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How to get significantly viewed dma stations added

22K views 210 replies 29 participants last post by  oriolesmagic 
#1 ·
According to the fcc database Ashtabula County OH has 3 stations from the Erie DMA listed as Significantly viewed. How would I go about getting them added to my local lineup?
 
#202 ·
harsh said:
Blame the NCTA and the NAB as they are the ones that "educate" (lobby) your congressman to use the government to "level" the competition.
At the most recent congressional hearing there was several other reps there that did not agree with the NAB. The NAB appeard really really selfish in the meeting.
 
#203 ·
I know this an old thread but wondering is it possible to get significant channel added. I'm on the Western border of Minnesota with the dma of Minneapolis/st.paul. KELO out of Sioux Falls is listed as a significantly viewed channel for my county. Is their any possibility to get it added?

Thanks for any info!!!
 
#204 · (Edited)
Nothing you can really do besides contacting the station to tell them you want them added to DirecTV's lineup for the county or town where they're listed as a significantly viewed station and hopefully that will get the ball rolling with their management and owners.

The hard part though is many times the person you contact will have no idea what you're talking about or what siginificantly viewed status is and feed you the standard response about them being limited to their DMA only.
 
#206 ·
This isn't specific to significantly viewed stations, but apparently the STELA (satellite locals law) makes it possible to petition the FCC to change your DMA.

FCC Grants Market Mods for Three TV Stations | Broadcasting & Cable
What I've read on this doesn't seem to indicate if the area will be moving to the Fairmont/Clarksburg DMA or if they will be adding the Fairmont/Clarksburg stations as SV, the way that Comcast and Atlantic Broadband have in that region. Comcast Morgantown dropped WBOY publicly last year, due to new station owner Nexstar essentially removing all out-of-market stations from Comcast systems. WDTV and WVFX are still carried in Morgantown, and carried in HD, which is very rare for out-of-market stations with Comcast.

I'm very familiar with that region, and know it's been a point of frustration for a while. Fairmont/Clarksburg was really only a 3 station market (CW is a subchannel of the FOX, ABC was added as a subchannel of the NBC). For many years, WTAE out of Pittsburgh served as the de facto ABC affiliate for the Fairmont/Clarksburg area (as it did Wheeling), with WCHS out of Charleston taking the southern portion of the market.

I still think this is less about what the people want there, and more what the stations want. Morgantown is the only growing portion of mainland WV, and the only portion with any affluence. I really question the need for miniature markets like that to even exist in the first place with station conglomerates in this day and age, because very little of the old WV Media Holdings stations (which WBOY is a part of) produced their own newscasts in general, news sharing between the Wheeling, Beckley and Huntington affiliates they owned (and now WHAG in Hagerstown, MD is part of that).

I don't think the Fairmont/Clarksburg market could survive without Morgantown advertising dollars, and Nexstar and Gray know that.
 
#209 ·
<Insert standard rant on how station availability should be handled.>

We have a couple of "orphan" counties in Michigan who are a part of my Indiana DMA. The Indiana stations do a good job of covering news in those counties and state news from Lansing affecting those counties. Those counties should (in my ranty opinion) receive stations from the Grand Rapids Michigan DMA as well as South Bend Indiana. I certainly would not want them to lose South Bend stations to gain Grand Rapids stations.
 
#210 ·
Everything I've read says that area of West Virginia simply gained those WV stations in addition to keeping the Pittsburgh stations.
It would be nice if significantly viewed stations were offered. I love DirecTV but if I lived between two markets, I would prefer to get both sets of stations as one does on cable.
 
#211 ·
It should be handled the same for cable and satellite, and it hasn't been for a long time. With DirecTV and Dish having access to all the markets, unlike cable in some places, there's no technical reason they can't provide these channels in areas where there is a clear reason to have 2 sets of networks.
 
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