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Efforts by a company that owns Greenville’s CBS television station to compel Suddenlink to drop Raleigh’s WRAL from its cable lineup have unexpectedly benefitted the local NBC franchise....
...The change was sought by Media General, the company that owns WNCT, a CBS affiliate based in Greenville. However, it will directly benefit WITN, a Chocowinity-based NBC affiliate, because WRAL recently became an NBC affiliate after broadcasting CBS programming for more than 30 years...
...The FCC on Feb. 23 waived WRAL's exemption status in the Greenville-Kinston market based on evidence presented in a petition filed by Media General on Aug. 13, 2014. Media General said changing interpretations of the criteria for determining significant viewership showed WRAL no longer met the threshold in the local viewing area.
Capitol Broadcasting Company, which owns WRAL, argued the samples used by Media General were too small and not representative of the market's actual viewership of WRAL. The FCC agreed with Media General.
More than a month before the FCC released its decision, WRAL announced it was ending its relationship with CBS after the entities couldn't agree on a new contract. WRAL's switch to NBC occurred Feb. 29, six days after the FCC issued its order.
WITN asked Suddenlink to drop WRAL after it made the switch, said Gene Regan, senior director of Suddenlink Communications corporate communications.
This is a topic that I think expands to all of Eastern North Carolina
I know a lot of people in Greenville watch WRAL -- for me it's mainly for ACC coverage and the Capitol show sometimes.
Was WRAL your main source for TV news? If so, what are you switching to?
I primarily watch WITN for news, I like the personalities better and think overall they have the best local news product. Not that it's tremendously great or anything, but compared to WNCT I think it's a bar above.
WCTI for me is in between the 2, but I just find WNCT's news really bad.
WRAL is my main source of news and will stay that way, since we get them over the air with an antenna. We have the Dish and they have never carried WRAL. I also sometimes watch WTVD-ABC11 out of Durham.
I'm actually installing an antenna for some relatives this weekend so that they can continue to watch WRAL.
It's a shame our local stations forced this. The local news production around here can be pretty bad, and they don't cover most of what WRAL does.
Yeah I agree. I really enjoy watching WRAL's newscasts, I just don't really care what's going on in RDU for the most part -- outside of big events/major crime/sports. I'm forced to watch our stuff because they report our community.
My understanding in the whole dispute was that WNCT forced it with their petition, and once the FCC accepted their petition it became law for Suddenlink to either block out all NBC programming on WRAL but continue paying the fee for it, or drop it.
If that's my choice, I'm gonna drop it. I can't necessarily blame anyone here from a business standpoint. Channel 9 was trying to up their ratings, Suddenlink didn't want to pay unnecessary money, and WITN was just in the right place right time.
Sucks for us though, especially with regards to ACC basketball.
Not to get off topic, but did WNCT ever switch to HD or are they still trying to fool people with upscaled SD cameras? It's been a few moons since I saw their news on TV.
Ch. 9's problem is that 95% of their reporters are new, first or second job out of college. They stumble a lot. I sometimes wonder if they have teleprompter issues, but I think it's just inexperience
Ch. 9's problem is that 95% of their reporters are new, first or second job out of college. They stumble a lot. I sometimes wonder if they have teleprompter issues, but I think it's just inexperience
There is no need for WRAL in Raleigh or Wilmington. The markets are big enough now to not have WRAL.
If stations in either market covered state news to even a fraction of WRAL's coverage that would be true. They do not.
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