Stuck in the Wrong DMA? Read this...

[Nick]

Colorado Congressman Tackles DMA Issue,
says "That shouldn't be that hard to fix".

From The Rocky Mountain News:

Durango fans pushing for more Broncos games

S.W. Colorado area lumped in with N.M.'s , not Denver's, TV market

Colorado isn't a red state or a blue state -- it's an orange state.

That's why the next political football is about finding a way to bring the full Denver Broncos schedule back to local television in Durango.

Because of a quirk in broadcast regulations, Durango and the surrounding area are part of the Albuquerque television market. As such, cable television providers are required to provide "local" broadcast news, weather and sports out of the Duke City, not Denver.

Most Durango residents are used to that. But what really riles Broncos fans like Steve Harris is that at least once or twice per season he gets stuck watching Albuquerque's favorite team, the Dallas Cowboys, when there's a conflict with a Broncos game at the same time.

"Dallas is something like 1,500 or 2,000 miles away from Durango," Harris said. "We really don't have a lot of interest in the Cowboys here. Our interest is in the Broncos. Whoever could get it fixed is going to get some more votes - bottom line."

That might be one reason Rep. John Salazar, D-Manassa, is starting to tackle the issue. ...More @ Rocky Mountain News.com (http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4609243,00.html)
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I live on the coast in S.E. Georgia. Savannah is 60 miles to the north and Jacksonville is about the same distance south, but I am located only 45 miles north of the Georgia-Florida line, which puts me in the Jacksonville DMA. I had been a DBS sub for about two years when I moved to the coast from Atlanta in 2002 so I kept the dish, but I wanted my locals to come from Georgia, not Florida. Through the magic of PO Box billing, I was able to keep my ATL locals until I switched to cable last year. Having cable, I now receive locals from two cities -- not only from JAX, but from SAV as well.

I can relate to the frustration of those S.W. Colorado viewers who, because of arbitrary, if not insane rules, are forced to watch programming and sporting events from other states. I fully support the congressman's initiative and will tell him so in an email I will be sending shortly. I will also write to my own representatives and cc the FCC regarding this issue.

As a DBS sub, if you are in a similar circumstance, forced to receive your local channels from an area you don't want, I encourage you to voice your opposition to the mandatory DMA assignment rules not only by supporting Rep. John Salazar's initiative, but by contacting you own senators and representatives. Hopefully, this is just the beginning of what will become a grassroots groundswell of television viewers who are sick and tired of being forced to watch local broadcasters from an area in which they have little or no interest.

It's all about you and me having the right to choose!

[Geronimo]

I have to admit that there are any number of absurdities in the present system. It seems like there HAS to be room for adjustment. I just hope that the cure is not worse than the disase.

[Link]

Some of my relatives live in a rural area where they are technically part of the Terre Haute, IN DMA because of the county they reside in. However, they are more tied to the Evansville DMA and their local cable company carries the Evansville stations and only 1 from Terre Haute because really Terre Haute is too far from the area probably to pick up the stations. Most people won't get satellite because they don't want the Terre Haute stations and want the Evansville ones that cable provides. If Dish would let them have Evansville, they'd switch but otherwise forget it.

I don't understand why DMAs are on a county by county basis because it doesn't seem to work well.

[Michael P]

There is a county in New York state that is split between the Rochester and Utica DMA's. If that one can be split so can any other county.

The problem here a private company, Neilsen Media Research, determines the DMA insted of the FCC. For the larger populated areas the DMA's usually make sense. The rural viewers however usually get screwed by this system.

[tsmacro]

There is a county in New York state that is split between the Rochester and Utica DMA's. If that one can be split so can any other county.

The problem here a private company, Neilsen Media Research, determines the DMA insted of the FCC. For the larger populated areas the DMA's usually make sense. The rural viewers however usually get screwed by this system.


Yeah and there's a county in NM that's split bwtween two DMA's also, so it does happen in rare instances. By the way the county in NY is actually split between Syracuse and Utica, not Rochester. Honestly DMA's should be determined by distance from the nearest TV towers and have nothing to do with other government borders that were put in place for the benefit of government bueracracies and not television broadcasts. But then someone would actually have to put in the work to actually make a map with it's own boundaries rather than being lazy and following ones that are already on the map.