlers sold their radio station WAZR to Clear Channel which became of top 40 station in Harrisonburg, VA to raise cash however the Stamlers still continued to have money woes and Art would sell WAZT I believe not long after the death of his wife and WAZT would face bankruptcy after the sale too. Station is still on the air. A few years ago someone had posted on the Northern Virginia Daily website that Art Stamler had end up filing personal bankruptcy even after selling WAZT and never could enjoy the benefits of being retired.

Then there was WHSV's TV3 Winchester ( ABC ). TV3 did pretty well for awhile but there were two issues. One was that the station was on the grounds of Winchester's Shenandoah University and during TV3's existence had a love/hate thing with TV3 Winchester ( Gray ) such as owner Gray not using interns from the university even though that was in the contract when the station was launched. Another issue which doomed them ( my opinion ) was Sinclair buying WJLA ABC 7. Among the local business community the story was that Sinclair wanted to make WJLA exclusive ABC in the Winchester region ( they had just bought WJLA ) and had planned on getting TV3 taken off cable despite being a local channel which would had crippled TV3 since most of their viewers were on cable. Actually true or not I don't know but I do know that once TV3 Winchester was suddenly shut down in December 2013 channel 3 went back to Harrisonburg's WHSV ABC 3 for a time only to get removed thanks to Sinclair. Today Comcast Winchester/Front Royal channel 3 is dark.
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That area could have easily been its own market if not for the powerful DC stations.
 
ftballfan said:
That area could have easily been its own market if not for the powerful DC stations.
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On paper it would be a good idea but even if the DC stations would allow that region to be its own market I doubt it would work out. The cities are just so different between each other in so many ways. For example..People in Chambersburg, PA could care less about Winchester, Virginia and vice versa..while Martinsburg, West Virginia is still considered to be the "joke" of the region. That town can't even attract a KOHL'S !!

Many years back the four towns tried to launch a 4-state Chamber of Commerce..and even that didn't work out.
 
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mvcg66b3r said:
There's a Kohl's in Ranson WV, near Charles Town.
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That's true and there is one in Winchester, Chambersburg and Hagerstown too but Martinsburg for years tried to get one and they still can't. Actually there are those in Martinsburg who are still mad to this day that Ranson got one before they did even though Ranson is a much smaller town than Martinsburg. As my dad would say "..oh well !! Can't always get what you want". Well Martinsburg still has their bars and strip clubs.
 
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I saw that Martinsburg and Winchester still get both Washington and Baltimore television channels. I'm sure that's why local network stations didn't develop there. People didn't want to lose their news from the region.

It is convenient if you want extra NFL games on Sundays or if one of the markets preempt...
 
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