Stations that covered the most states

[KML0224]

WMTW on Mount Washington NH (COL Poland Spring ME) had cable carriage in Maine, NH, Vermont and parts of northern NY, not to mention across wide swaths of Ontario and Quebec. And you could watch it over the air in all of those places - and even in some corners of Massachusetts when conditions were good.

In present day, while using the FM chip on my Motorola made TracFone, the first Portland market signal I'll hear is WHOM-FM 94.9. That's despite the fact that WBLM-FM 102.9 (classic rock) is 100,000 watts.

I sometimes wonder how much coverage WMTW-TV lost when they moved to Baldwin, ME for digital. Even then, they had an in-town Portland translator on channel 26.

 

[roadwonk]

I remember that the Kansas City Star used to offer TV listings for the Topeka, KS TV stations along with the Kansas City, MO\KS TV stations. For some reason, though, KQTV in St. Joseph, MO, was not listed in the Kansas City edition.

Back in the '70s, the Star also provided listings (in a separate section, not on the main grid, though) for Springfield (3, 10, 21 and 27), Joplin (12 and 16), Pittsburgh, KS (7), Sedalia (6), Columbia (8 and 17), and Jefferson City (13), if memory serves me correctly

 

[Route66Fan]

Back in the '70s, the Star also provided listings (in a separate section, not on the main grid, though) for Springfield (3, 10, 21 and 27), Joplin (12 and 16), Pittsburgh, KS (7), Sedalia (6), Columbia (8 and 17), and Jefferson City (13), if memory serves me correctly

I've seen some of those TV listings on Newspapers.com

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

I remember Directv in the 2000's used to issue Los Angeles TV (O&O) stations in states where their local market was not available yet or not issued as all. It notably had KABC, KTTV, KCBS and KNBC. Does this count as stations that cover most states.

Also there was a story that KTVU Fox 2 prior to having a Fox affiliation under the previous owners Cox Media used to have a superstation status in the early 1980's and they were supposed to be a competitor for Superstation WTBS (Now known as WPCH-TV for Atlanta only Viewers) and TBS for national audiences.

WGN Chicago was a superstation now under Nexstar ownership is converting WGN America as News Nation.

KTLA Los Angeles under Golden West and Tribune Management was also at one point a superstation and was also the default WB affiliate in some areas that didn't have a local WB affiliate yet at the time or at all.

Manhattan Cable TV Offering Superstation via Satellite (Published 1979)

Article on WTCG‐TV, Atlanta, Ga, superstation whose signal is distributed nationwide by means of RCA Satcom satellite; station is owned by Ted Turner and can be viewed in NYC met area over Teleprompter Manhattan Cable TV system (M)

www.nytimes.com

Here is when KTVU (Now Fox O&O) , WTCG (Now known as WPCH-TV)and WGN at one point covered the USA.

“At the rate we're adding homes, there's no way national advertisers are going to be able to ignore us,” Mr. McGuirk remarked. “If they do right now, it's because we fall into a new category that is somewhere between a local station and a network.”

The growing acceptance of WTCG around the country has spurred the creation of other superstations — WGN‐TV in Chicago and KTVU in San Francisco, both of which are now on the satellite and vying for channels on cable systems. WGN‐TV, widely recognized as one of the better‐programmed independent stations in the country, carries the complete baseball schedule of the Chicago Cubs, along with other sports events. KTVU carries the baseball games of the Oakland A's.

Last fall, in a speech in New York, Mr. Turner. predicted that the superstations would draw off as much as 50 percent of the television networks’ regular audiences in the next 5 to 10 years.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

If it's New York TV market and OTA that covers the most states it's New York, New Jersey and Connecticut for all OTA Signals like WCBS, WABC, WNBC and WNYW.

Philadelphia it's Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Washington DC it's DC, Maryland and Virginia.

Albany, New York it's parts of Massachusetts, Vermont and New York

Mobile TV market gets Parts of Florida, Alabama and Mississippi.

Paducah TV Market gets Illinois, Kentucky and Missouri.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

How about a station that covers the largest swath of land over the air?

Several Anchorage and Fairbanks stations (cbs, abc, nbc, fox, pbs) are fed by fiber or satellite to the ARCS HQ in Anchorage and then beamed out again on satellite to over the air translators owned by the state, the village or local public radio station or school district across alaska

Hundreds exist

the anchorage abc station might get am drive, pbs gets late mornings, cbs gets middays,nbc gets afternoons, fox gets evenings... not the raw network feed, but the feed form the respective "local affiliates".

covering a territory of about 1500 miles.. from st paul island in the far western aluetians to Utqiagvik (Barrow)

 

[crainbebo]

Back in the old days, it used to be called the Alaska Satellite TV Project, or RATNET. They were also on satellite using Satcom F5 transponder 24. Similar approach with cherry-picking shows from the networks and PBS for Alaskan villages. Almost like AFRTS but Alaska-based.

 

[anotherguyTN]

Paducah TV Market gets Illinois, Kentucky and Missouri.

It also reaches into Northwest TN on WPSD NBC 6 and KFVS CBS 12 in Cape Girardeau, MO, which is also considered part of the Paducah Market. They would come in OTA before the digital conversion into the Dyersburg area where I lived, bit they're still on some cable systems in the area.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

Here is an interesting aircheck KHJ-TV could be seen in Guam back in 1981. Sure I heard of KHJ-TV and KCAL9 cover other markets before most notably Palm Springs via translators and cable but not all the way to Guam at the start of this clip.

 

[crainbebo]

I checked the 1982 Broadcasting Magazine Yearbook and was able to find Guam Cable TV in the list of cable systems. At that time, they carried local KUAM-8 (then CBS) and KGTF-12 (PBS), along with a pay-TV service called Bestvision. Los Angeles stations were also brought in, with the aforementioned KHJ, along with KCBS-2, KNBC-4, KABC-7, KCET-28, and KWHY-22. They may have been direct feeds across the Pacific, or they could have been "best of"-type feeds where the stations were taping parts of their broadcast day and then sending those tapes across the Pacific to Guam. ESPN and Nickelodeon were also on the system in 1982, I am not sure if they were able to receive their satellite feed or if they also had to provide them "on tape". Northern Marianas, on the other hand, got KTTV and KCOP in addition to KHJ (I assume also with a lot of pre-recorded videotapes instead of direct feeds 4,500 miles across the Pacific), but neither carried KTLA.

 

[ftballfan]

Back in the early 1980s, the Big Four independents out of Los Angeles were carried in a lot of New Mexico, as well as El Paso, Texas (El Paso had KTLA on cable until 2006!!)

Some of the non-satellite independents still managed to cover lots of areas via microwaves in the 1970s and 1980s:
WTTG was seen as far south as Columbia, SC and as far north as Harrisburg, PA. WDCA had a similar range, but they didn't reach into SC AFAIK.

KBMA/KSHB was seen in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Omaha, Lincoln, Wichita, and Des Moines in addition to the Kansas City area.

WTTV was carried in most of Indiana (all except the far northern and NW counties) as well as parts of central and western Ohio, eastern Illinois, and even parts of Kentucky and West Virginia.

WKBD was carried in most of Michigan (with exceptions in southwest and west central Michigan) as well as northern Ohio and northeast Wisconsin

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

I checked the 1982 Broadcasting Magazine Yearbook and was able to find Guam Cable TV in the list of cable systems. At that time, they carried local KUAM-8 (then CBS) and KGTF-12 (PBS), along with a pay-TV service called Bestvision. Los Angeles stations were also brought in, with the aforementioned KHJ, along with KCBS-2, KNBC-4, KABC-7, KCET-28, and KWHY-22. They may have been direct feeds across the Pacific, or they could have been "best of"-type feeds where the stations were taping parts of their broadcast day and then sending those tapes across the Pacific to Guam. ESPN and Nickelodeon were also on the system in 1982, I am not sure if they were able to receive their satellite feed or if they also had to provide them "on tape". Northern Marianas, on the other hand, got KTTV and KCOP in addition to KHJ (I assume also with a lot of pre-recorded videotapes instead of direct feeds 4,500 miles across the Pacific), but neither carried KTLA.

Interestingly once Guam got Fox Broadcast network they went with KTVU in San Francisco instead of Los Angeles KTTV Fox 11 at some point in it's history from 1999-2005. Initially KTGM was airing Fox Content as a secondary affiliate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KEQI-LD

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

Here is a clip from 1986 showing KTVU in its superstation era. At :09 of the Clip Barbara Simpson had to note the Pacific time zone on the show. The show is 2 at Noon. Back then this show was a local talk show at 12pm. But 2 At Noon today still exists but its now known as KTVU Fox 2 News at Noon.

 

[ftballfan]

Here is a clip from 1986 showing KTVU in its superstation era. At :09 of the Clip Barbara Simpson had to note the Pacific time zone on the show. The show is 2 at Noon. Back then this show was a local talk show at 12pm. But 2 At Noon today still exists but its now known as KTVU Fox 2 News at Noon.

Even though KTVU's superstation days ended in the mid 1980s, they were still a quasi-superstation into the mid 1990s as they had cable carriage in most of northern California and southern Oregon (markets which didn't have FOX affiliates at the time). I wonder if KBVU, KCVU, and KMVU (all of which would sign on in the mid-90s as FOX affiliates) took their call letters from KTVU

 

[seatownmedia]

Alaska definitely for wide coverage of just a few stations. But Utah is also in the mix as most of the State carries the SLC stations, making their news operations basically statewide. Colorado to some extent is under the Denver umbrella.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

Alaska definitely for wide coverage of just a few stations. But Utah is also in the mix as most of the State carries the SLC stations, making their news operations basically statewide. Colorado to some extent is under the Denver umbrella.

From McGRath, ive heard every single AM except 930 Ketchikan.

 

[seatownmedia]

Somehow this thread got mixed up between tv and radio. But both apply to the discussion, I guess.

 

[KML0224]

Channel 61 Hartford used to hint at multi-state coverage, since they were Connecticut's first 5 million watt station. I think the announcer mentioned CT, MA, VT, RI and maybe NH. Not sure about NY. This was on occasion from their 1984 sign-on until taking FOX in 1986-87.

I think the Brattleboro Reformer newspaper in Vermont used to carry listings for WFSB-TV (CBS) of Hartford.

Also noticed while at MGM Springfield (casino) on Thanksgiving afternoon that one of the bars showing Chicago vs Detroit football was tuned to Hartford and not "FOX 6", which is WGGB-TV channel 40-2 locally.

 

[crainbebo]

As for TV... some of the Seattle TV stations are/were carried throughout most of British Columbia, even up to Prince George. I assume microwave on those.
In the Yukon, the cable brought in CBC North and three other channels that carried a jumble of various programs from CTV and American networks. Seattle stations (and maybe KVOS?) taped parts of their broadcast day and sent the tapes up to the Yukon to broadcast on their cable. That is why the microfilm from the late '70s only lists channels 2, 3, 5, and 7 as generic channel numbers with no name. They all had (except for one carrying CBC North), a jumble of programs from either CHAN-8 Vancouver or Seattle stations all on prerecorded videotapes. This was later replaced by Detroit TV when it was uplinked to satellite.
NWT did not get any programming from America until Cancom uplinked Detroit stations to C-Band in the mid-1980s. The cable only had CFYK (CBC North) and CFRN (CTV) from Alberta as of the 1982 Broadcasting Yearbook.

In addition, Seattle stations taped parts of their broadcast day for rural cable companies in Alaska. KOMO, KING, and KIRO were carried in Juneau via microwave, not taped, albeit primetime ran from 9 to midnight with the time zone change. BUT... they were also carried in Barrow!! I assume on tape. But that's nearly 2,000 miles away from Seattle. And KTVU Oakland was also brought in as of 1982 (over 2,600 miles away). Other cable companies were taking the Alaska TV Satellite Project and WTBS, sometimes WGN, WOR, or CBN.

KIRO, KOMO, and KING were carried as far east as Moses Lake in the early '80s, then were later dropped. Microwave? So was CHEK Victoria, which made it to Walla Walla's cable system as late as 1989 along with Eugene, Oregon. Interestingly, KIMA and KNDO in Yakima were seen in Wenatchee at the same time, then they too were dropped.

 

[Route66Fan]

KBMA/KSHB was seen in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Omaha, Lincoln, Wichita, and Des Moines in addition to the Kansas City area.

I had found a VHS tape that had some old TV shows (Mostly from the 50's-70's.) on it that also had clips of KSHB's local show, "All Night Live with Uncle Ed", on it. One of the clips had the host (Ed Muscare) take some viewers calls, one viewer was calling from Tulsa, OK.