Significantly viewed (SV) are television stations determined by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to be local stations that have a significant viewership outside of their Nielsen designated market area (DMA).[1] Federal legislation was passed to help protect television viewers living in extraterritorial and border areas from losing local television stations where viewers are living outside of the DMA.[2]
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In 2005, the FCC completed a federal study on all of the DMAs in the United States.[3][4] It came up with a list of counties in each state where out of market television stations are significantly viewed by residents who are using antennas, whether or not they are cable or satellite subscribers. The study also looked at the history of viewership of the original Community Access Television (CATV) installations throughout the country. CATV is the predecessor of cable television. Today's cable television content is much more focused on premium channel television programming than the original purpose of picking up local programming from television stations in a specific area.
With the advancement of digital cable, cable companies such as Comcast and Time Warner are leading the way in removing out of market television stations from the basic cable lineup. This is done by cable companies to preserve bandwidth on channels 2 to 13, but also to reduce the redundancy of multiple affiliates, and to fulfill federal mandates to keep in-market local affiliates. Some cable providers, with out of market and redundant affiliate stations in the past, have moved over the out of market stations to digital cable channels 100 and above. Many cable companies nationwide are not doing this, since they are removing SV stations entirely from the cable lineup. This has led to some controversy in some parts of the country. The forerunners in the SV stations moving over to Digital Cable have been on-going since 2005 for several Comcast Cable outlets in New Jersey, Virginia, and a few Time Warner Cable outlets in North Carolina. All of what has been said is occurring in significantly viewed counties that are bordering nearby television markets.
Two examples of the SV channel preservation on digital cable and at the same time, CATV favoring a non-designated DMA is Belvidere, New Jersey along the Delaware River. Phillipsburg, Milford, Frenchtown, and Lambertville, all downstream on the Delaware River, sometimes lean towards this as well. Belvidere used to lean towards the Philadelphia market solely on television reception since it was not able to receive New York City. However since it is located in Warren County, it is officially part of the New York City DMA. When cable companies advanced with premium programming and later digital cable, the Philadelphia stations disappeared on the basic cable lineup but were later moved to the digital cable tier for KYW, WCAU, and WTXF.[5]
An example of redundant affiliates serving the same area is Harrisonburg, Virginia. It is part of the Harrisonburg DMA, consisting of two Virginia counties and one West Virginia county. Harrisonburg is a fringe area because it is 100 miles from Washington, DC; Richmond, Virginia; and Roanoke, Virginia. It was originally part of the Richmond DMA. It is approximately 40 miles away from Charlottesville, Virginia, which has its own DMA which was also once part of the Richmond DMA. Comcast Cable of Harrisonburg is home to two ABC affiliates (WRIC (Richmond) and the market's own affiliate, WHSV (Harrisonburg)), four NBC affiliates (WVIR (Charlottesville), WRC (Washington, DC), WSLS (Roanoke), and WWBT (Richmond), two CBS affiliates (WUSA (Washington, DC) and WTVR (Richmond), two Fox affiliates (WHSV's subchannel and WTTG (Washington, DC)).
Only one station for PBS (WVPT (Harrisonburg)); WHSV's other subchannel is My Network TV (MNTV) and CW coverage from WVIR. The basic cable tier consists of WUSA, WHSV, WVIR, WTTG instead of WHSV's own Fox Network, CW from WVIR, and MNTV from WHSV. Prior to 2006, many of these stations were on the same basic cable tier but were dropped to preserve bandwidth and eliminate the redundancy of multiple affiliates. All of the stations that were not mentioned in the basic cable tier are now moved over to digital cable.[6]
A further example of this would be Toledo, Ohio. A mere 45 miles from a major market (Detroit), and close to a second major market (Cleveland), most of Detroit's signals penetrate deep into Toledo's market, and thus are carried on Buckeye Cable. This is similar in situation to Baltimore (close to Philadelphia and Washington, DC) and Topeka, which is within range of Kansas City's television stations.
An example of controversy over residents losing a long-time out of market affiliate stations happened in Lumberton, North Carolina. Since the beginning of television, it has been reliant for NBC coverage from WECT out of Wilmington, North Carolina. Lumberton has been in and out of different DMAs between the Raleigh, Wilmington, and Florence/Myrtle Beach markets. It is currently in the Florence/Myrtle Beach market since the late 1990s. With that said, it did not have its own NBC affiliate until August 2008 so parts of the market over-the-air or on cable received a different NBC affiliate, whether it was WIS (Columbia, South Carolina), WECT (Wilmington), WCNC (Charlotte), or WCBD (Charleston, South Carolina).
The new NBC affiliate is WMBF, the market's NBC affiliate in Myrtle Beach. When it went on the air the first day, cable companies were required to pull the plug on all of the other NBC affiliates it was carrying before WMBF went on the air in the Florence/Myrtle Beach market. As a result, Lumberton residents were in outrage of this and wanted WECT back on the cable lineup; this was despite WMBF, WECT and WIS all being under the same ownership of Raycom Media, thus the pulling would in effect promote WMBF within their market over out-of-market sister stations. This is also in addition that WMBF's over-the-air signal does not even reach the North Carolina side of the Florence/Myrtle Beach market. On December 1, 2008, WECT returned to the Lumberton Time Warner Cable lineup on digital cable instead of basic cable tier.[7]
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