E* distant local cities--any differences?

[Maniacal1]

When I signed up for E*, they allowed me to select any two cities they offered as distant locals. With the spot beam going up, all of us in unserved areas who subscribe to distants from cities not in the "Big 6" got letters this week saying that we would be automatically switched to the nearest available cities to those we have. Their plan is to switch my Boston and Seattle locals to New York and Los Angeles.

Since I do have a choice, and since I'm sure there are plenty of others in the same situation (two guys that I work with got letters, too), I was just wondering whether there was anything unique and interesting on the locals from the available cities. I'd be especially interested in sports events and old black-and-white syndicated programs. (One of the Seattle stations I'll lose had Perry Mason every afternoon, and I enjoyed it often.)

I'm old enough to remember when local station programming varied greatly from city to city. But with the proliferation of networks and consolidation of ownership now, it seems like every city has the same programming. I was just wondering whether there were any hidden gems in the Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, and Denver locals that would make them interesting.

Thanks for any input you can provide!

[Chris Freeland]

Before E* got stricter on their distant locals I was getting NY and LA, now E* will only let me have NBC and CBS, I have since switched to Atlanta and Denver. I can not tell much difference in the pq and have not found much outstandingly different in programming, I chose to switch to Atlanta because it is only about 100 miles away and is the next best thing to having my Chattanooga locals on satellite for local news. Sometimes I use my PIP and switch between my local Chattanooga news on ota and Atlanta locals on satellite, which is nice. I have found that I watch Denver more then I did with LA because most shows are only a one-hour time difference so the time shifting is more convenient for me.