Combine small & mid market affiliations?

[w9wi]

There are three problems preventing an Akron/Canton TV market from happening today:

IMHO the prevalence of cable and satellite mean future market border shifts will be extremely rare to non-existant. 

As I understand the rules, a county is attached to a market if the majority of viewing of OTA stations is of OTA stations in that market.  For an Akron/Canton market to come into being today, the majority of viewers in Summit and Stark Counties would have to be watching Akron & Canton stations. 

Since those counties are currently in the Cleveland market, cable and satellite operators are required to deliver Cleveland signals to subscribers in those counties.  (or to negotiate retransmission consent with Cleveland stations)  Cleveland stations *will* be on cable in these counties, and viewers are used to watching them.   The Cleveland signals don't go away unless half the audience is watching Akron instead, and getting half the audience to change their habits and watch a different set of channels is not going to be a practical task.

[BRNout]

There are three problems preventing an Akron/Canton TV market from happening today:

1) The economy in the area stinks.  To high heaven.  And it's even worse now than it was, thanks to the deep recession we are now in.  Akron's hanging in there, but down somewhat from its peak.  Canton...I think they're holding that city together with duct tape or something now.

There has been some growth in the area between the two cities (Green, Jackson Township, Akron/Canton Airport area, etc.), but not enough to offset the losses elsewhere.  Even when the economy rebounds, this will still be a problem preventing this from happening.

2) The Cleveland market stations will move heaven and earth to prevent it.  As much as they don't pay a lot of attention to the area south of the Ohio Turnpike, they need the viewers in Akron/Canton - badly.  Without the southern part of the market, Cleveland drops from market 17 to who knows?  Barely top 30?

3) Unlike Youngstown, 40 miles to the east, Akron is well covered (signal-wise ) by the Cleveland market stations.

I can see why now - though I still think that A/C ends up being underserved by Cleveland stations.  I guess my poorly stated point was that it probably should have been its own market to begin with and stayed that way.  Had that happened, the geographical development of transmitter sites for Cleveland and A/C stations would have been different. 

There's no doubt that you are correct about Cleveland stations fighting tooth and nail to prevent the formation of a new market.  The stations' collective value would take quite a hit.  Interesting comment about the Steubenville station trying to cover parts of the Canton area, perhaps if they had more resources they could make a grab at increased cable carriage and news coverage of that area. 

However, on the rubber-band budget that they surely have it's probably difficult for WTOV to do much in the way of investment in an increased coverage area.   It's a long ride from New Philadelphia/Dover to the Ohio River - I know because I made that drive last year....to Wheeling.

[OhioMediaWatch]

I can see why now - though I still think that A/C ends up being underserved by Cleveland stations.  I guess my poorly stated point was that it probably should have been its own market to begin with and stayed that way.  Had that happened, the geographical development of transmitter sites for Cleveland and A/C stations would have been different.

But the problem here...the Cleveland stations started camping out in Parma, on VHF, very, very early.  Akron got then-WAKR-TV 49, and suffered from the early poor uptake of UHF in general.  Only after all channel laws, and the move to 23, did they manage to hang in there...but even much of that time, their profitable radio stations (1590/97.5) and the local owner's commitment to serving the area kept them afloat.

Oh, and the ABC programming that WEWS/5 probably tried to knock off WAKR/WAKC for dozens of years. 

Would it have been different if WAKR-TV was a VHF?  Probably, to some small degree.  But you'd still have established viewing patterns for 3/5/8 to work against, booming down into Akron from not that far away.  It probably would have taken WAKR-TV and one other VHF (what became 17 in Canton), and it would have taken Cleveland stations having their towers downtown to distance the signal from Akron.

I'm not sure that even would have resulted in a separate full market for Akron/Canton.

There's no doubt that you are correct about Cleveland stations fighting tooth and nail to prevent the formation of a new market.  The stations' collective value would take quite a hit.  Interesting comment about the Steubenville station trying to cover parts of the Canton area, perhaps if they had more resources they could make a grab at increased cable carriage and news coverage of that area. 

I don't get the idea that WTOV/9 really tries to "super serve" Dover/New Philly.  I'm pretty sure they don't go farther north than Tuscarawas County as far as news interest, if they even send any crews up that way to begin with.

WTOV has been on cable for decades in the Dover/New Philly area, and is still there today.  WTRF/7 in Wheeling got bounced off of some of the systems farther from Wheeling earlier this year, part of TWC slimming down extra network affiliates.

And since Tuscarawas County is still in the Cleveland market, the folks down there get their full complement of Cleveland stations.

However, on the rubber-band budget that they surely have it's probably difficult for WTOV to do much in the way of investment in an increased coverage area.   It's a long ride from New Philadelphia/Dover to the Ohio River - I know because I made that drive last year....to Wheeling.

See above.  I think WTOV mostly invests in marketing, and probably doesn't go up there very often in person.  They do have the deal with one of the area FM stations (WTUZ/99.9 Uhrichsville) for weather reports, as I mentioned.

[kenrayc]

I thing after analog is gone ,there going to be more small markets for cities that are between two markets that are more than 100 miles apart , I see small cities getting either low power repeaters or full power "sister stations" operating from the nearest market, much like stations in Walla Walla/ Kennewick WA that have full power stations controlled from the Yakima WA market. Medford/ Klammoth Falls OR is another one.

[w9wi]

I thing after analog is gone ,there going to be more small markets for cities that are between two markets that are more than 100 miles apart , I see small cities getting either low power repeaters or full power "sister stations" operating from the nearest market, much like stations in Walla Walla/ Kennewick WA that have full power stations controlled from the Yakima WA market. Medford/ Klammoth Falls OR is another one.

I can see more "satellite" situations being formed like the Yakima=>Kennewick and Medford=>Klamath Falls situations, but those don't create new markets.  Kennewick/Richland/Pasco/Walla Walla stations are all considered in the Yakima market, and similarly in Klamath Falls.

(not sure exactly what Nielsen's policy is here but I would imagine a satellite station is considered to be in the same market as its parent station)

[kenrayc]

I thing after analog is gone ,there going to be more small markets for cities that are between two markets that are more than 100 miles apart , I see small cities getting either low power repeaters or full power "sister stations" operating from the nearest market, much like stations in Walla Walla/ Kennewick WA that have full power stations controlled from the Yakima WA market. Medford/ Klammoth Falls OR is another one.

I can see more "satellite" situations being formed like the Yakima=>Kennewick and Medford=>Klamath Falls situations, but those don't create new markets.  Kennewick/Richland/Pasco/Walla Walla stations are all considered in the Yakima market, and similarly in Klamath Falls.

(not sure exactly what Nielsen's policy is here but I would imagine a satellite station is considered to be in the same market as its parent station)

Here's another possibility when analog is gone,KSBW 8 in Salinas was A parent station to KSBY 6 a "Satellite" station in San Luis Obispo CA, KSBY had their own newscast,but ran all of the same programming. They have separated now. I can see other small markets doing this in the future since digital signals don't do good in fringe areas, Santa Rosa CA and north between SF and Eureka could become it's own market.

[kenrayc]

I live in Clovis and I get 2 stations in Bakersfield analog with a good signal, but their digital signal with a outdoor antenna don't come in at all. KERO 10, and KBAK 29 are located at a site that is 7000ft in elevation I'm 100 miles from their site. I do see MORE small market stations coming. I get all of Fresno stations some pixilation from KFSN 30 that uses ch.9. KAIL ch.7 that used to be on 53 has no problem. KFSN is going back to 30 on june 12.

[Pat Cook]

An idea WAY out of left field, but hear me out:

What if markets that are relatively close to each other combined operations & targeted each other?  Use your imagination here.

In my neck of the woods, Savannah is relatively close to Charleston, Augusta to Columbia, Macon to Columbus, etc.  Now imagine one city keeping two nets (NBC & FOX) and the other city keeping the other two (CBS & ABC).  Now find a midway point to build a new generation of very tall towers, maybe as high as 3000' (pending FCC & FAA approvals).  Yes, a tremendous initial outlay of capital, but over time it might pay off.

Many local network affiliates are struggling & the future of some are in doubt.  Might this be their saving grace?

Imagine if you will:

Savannah-Charleston:
WCSC
WSAV
WCIV
WTGS

Augusta-Columbia:
WIS
WRDW
WACH
WJBF

Macon-Columbus:
WMAZ
WRBL
WMGT
(whatever the Columbus FOX affiliate is)

Farfetched, I know.

G

Yeah.  Keyword here is FARFETCHED.

Doing anything like that here East of the Continental Divide here in Colorado would be like merging Denver with Colorado Springs & Pueblo.  Add to the fact that ALL of the stations in Denver & Colorado Springs/Pueblo have transmitters ATOP MOUNTAINS & that just makes things even worse.

Compounded is the fact that the biggest losers would be the local advertisers (Namely small businesses) who would be $pending HUGE amounts of $$$ in the hopes that viewers from Denver, Colorado Springs & Pueblo would actually patronize their business regardless of distance.

And last, but not least, we'd have....

1) Two NBC affiliates (KOAA 5/30 Colorado Springs/Pueblo & KUSA 9 Denver)
2) Two CBS affiliates (KKTV 11 Colorado Springs/Pueblo & KCNC 4** Denver)
6) Two My Network affiiates (KKTV-DT 11.2 Colorado Springs/Pueblo & KTVD 20 Denver)
4) Two ABC affiliates (KRDO 13 Colorado Springs/Pueblo & KMGH 7 Denver)
5) Two FOX affiliates (KXRM 21 Colorado Springs/Pueblo & KDVR 31 Denver)
6) Two CW affiliates (KXTU 57 Colorado Springs/Pueblo & KWGN 2 Denver)

** Owned & Operated by CBS.

Now it's true that KKTV drop My Network from its Digital subchannel lineup, but since all the TXers here in Colorado are atop mountains, your plan would be impractical (If not UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE) from an engineering alone to implement.  That's also saying nothing of the fact that the networks would NEVER allow such overlap on such a massive scale to take place.

In fact, about the only networks that would allow it would be PBS, ION, Daystar, TBN & (Maybe) the latin networks.

In short, PIGS WOULD GROW WINGS before this flies.

Just my opinion....

Thanks for giving me more time in between my dinner & the nice round of Chocolate Paradise that's waiting for me though.

Cheers