What happens if No UPN in a city...

[gcutler]

I was in Cattanooga Tenn for a few days, and wanted to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer (even though was TiVoing it, wanted to watch it live). But there was NO UPN available in Chattanooga. Hotel had over 80 channels from Comcast so I'd assume if it was available it would have show up. So what happens to those people who want to watch Buffy or Enterprise or any other UPN show. Are they just out of luck or is it possible to syndicate certain shows if no affiliate.

[JohnH]

If it is first run, not likely to be syndicated. On DISH Network one might subscribe to one or all of the UPN Superstations. On DirecTV there is no known alternative at this time.

[gcutler]

Man that would suck. Right there is a reason to have Dish (at least for an Enterprise or Buffy Fan)

[razorbackfan]

I have E* superstation pack and watch Enterprise and Buffy on WWOR. My local cable picture and sound for UPN is so bad it's nearly unwatchable.

[BrettR]

I believe Viacom handles UPN distribution. So a TV station can pick UPN affiliation with approval from UPN owners. There are not that many full power commercial stations in the Chattanooga market. The broadcasters would rather be an affiliate of NBC, CBS, FOX or ABC before even looking at UPN and WB. Since Chattanooga doesnt have that many stations, one network is Out of luck and cant get a full power affiliate and it happens to be UPN.

Nothing I know of is stopping the FOX station though from getting a UPN affiliation also. In Jacksonville,FL FOX and UPN are shared on 1 station. UPN does not come during normal primetime hours though.

Time Warner owns many cable systems. They own The WB (75%). Tribune Broadcasting owns 25% of The WB. Tribune owns the top 3 market stations (WPIX, WGN and KTLA) that carry The WB. Time Warner needs Tribune, and Tribune needs WB for primetime content. AOLTW has incentive to create a cable WB and put it on their system where there arent enough full power stations. They do this in small DMAs like Rochester NY.

[gcutler]

The combo affiliations may not be a bad idea. Be a most of the day FOX affiliate and put the UPN stuff on 12am-3am and at least you might get some viewership. But I guess that depends on the UPN affiliate cost???

[BrettR]

Viacom would rather UPN be on a low power station than go on a full power station that will only carry them after hours. The idea the low power station will convince the cable system to carry them, as in Cincinnati.

In D.C region, Comcast carries the low power Univision and Telemundo broadcast station. The cable deal atleast gets them a spot on cable.

Usually NBC, CBS, ABC and FOX vie for the full power VHF stations in the market, either by affiliation or ownership. FOX acquired many VHF stations when they got NFC rights (which included valuable Dallas Cowboy games at the time). FOX acquired more stations in other deals and most recently in acquiring Chris Craft.

Rupert Murdoch has cash. FOX spent $425M cash for the UHF UPN station (WPWR) in Chicago recently. Both Viacom and FOX were drooling over this station for a duopoly, and FOX outbid Viacom but IMO overspent big time.

FOX wanted a VHF station in the Philadelphia market. FOX would want VHF in Chicago I bet also but the number of stations is limited. 2,4,5,7,9,11,13 are taken up by New York in the North and Baltimiore/DC in the south. FCC gave Ch.8 to Lancaster/York and New Haven. So CBS has Ch.3, ABC has Ch.6, NBC has Ch.10, and Ch.12 is a non commercial PBS station here in philly. FOX is stuck at UHF here for the time being.

ABC has 7s across the country. I believe there is history that since ABC was a newer network (compared to NBC and CBS) ABC ended up in the higher VHF band (7-13).

IMO, Ch.6 is a great spot to be at. Radio listeners will pick up the station on 87.7 FM. On cable, its still Ch.6. When one switches from Ch.3(CBS) to Ch.10(NBC) likely they'll stop by at Ch.6. In Philadelphia, WPVI 6 has been #1 for years, and I dont doubt the Ch.6 number hasnt been one of the best things for them.

What's leftover are the UHF stations.
The prime full power stations have teamed with UPN and WB. UPN and WB need clearances across the country, and the stations (that have lost valuable sports programming throughout the years as sports has moved to cable) needed primetime content.

The prime UHF stations will team with UPN or WB. The remaining go independent. If the market is a big Hispanic market, Univision and Telemundo affiliations are desireable. Usually though, Univision or Entravision own the station as it is. Same goes with PAX.

Most PAX stations though dont provide much locally generated programming. An NBC station might provide news material for them. Here NBC 10 co-runs PAX 61, and NBC 10 evening news repeats on PAX 61 but no programming that is unique and local to WPPX the PAX station. Many UPN and WB stations are duopolied now or are part of an LMA with another station such as an NBC or CBS affiliate.

Very few especially the UHF stations are providing local news or real local programming. If its local its produced by the bigger station in the duopoly. WBZ 4 produces news for WSBK 38 now, WBFF 45 (Fox)'s News is the same newscast as WNUV 54 (WB).

[QualityIsJobOne]

Originally posted by JohnH
On DirecTV there is no known alternative at this time.

Hmm....It's very strange that there is no UPN on DirecTv. FYI both Bell ExpressVu (http://www.expressvu.com) & StarChoice (http://www.starchoice.com) offer WSBK UPN 38 Boston (http://www.upn38.com) :cool:

UPN Boston is a good one as they air WBZ's Nightcast news at 10pm and will broadcast Red Sox games next year. :blush:

[Chris Freeland]

I live near Chattanooga, I get UPN through the E* Superstation package :). We used to have a UPN channel here in Chattanooga which had UPN full time and WB late nights, a couple of years ago channel 53 dropped UPN and switched to WB full time and local FOX61 added UPN to its late night schedule, this past Fall FOX61 dropped UPN completely. Now I believe CBS12 has rights to UPN programing, occasionally this station will play Enterprise on Saturday afternoon or some other odd hour.

[gcutler]

You'd figure the Buffy and Enterprise fan would be relatively fanatic compared to the other UPN fans? They'd encircle the studio :D

[BrettR]

According to Viacom, UPN reaches more than 97% of the TV HH in the country on one page http://www.viacom.com/thefacts.tin

but only over 86% in another page http://www.viacom.com/unitbyseg.tin?sBusSegmentNickname=btv

[Chris Freeland]

Originally posted by BrettR
According to Viacom, UPN reaches more than 97% of the TV HH in the country on one page http://www.viacom.com/thefacts.tin

but only over 86% in another page http://www.viacom.com/unitbyseg.tin?sBusSegmentNickname=btv

I wander if either of those figures include both part-time and full-time UPN stations? Or is the 86% just full-time stations and the 97% all stations with any sort of UPN affiliation no matter how part-time it is?

[Mike123abc]

I have a feeling those numbers are inflated by cable coverage. OTA UPN reception is probably a lot lower. The UPN station here is like 1,000 watts. I live 2 miles from the transmitter and have to have a rooftop antenna to recieve it. But, since they are in the market cable carries it.