Another Bowling Green, KY story. With an antenna you can pick up two ABC stations. One is the local Bowling Green station and the other is from Nashville, TN, only 69 miles away. Both stations were on the local cable line-up a few years ago. Both stations aired "Wheel Of Fortune". To protect local advertisers who paid to reach the "Wheel" audience, the Bowling Green station had the cable company black out "Wheel" when it aired on the Nashville station. They aired at different times. (Yes, I know "Wheel" is not an ABC show.)
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Is it illegal to watch an out of market TV station ???
- Thread starter hamster
- Start date
Syndication sales agreements specify the DMA that each station buying a show will be granted to serve exclusively. Before cable, this was not much of an issue save for fringe area rural viewers who had outdoor antennas on rotors to pick up the stations in more than one DMA.
The protection in syndication agreements is to protect the station that is buying the show in each market so that nobody else can split the audience and lessen the audience-attracting ability of the show they are paying for.
With the advent of cable and its derivatives system operators and other distributors of shows have to physically geofence those shows that have territorial restrictions.
I am in the Palm Springs TV market, but on one cable system there are several LA channels. All the syndicated and network shows that overlap local, Palm Springs, station shows (whether at the same time or not) are blocked from the LA station feeds and infomercials are inserted in their place.
Or the northwest side of Peoria, IL, and nearly all of Peoria County too--which gets at least a Grade B signal from nearly all Quad Cities stations too. Not just in the digital age, but even in the analog era too. That's right, Big 3 networks in their VHF glory pre-2009 invading a "UHF island." I think your friend would fly off the handle if he lived in the towns of Princeville, Dunlap, and Brimfield in northwestern Peoria County, plus all of Stark County to the north--and possibly even in an apartment in far northwest Peoria, and had an outdoor antenna or even some cheap indoor antennas, wondering where all these weird 6, 8, 18, etc. channels came from.
Even far northwestern Peoria County can get Grade A coverage from some of the QC stations, traditionally WQAD (RF 38/virtual 8) and post-transition KWQC (RF 36/virtual 6), since all but WHBF transmit from Orion, IL (20 miles southeast of the Quad Cities). The only exception is WHBF (CBS) (RF 4/virtual 4), which still transmits from Bettendorf, IA, but still gets a Grade B low-V signal to Peoria. Ironically, WHBF used to transmit from Orion until about 1983.
I've never heard, but anyone know if the Peoria UHF's ever raised serious holy hell about some of their Quad Cities counterparts transmitting from Orion? Thus getting a Grade B signal to the city limits of Peoria.
I wonder if back in the day one could make a case for a DMA merger of Peoria and the Quad Cities--perhaps if Peoria was able to get one of their stations on pre-freeze, or if they were successfully able to keep the original channel 8 allocation in Peoria rather than it being moved to Moline for WQAD. There's similar distance between the Quad Cities and Peoria as there is between Champaign and Springfield to the southeast in central Illinois--and they have the Champaign-Decatur-Springfield DMA.
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That's a real good question. Markets got part of their definition at the dawn of TV, but the ADIs and DMAs were defined in the era of cable, particularly CATV which was intended to supplement off-air reception in areas where signals were week or blocked. That is why the SLC market includes parts of WY, ID and MT!
A lot had to do with the coverage and early cable carriage, and the ratings companies chopped the country into the areas where stations of a particular market were dominant... thus Arbitron's Area of Dominant Influence geography.
I don't know much about TV market history, so hopefully someone knowledgeable will contribute.
Jackson, TN has an odd situation in that while both Spectrum and the Jackson Energy Authority cable system carry the big 4 networks from local channels, Charter carries WREG CBS 3, WMC NBC 5, and WHBQ Fox 13 from Memphis, and JEA carries WSMV NBC 4 and WTVF CBS 5 from Nashville. Both systems carry only WBBJ ABC 7 from Jackson and no other ABC station because of agreements with WBBJ.
This isn't right. What if Lester Holt's newscast goes over by 30 minutes? I have a second opportunity, on my cable system, to watch "Jeopardy". I also had a problem with the signal on my usual "Jeopardy" station. Conversely, last week there was preseason football on the station I don't usually watch.
ABC 40 from Springfield, Mass is still carried on the COX Enfield, Connecticut franchise. And for some reason (this is before COX made all of their customers get cable boxes) ABC 40 would sometimes show up on the Meriden, CT COX Franchise. If you had an HDTV it would show up on either 40.1 or 77.1. All their syndicated shows aired intact, but the ABC programming COX would cover up with the local ABC affiliate WTNH. It was cool because I could watch Rachael Ray an hour earlier. ABC 40 was airing Rachael Ray at 9AM, while locally WTNH carries the show at 10AM. The only bad thing with them covering up the ABC programming on ABC 40 with the feed from WTNH, is the fact that sometimes WTNH pre-empted ABC programming for local breaking news or something so it would also be on ABC 40's position.
Interestingly I live in Solano COunty and I get KVIE Sacramento and KQED9 and KQED+ San Francisco PBS Affiliates and they are not subjected to Synex rules though. Only the Commercial stations like KCRA-TV and KNTV San Jose but that depends on which side of Solano County you are in. If you are in Vallejo or Benicia you only get KCRA-TV during News time because its on the San Francisco side of the Market due to KNTV NBC Bay Area serves the area and NBC holding half of the territory of Solano. KCRA-TV NBC Affiliate Hearst Owned station holds the other half of the county. But thats for Xfinity users.
My brother lives in Palm Springs, and on recent visits I noticed the same. LA stations definitely on cable for the news, (which in most cases last for several hours in both the morning and afternoon/evening.) But yeah, straight to informercials where competing syndicated programming comes into play. This is not common in most other areas. Most US markets provide only one market with local channels. L.A. to Palm Springs is an exception as there are many from L.A. who vacation and/or winter in Palm Springs. I'm sure there are other examples around the country, but for the most part this is an unusual setup.
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It does depend on the cable system. Much of the Coachella Valley has two non-satellite options, Frontier (formerly Verizon) FiOS and Spectrum (formerly TIme Warner). Frontier only has one of the LA independent stations and the PBS station (which is, anyway, repeated on-air in the valley). Spectrum has a half-dozen or so.
All the network shows are blocked, as the 5 English nets and the two Spanish language ones have local affiliates. All the syndicated shows also run in the valley are also blocked.
All this is to protect the local stations. But the carriage of LA stations is mostly historical, as it's only been quite recently that a full complement of channels has been available in the market so in the past much of the local viewing was to the LA stations.
I lived in the PS market in the early 80's, and back then I don't remember any access to Palm Springs stations, if they even existed (or if they did, not sure they offered local news). I do remember being able to watch the full boat out of LA at this time on cable, so yes, you are correct, this is the history in the Valley.
KESQ (42) and KMIR (36) went on the air in 1968. The rest of the TV stations came in the 90's. KMIR has been an NBC affiliate all this time, and KESQ is ABC. The Valley did not have a CBS affiliate until 2002, so KCBS-TV in LA was the affiliate for that network in the market.
It's widely reported that the Coachella Valley has perhaps the highest cable penetration in the US, over 80%. This is in part due to so many gated communities and condos being part of homeowner association negotiations on rate and facilities, making every condo resident a subscriber, whether they want (or use) it or not.
I was going to mention those two markets where both were once shown all over the CSA. But wasn't sure if that is still the case. It was early 80's, and I was at a motel in Rockville, MD and got the full boat from both DC and Baltimore. A trip back to Frederick, Maryland in 2005 offered Baltimore only, but that may have been considered outside the CSA.
CSA?
Confederate States of America?
Canadian Space Agency?
I'm unfamiliar with the term. Maybe CMSA, consolidated metropolitan statistical area?
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That used to be the case in Myrtle Beach too. They had no NBC affiliate until 2008 when WMBF signed on. They imported in WECT from Wilmington and WIS from Columbia for NBC. Southern parts of the market (down by Pawleys Island) also had WCBD or WCIV (whatever the NBC was in Charleston).
WECT was significantly viewed in Myrtle Beach (at one point in the 80s MB was part of Wilmington’s market), while WIS wasn’t. Whenever WIS had a syndicated show which was the same as the MB or Wilmington station (for example, Oprah or Regis and Kelly), the Myrtle Beach cable system had to put up color bars with white text saying the program was unavailable due to contractual obligations.
WIS did have viewership because of the SC local news for the vacationers, and when WECT preempted network sports for ACC basketball, the NBC show would usually air on WIS.
WECT was significantly viewed in Myrtle Beach (at one point in the 80s MB was part of Wilmington’s market), while WIS wasn’t. Whenever WIS had a syndicated show which was the same as the MB or Wilmington station (for example, Oprah or Regis and Kelly), the Myrtle Beach cable system had to put up color bars with white text saying the program was unavailable due to contractual obligations.
WIS did have viewership because of the SC local news for the vacationers, and when WECT preempted network sports for ACC basketball, the NBC show would usually air on WIS.
Of course, I question anything sourced with Wikipedia.
I'm not familiar with the usage, which does not mean it is not correct or acceptable in other situations. I was behind the drive to have the San Juan-Caguas CMSA accepted at the OMB and Census level, so I have dealt with the folks behind the definition.
It appears that the use of CSA is recent and refers to employment
A CSA consists of two or more adjacent Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs) that have substantial employment interchange. And CBSA refers collectively to metropolitan statistical areas and micropolitan statistical areas. The county or counties or equivalent entities associated with at least one core (urbanized area or urban cluster) of at least 10,000 population, plus adjacent counties having a high degree of social and economic integration with the core as measured through commuting ties with the counties associated with the core.
A CMSA is a geographic entity defined by the federal Office of Management and Budget for use by federal statistical agencies. An area becomes a CMSA if it meets the requirements to qualify as a metropolitan statistical area, has a population of 1,000,000 or more, if component parts are recognized as primary metropolitan statistical areas, and local opinion favors the designation. The CMSA concept was retired in 2003 with the introduction of the Core Based Statistical Area concepts.
I've never heard of either a CSA or a CBSA used in media analysis.
Of course, I question anything sourced with Wikipedia.
I'm not familiar with the usage, which does not mean it is not correct or acceptable in other situations. I was behind the drive to have the San Juan-Caguas CMSA accepted at the OMB and Census level, so I have dealt with the folks behind the definition.
It appears that the use of CSA is recent and refers to employment
A CSA consists of two or more adjacent Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs) that have substantial employment interchange. And CBSA refers collectively to metropolitan statistical areas and micropolitan statistical areas. The county or counties or equivalent entities associated with at least one core (urbanized area or urban cluster) of at least 10,000 population, plus adjacent counties having a high degree of social and economic integration with the core as measured through commuting ties with the counties associated with the core.
A CMSA is a geographic entity defined by the federal Office of Management and Budget for use by federal statistical agencies. An area becomes a CMSA if it meets the requirements to qualify as a metropolitan statistical area, has a population of 1,000,000 or more, if component parts are recognized as primary metropolitan statistical areas, and local opinion favors the designation. The CMSA concept was retired in 2003 with the introduction of the Core Based Statistical Area concepts.
I've never heard of either a CSA or a CBSA used in media analysis.
Yeah, it is just a different data point to measure population among metros that are close together. (employment, no I don't think it has anything to do with that).
It is a real thing, but you are likely correct, it is not used in media analysis. And that is understandable as most media buys are based on one metro, not a combined metro.
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