Philadelphia: Why no 24/7 Local Cable News?

[mrbrightside]

Besides the horrible product that CN8 used to produce (which wasn't 24/7 news anyway), why is it that Philly does not have a local cable news outlet?  Is it because of Action News' sheer dominance?

Cities with Cable News in the Top 10 DMAs:
New York: NY1, and the News 12's
Chicago: CLTV
Dallas/Ft. Worth:Texas Cable News (Dallas)
Boston: New England Cable News
Washington, DC: News Channel 8
Houston:Texas Cable News (Houston)

As far as I can tell, LA, San Francisco, and Atlanta also do not have 24/7 local cable news...

[Scott Fybush]

Local cable news is a tough thing to do in a sprawling market, where "neighborhood" news in one corner of the market might as well be happening on Mars from the viewpoint of viewers at the other end of the market a couple of hours away. Los Angeles is probably the worst-possible test case, which may be why there's no "LA Cable News."

NY1 and the News 12s work in the NYC metro because they make no effort to cover the entire market. If it's outside the five boroughs, NY1 doesn't care (with a narrow exception for Albany news), and the same is true for the News12s - you can watch N12 Long Island and never see anything west of the Nassau-Queens line.

CLTV, at least when last I saw it, focuses primarily on the Chicago suburbs, which are relatively homogenous as big markets go.

TXCN and NECN are regional, not local, and that's a whole different thing, too.

San Francisco used to have "Bay News," which seemed to focus mainly on features and some repurposed KRON-4 newscasts. It wasn't really a 24/7 news channel.

[Irishfl]

Tampa has bay news 9, which despite havning a dial # is a cable channel. Back when owned by time Warner it was operated the same way headline news used to be, only local. I think they now even have an all Spanish version of the channel. Bay news 9 is exclusive to cable, which is basically why it exists.

Which brings me to Philly. Comcast doesn't need an all news channel to keep people with them. That got something better... CSN.

[Bill_W]

No, we have 24/7 traffic instead and, it's not even a cable channel.  It's a subchannel on WPHL, which is carried on Comcast & Verizon.
Could/would Comcast do something with NBC10?  They have a newsroom and news sets.  It wouldn't be very hard for Comcast to do 24/7 news out of the NBC10 bldg.  Would us FiOS subscribers get it too?

[ding12]

The closest Philly had to 24/7 was back in the late 90's with Tri State Media News:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75vOCxp6sL0

and WTVE's attempt at Philly TV News which occured at the same time.

They both failed, and Comcast absorbed TSM for CN8. CN8 wasn't so bad and they had a 7pm 1 hour newscast, during CN8's heyday. People from Northern NJ to Baltimore were exposed to news not concering them from the Delaware Valley.

Their 10pm newscast had no chance locally going against WTXF and WPHL (which had it's own news-not produced by someone else) and WFMZ for those that want news from that area.

Unlike Time Warner and Cablevision that like doing local cable news, Comcast has felt local cable news isn't for them. Cablevision uses it an advertising point against the satellite companies. Perhaps because Comcast has had CSN exclusive, they never felt they had to put any more effort to keep cable subs from satellite.

The other issue is none of the O&O stations want to have 24/7 news stations as a side business. Comcast owns majority of the cable systems, and any company that wanted to launch local news would have to secure good channel placement. I don't think WTVE secured decent channel placement at the time, and was treated like a rimshot mustcarry station that Comcast didn't want to carry in the first place.

In DC, Allbritton not ABC owns the ABC affiliate and wants to feel more than an affiliate still operating a newschannel in a world where they are less and less important everyday. Rather than airing a 4pm newscast, they are failing miserably with Anderson on at 4, so that the newschannel would still have some relevance as an alternate to WJLA.

[ding12]

No, we have 24/7 traffic instead and, it's not even a cable channel.  It's a subchannel on WPHL, which is carried on Comcast & Verizon.
Could/would Comcast do something with NBC10?  They have a newsroom and news sets.  It wouldn't be very hard for Comcast to do 24/7 news out of the NBC10 bldg.  Would us FiOS subscribers get it too?

Doesn't NBC 10.2 now have a 7pm newscast? Couldn't TCN just simulcast that - atleast this way the 7pm news would get more exposure. 24/7 news might be too much but 7pm (already produced) and maybe 9pm would fill some void.

[ding12]

WPHL does air a newscast as they say "powered" by NBC 10. It's run at 10pm. Perhaps there is a clause preventing another station w/ exception of NBC 10, from airing NBC 10 "powered" newscasts or even simulcasts.

Or, Comcast is just focusing TCN as a light sports overflow network and could careless about its ratings. But for exposure of NBC 10 news, I can't see any other reason not to run the 7pm newscast on TCN.

[Julius May]

the 7 PM newscast airs on NBC Philadelphia nonstop Monday-Friday.

[Adam]

I wonder what revenue does NBC10's 7 pm generate.  Adding to TCN would not be a bad idea....also heavy promotion on CSN during Phillies/Sixer/Flyers games would be crucial.