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Smallest markets with a news chopper & the largest ones without.

H

hamster

The smallest market with a TV station that has a news chopper I believe is Salisbury, Maryland where WBOC-TV has one. Of course I can't swear that they are the smallest with one so if there is one even smaller where ??

On the flip side are there any large markets ( top 50 at least ) that doesn't have a station with a chopper ?? I seem to recall reading elsewhere that Harrisburg-Lancaster-York-Lebanon in Pennsylvania is the largest one without a chopper. Again I can't swear to that either.
 
hamster said:
The smallest market with a TV station that has a news chopper I believe is Salisbury, Maryland where WBOC-TV has one. Of course I can't swear that they are the smallest with one so if there is one even smaller where ??

On the flip side are there any large markets ( top 50 at least ) that doesn't have a station with a chopper ?? I seem to recall reading elsewhere that Harrisburg-Lancaster-York-Lebanon in Pennsylvania is the largest one without a chopper. Again I can't swear to that either.
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This is an interesting topic. The first news choppers likely came out of Los Angeles in the 60's. I would guess KTLA was one of the first. Many bigger markets added them into the 70's and 80's.
I can't speak for all markets, but I remember KIRO-TV in Seattle brought on "Chopper 7" in the early 70's. Followed by KING and KOMO, the other affiliates in the market.

However, the trend today is to combine copter sources to save money. Many markets now share their copter coverage. Perhaps not LA, but in many other major markets there is combined coverage.
 
seatownmedia said:
However, the trend today is to combine copter sources to save money. Many markets now share their copter coverage. Perhaps not LA, but in many other major markets there is combined coverage.
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Its the case here in Denver as I can remember some years back reading about it in The Denver Post. Now every once in awhile I would hear that Denver's KOA radio shares the same copter with the local TV stations but KOA still has their own "jet copter" as they would call it on the radio. If KOA and KWGN-KCNC-KMGH-KUSA-KDVR all share it together well that is news to me.

The Washington DC stations I believe share a copter now and that agreement for some reason includes Baltimore's WMAR and since Sinclair now owns WJLA I would imagine that agreement now includes WBFF too. Meanwhile Baltimore's WBAL and WJZ I am pretty sure have their own copters.
 
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I'm wondering about Hartford/New Haven (DMA #30). I think WTNH-TV (ABC) channel 8 of New Haven shared one with sister station WPRI-TV (CBS) channel 12 of Providence, RI some time back. WFSB-TV (CBS) channel 3 of Hartford always used to tout Sky 3 back in the 1908s.
 
Well in San Francisco KGO's Sky 7 provide aerial video for Not only ABC7, and ABC news but also KOFY TV 20 and KRON 4.

Skyfox the KTVU helicopter provides video for KTVU and KTVU+.

In Sacramento KCRA 3News Provides Footage from Live Copter3 to be used for both KCRA and My58 in that market.

I noticed back in 2014 all the Bay area and Sacramento TV stations claimed to have released the first News Drone to cover the American Canyon/Napa/Vallejo quake. Also there was one such as the BBC and Al-Jazeera claiming to release their drones to cover the Nepal quake in 2015.
 
The last I heard, FOX 29, WUTV, in Buffalo, NY didn't have a camera, much less a chopper.
The three other Buffalo, NY stations, WGRZ NBC 2, WIVB CBS 4 and WKBW ABC 7 have
cameramen stand on the snowdrifts for aerial coverage, so I have been told!!!
 
Prescott Joe said:
The last I heard, FOX 29, WUTV, in Buffalo, NY didn't have a camera, much less a chopper.
The three other Buffalo, NY stations, WGRZ NBC 2, WIVB CBS 4 and WKBW ABC 7 have
cameramen stand on the snowdrifts for aerial coverage, so I have been told!!!
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Apparently back in the day WKBW at least had a chopper as I can remember those old "Eyewitness News" promos that aired on the old WKBW radio back in the early 80s that mentioned live reports from "Sky 7" or something like it.
 
I remember when KIRO in Seattle made a huge deal about not just having a chopper, but a LEARJET! I guess it would allow them to get to news stories quicker than the other guys. I don't think it lasted very long.
 
Jonathan7157 said:
I thought the DC stations didn't have a chopper at all since there is a no-fly-zone in the capital.
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The nof-fly zone in DC doesn't affect the suburbs very much if it does at all. Where the DC station lose in not doing camera shots in the air above DC they more than make up for it say in the Northern Virginia and Maryland suburbs.
 
wn3 said:
I remember when KIRO in Seattle made a huge deal about not just having a chopper, but a LEARJET! I guess it would allow them to get to news stories quicker than the other guys. I don't think it lasted very long.
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Yeah, that was likely a publicity play at best. Someone with connections offered the "jet" to try to prove a point. Never took hold. In fact, today as I mentioned there is shared copter coverage.

But we can all remember when this was the "feel" of local news. And it did work in that era. Shots from the air still are important, but they are likely shared. How polite!
 
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