What was the largest market that waited the longest time...

[fortmill]

Well, Delaware does have channel 61 in Wilmington, though I realize PAX got ahold of that and "moved" it to Philly.  Also, WHYY/12 was originally a commerical station in Wilmington, though Storer, for some strange reason, closed it down in the early 60s.  And, don't forget, there was a commercial allocation to Seaford, channel 38, that no one ever bothered to activate, so Delaware has had its chances.  At least WBOC/16 in Salisbury MD has its transmitter in Delaware! 

[Neil Rattigan]

Delaware originally had WDEL-TV on Channel 7 in March 1949.  It cherrypicked shows from NBC and DuMont.  A couple of years later, it moved to Channel 12 as part of a nationwide re-allocation plan to solve interference problems [In WDEL-TV's case, it was Channels 7 in New York and Washington].  In 1955, Steinman sold WDEL-TV to Paul Harron who rechristened it WPFH.  Harron ran it as in independent station.  In 1957, Storer bought it, renamed it WVUE, licensed to Wilmington-Philadelphia, and incredibly turned the license back to the FCC by 1959.  Storer didn't think it could make much money running an independent in the nation's fourth largest market.  This cleared the way for WHYY-TV, then on Philadelphia's Channel 35, to apply for Channel 12.

For more info, go to
http://www.broadcastpioneers.com/wdeltv49.html
http://www.fybush.com/site-030925.html


Salisbury, MD by the way, is still without a fulltime NBC affiliate

[ixnay]

[D]on't forget, there was a commercial allocation to Seaford, channel 38, that no one ever bothered to activate, so Delaware has had its chances. 

Does that allocation still exist, available for activation, perhaps as Salisbury/Ocean City/Slower Lower Delaware's affiliate of the Peacock?  If not, when was it taken off the table?

ixnay

[tothedj]

Another Television Market, Wilmington, North Carolina, did not get a full-time
CBS affilate until the fall of 1984 when WJKA, Channel 26 signed on the air,
prior to that WECT carried some selected CBS programs, especially when the
NFL season was going on, before 1984, the only way the network was available
was on cable, and this would be the case again when WJKA switched from CBS
to Fox in 1994, and changed call letters to WSFX, mainly because of football.
There was a effort to continue to broadcast CBS programs thru a low-power
station on Channel 10, WSSN, relaying WNCT-TV, Channel 9 from Greenville,
this would be short-lived because of technical issues, but WNCT and WBTW,
Channel 13 in Florence would fill the void for about five years, until Capitol
Broadcasting Company, owners of WRAL-TV in Raleigh, purchased WSSN,
which was a UPN/America One affilate, built new studios, changed call letters
to WILM, and returned CBS to this market in March of 2000, with UPN as the
secondary affilate until the WB/UPN merger took place last year, but we still
don't have a CW or My Network TV outlet, and with those networks drawing
anemic ratings, don't look for this to take place, although there may be a
effort to sign on another television station in this city on Channel 47, stay
tuned...

[fredflintstone]

The entire state of Delaware.  We still do not have any commercial TV stations in our state.  We only have PBS channel 12 WHYY-TV Wilmington and channel 64 Seaford that similucasts channel 12's programming.  Delaware being a small state that has Baltimore to the West, Philly to the Northeast, and Salisbury MD to the South get the commercial network programming from those sources depending on what part of the state you live.

Pay attention, Mike.
The question was "what was the largest market?"

Delaware is not a market.  (It really shouldn't be a state either but that's another topic.)  New Castle and Kent counties are part of the Philadelphia DMA market.  Sussex is part of the Salisbury DMA market. 

And Delaware did have commercial TV before most places with WDEL-TV (pre-license freeze) in 1948.  The original management could have made it with the station as an independent but they bailed.  Delaware has nobody to blame but itself that channel 12 moved to Philly - so did channel 61. 

Channel 69 in Allentown has the only real newscast in the region and thanks to good management puts on good product and shows a profit by defining its own market on the periphery of the Philly DMA.  Either Wilmington station could have done the same.  Again, it could have been done in Wilmington.  Nobody stopped it from being done.

[NoWayNoCC]

I could never understand why Allentown was included in the Philly DMA. I know Allentown doesn't have many stations for a city of its size, but it probably has enough for a DMA. Maybe not enough for every network, but then again, maybe some Philly stations could double as Allentown affiliates if the need arises.

The same goes for Atlantic City. I thought Atlantic City actually had an NBC affiliate until fairly recently, yet still it was in the Philly DMA.

[KML0224]

Close. WMGM-TV (NBC) channel 40 is licesned to Wildwood, NJ, to the south.

[tested]

Just thinking off the top of my head..
I know that Waco/Temple/Killeen was a 2 station market until KXXV signed on in 1985.
Ardmore/Ada/Sherman/Denison is still a 2 station market.

[fredflintstone]

TV (DMA) markets, originally Area of Dominant Influence, were set up pre-cable and pre UHF.  In the three channel - off the air era, most people in AC or Allentown were watching the Philly stations.  Now the market definitions are set in stone.

[Mark]

Here is the list of FCC TV Allocations

http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/cfr_2004/octqtr/47cfr73.606.htm

Of course with DTV it's all on hold and will be adjusted

As for markets, when they were established no one had any idea there would be anymore than 2 networks. So in the East and Midwest were the populations were denser markets were simply established. As the West grew, markets were larger because at the time they had less people. For instance in 1950 San Jose had only 95,000 people. Today it is hovering under 950,000 people. San Jose would've been its own market today but it's too late for that now.

So markets are arbitrary, some like DC and Providence are political. DC and Baltimore could easily have been one. Perhaps one could say for Boston and Providence. (Locating the transmitters halfway) But because they are capitals there is politcal factors to consider.