Out-of-market OTA TV reception in Columbia area? (Charleston, Greenville: real estate, apartments)

[IM42A]

Originally Posted by IM42A

...even though ironically Columbia now has not one, but two, VHF stations, WOLO-10 (digital and PSIP), and WOLO-7 (DTV) and 25 (PSIP)...

Of course, I meant to say WIS-10, not WOLO-10. I just now caught that.


It's very advantageous for WOLO to be on high-VHF, as you already have viewers with VHF antennas turned towards Columbia, so they could pick up WIS. This whole PSIP thing makes a station being on VHF vs UHF more or less transparent to the non-technical OTA viewer, but still, it's a built-in advantage for WOLO to be able to piggyback off the antenna placements that already exist for WIS. The WIS and WOLO transmitters (as well as WLTX) are within sight of each other out in the Screaming Eagle Road area (which I can see from our neighborhood, they're great landmarks for when you're coming in on I-20 WB at night and you can tell you're almost home ). WACH-57 and WKTC-63 also have space on WOLO's tower.


It would be very helpful if WZRB could get space on one of the Screaming Eagle-area sticks. That stubby little tower over on Cushman Road is very poorly located for good reception. Way back in the day, that was WLTX's tower (back when they were WNOK-TV), and later on, WACH used it. We had a horrible time getting WACH until they moved out to Rush Road on the WOLO tower.

[tylerSC]

The Charlotte stations cover local news from York, Lancaster, Chester, and Chesterfield counties in SC. But the Columbia stations may tend to more extensively cover SC government and politics, as well as USC athletics. So for years viewers appreciated WIS carriage on cable in the SC portion of the Charlotte market, as well as WSPA from Spartanburg. I do know you can receive WIS, WOLO, and WSPA in Rock Hill and Fort Mill with an antenna, and WIS and WOLO can also be picked up in Lancaster County.

And the DMA boundaries tend to dictate local news coverage, which doesn't overlap as much as it used to. For example, all the Charlotte stations produce a strong signal in Gaffney and Cherokee County, but they ignore any news coverage from there and leave it to the Greenville-Spartanburg stations. The tall towers of WBTV, WCNC, and WJZY west of Charlotte blast a strong local grade signal into Gaffney, and even WSOC has a strong translator. But I think only WBTV and WSOC have limited standard definition cable carriage, and none of the Charlotte signals are available via satellite, if I am not mistaken. So an antenna is necessary in Gaffney and Spartanburg to receive all of the available Charlotte signals.

[tylerSC]

Speaking of DMA status, is Newberry classified Columbia or Greenville-Spartanburg market? The GSP stations cover news from Newberry, but it almost seems it should be considered Columbia market.

[jetsfan16]

Newberry is a part of the Columbia market. Even though they get both sets of network affiliates in full from Columbia and Greenville-Spartanburg. It is an odd Xfinity system, probably the only one within 50-75 miles surrounded by Spectrum.

WJZY is also on the system there, dating back all the way to probably their independent days. So they get 3 Fox affiliates. Not that it does much except for the rare time they are carrying different football games.

[IM42A]

Originally Posted by tylerSC

The Charlotte stations cover local news from York, Lancaster, Chester, and Chesterfield counties in SC. But the Columbia stations may tend to more extensively cover SC government and politics, as well as USC athletics. So for years viewers appreciated WIS carriage on cable in the SC portion of the Charlotte market, as well as WSPA from Spartanburg. I do know you can receive WIS, WOLO, and WSPA in Rock Hill and Fort Mill with an antenna, and WIS and WOLO can also be picked up in Lancaster County.

And the DMA boundaries tend to dictate local news coverage, which doesn't overlap as much as it used to. For example, all the Charlotte stations produce a strong signal in Gaffney and Cherokee County, but they ignore any news coverage from there and leave it to the Greenville-Spartanburg stations. The tall towers of WBTV, WCNC, and WJZY west of Charlotte blast a strong local grade signal into Gaffney, and even WSOC has a strong translator. But I think only WBTV and WSOC have limited standard definition cable carriage, and none of the Charlotte signals are available via satellite, if I am not mistaken. So an antenna is necessary in Gaffney and Spartanburg to receive all of the available Charlotte signals.

I know that out-of-market carriage on cable is becoming more rare than it used to be, but I thought that was because the DMA stations tended to be very protective of their markets, and did not want viewers watching stations from other markets. I'm not sure how retransmission fees could be a factor, otherwise OOM stations could simply say "hey, you can carry us for free, no problem, it helps increase our audience and the advertising rates we can charge". I thought that DMA stations were able to block OOM affiliates --- I do know that they fought a pitched battle in Lewis County KY, which is nestled between the Charleston-Huntington WV, Cincinnati, and Lexington markets. Due to the terrain, OTA reception of anything but Huntington stations (not Charleston) is almost impossible. People in Vanceburg began to think of the Lexington stations as their "locals" by default, Lexington's not that far away and it's just a matter of terrain. Yet the CH stations were able to get Lexington taken off Vanceburg cable. It's as plain as the nose on one's face, CH was afraid they would lose Lewis County to the Lexington DMA. Two Cincinnati stations (WCPO and WXIX) were allowed to remain, I suppose CH didn't fear losing Lewis to Cincinnati (which provides little local content to that area in the first place), whereas they most certainly did fear losing Lewis to Lexington, in-state news, in-state sports, and so on. The Lexington stations have always been very aggressive in pursuing far Eastern Kentucky viewers, and they would push their DMA all the way to the WV, OH, and VA borders if they could. Even people in Ashland feel a far closer affinity to Lexington than they do to Charleston, Charleston might as well be a foreign country even though it's only an hour away.


But there's probably no danger of a similar situation in South Carolina. The distances aren't as far, the terrain is far more hospitable to OOM OTA reception, and the Charlotte stations do a fairly adequate job of covering the far northern SC counties. It then becomes a case of "but do viewers want to have to jump through hoops, install antennas, A/B switches, and so on, to get in-state news that's not on cable or satellite?". As far as Gaffney is concerned, I thought Cherokee was in the GSA DMA, and strictly speaking, they wouldn't have to carry Charlotte at all, on either cable or satellite. I know that satellite providers tend to be very stingy about OOM stations, it takes being designated as an "orphan county" and having this backed up by the FCC, to force satellite carriers to add in-state OOM stations. This is what happened in Monongalia and Preston counties in West Virginia --- they are Pittsburgh DMA but were finally able to get Clarksburg stations added to their satellite lineups.


As far as Newberry County is concerned, they are now Columbia DMA but used to be GSA way back in the day, and I would say the cable carriage reflects this --- legacy stations that people are used to getting. It would probably create major problems with local viewers, for Columbia stations to assert DMA prerogative and force dropping the GSA stations. It's probably not quite the same situation as in Kentucky, where you have an aggressive Lexington market trying to peel off counties (which run small in KY in the first place) and attract viewers who might not have been historically accustomed to getting the Lexington stations, putting together a geographically large DMA one county at a time. I'm pretty sure Newberry County got the GSA TV Guide (which did not carry Columbia stations, not even WIS) all the way up to the end of local TV Guides in 2005. I didn't know GSA stations (or at least WYFF and WSPA) covered Newberry news, but then again, I never watch those stations --- can't get them! --- so I wouldn't know something like that.

[tylerSC]

Originally Posted by jetsfan16

Newberry is a part of the Columbia market. Even though they get both sets of network affiliates in full from Columbia and Greenville-Spartanburg. It is an odd Xfinity system, probably the only one within 50-75 miles surrounded by Spectrum.

WJZY is also on the system there, dating back all the way to probably their independent days. So they get 3 Fox affiliates. Not that it does much except for the rare time they are carrying different football games.

Well the GSP stations still cover Newberry so it may be considered significantly viewed if not the official market. And interesting about WJZY. But you probably can pick up some Charlotte TV signals there if you have a good outside antenna. Because I stopped in Newberry a few years back and the Charlotte radio stations came in good, and some of them originate from the same basic location west of Charlotte on the same TV towers. And perhaps WJZY is just out of range from interference from WZRB once you get up to Newberry. But WBTV and WCNC probably come in there, although not sure about WSOC and WCCB which are further away in Charlotte and their towers are not as tall.

[IM42A]

Originally Posted by tylerSC

Well the GSP stations still cover Newberry so it may be considered significantly viewed if not the official market. And interesting about WJZY. But you probably can pick up some Charlotte TV signals there if you have a good outside antenna. Because I stopped in Newberry a few years back and the Charlotte radio stations came in good, and some of them originate from the same basic location west of Charlotte on the same TV towers. And perhaps WJZY is just out of range from interference from WZRB once you get up to Newberry. But WBTV and WCNC probably come in there, although not sure about WSOC and WCCB which are further away in Charlotte and their towers are not as tall.

I know what you mean about WBTV/WCNC versus WSOC/WCCB. Actually, WSOC/WCCB are about ten miles closer to me, but I rarely if ever get them. That high location out at Dallas in Gaston County is really the catbird seat for tower placement, the Screaming Eagle Road of greater Charlotte. I must be in a "sweet spot" (similar to the way Boone and Blowing Rock get an OTA signal from WSPA, I did that with a rabbit ear from BR) for WBTV/WCNC, possibly pretty much of a straight shot. If I could get that 8-bay bowtie up a few feet, I might have them 24/7.


Actually, per the FCC list updated in 2016, all "Big Four" GSA stations, WYFF/WSPA/WLOS/WHNS, are considered significantly viewed in Newberry County, as is WJBF-6 Augusta, and curiously, only WIS and WLTX from Columbia. I see a fairly significant amount of Newberry news on the Columbia locals, so I'd never given much thought to GSA stations covering them as well. I know you know this, but DMAs only reflect a preponderance of the viewing in a county, not necessarily a vast majority of it. I have to think that people in between two markets, if those markets' stations are on cable as well as easily available OTA, may not think in terms of being in this market, or that one, but rather, they watch what they watch (and keeping in mind that people watch programs, not stations and not networks). So Newberry's situation may be more like 60% of the viewing being on Columbia stations and a not-insignificant 40% of it being on GSA stations.



I still have a hard time thinking of WYFF/WSPA and WLOS being in the same TV market, IMO by all rights they really should be separate markets, but the FCC settled that a long time ago. And it's to all the stations' advantage in that market to be part of one very large market instead of two smaller ones. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there seems to be an implicit understanding that WLOS only covers NC news, whereas WYFF and WSPA cover the SC side of the market. If I'm not mistaken --- again, I'll stand corrected --- WYFF emphasizes Greenville more, whereas WSPA emphasizes Spartanburg. That is how it used to be in the Charleston-Huntington WV market until WOWK-13 upped stakes and moved to Charleston, leaving WSAZ-3 as Huntington's only de facto television station. WSAZ is the only station in that area that really covers Kentucky (this no doubt to news gathering resources shared with Gray sister stations WKYT-27 Lexington and WYMT-57 Hazard), while WCHS/WOWK/WVAH make some token effort to cover Ohio. Covering three different states is a real hat trick, and I'm not sure it's really feasible --- two states is hard enough. In the meantime, WSAZ also jumps through hoops to cover Charleston, possibly the most coverage-saturated small city in the United States, talk about spreading themselves thin! People in Eastern Kentucky lament that stations from the Tri-Cities and Knoxville (and, to a lesser extent, Charleston-Huntington) have absolutely nothing to do with their region, but they can't get local WYMT-57 on satellite due to one-network-per-market limitations. To be fair, the same limitations also apply to, for instance, the various Wichita-based statewide networks in Kansas, or other markets with dual affiliates such as Tampa/Sarasota (ABC) and Grand Rapids/Battle Creek (again, ABC). NBC has pretty much, if not totally, squeezed out all of its secondary affiliates in a given market, such as happened in Washington/Hagerstown, Philadelphia/Wildwood, and Salt Lake City/Elko. The way I heard it, KSL-5 in SLC wasn't even aware there was another NBC affiliate in Elko (semi-satellite of NBC from Reno). Once they found out and complained to NBC, the Elko station lost NBC and became... a Comet TV affiliate (and lost its local news on top of that). I'm sorry, but that's a working definition of an utterly pointless TV station. Presto, northeastern Nevada lost its local news! At that point, selling the spectrum (assuming anyone would want to buy it in that remote area) would probably have been the best thing to do.

[IM42A]

Correction --- KENV is now a TBD O&O affiliate (Cunningham/Sinclair), not Comet.


In either case, you have to wonder what is the point of even having such a station. No way could it be profitable, and apparently they serve no local needs. Probably just a pass-through with no local content or advertising, similar to WZRB and other Ion stations. (But the Ion affiliates may be something waiting to happen, what with the larger diversity of programming they've recently introduced. Interesting to consider what would happen if WZRB became "NBC 47 Columbia" and WIS were left as a CW-only affiliate. It's not impossible. Similar things have happened in Jacksonville, Indianapolis, and even San Francisco, where legendary KRON-4 was left as a MyTV affiliate --- who even watches that network? --- albeit with a strong news operation to say the least.)



Has to be someone's tax write-off or something.

[tylerSC]

A few follow up remarks ...

As mentioned, the Greenville-Spartanburg market also includes Asheville, western NC and northern Georgia, which makes it a fairly large market, and the largest in SC. But ever since WLOS returned to digital RF13, their directional pattern provides a problematic signal in Upstate SC. I believe they may have to protect WBTW in Florence, SC, also on RF13. Although I heard an unconfirmed report that WBTW was wanting to move to UHF, but that may not happen.

And yes, WLOS primarily covers Asheville news, and WYFF and WSPA cover Upstate SC. Their coverage is pretty equally divided between Greenville and Spartanburg, and they don't separate the two like in years past. In fact, WSPA even has a downtown studio in Greenville where they anchor part of the news there as well as the main studio in Spartanburg.

In the Georgia portion of the market, viewers complain that no Atlanta stations are carried on cable, as there is less coverage of Georgia government and politics. But WYFF and WSPA do try to cover news from some of the Georgia counties, with WYFF doing the most coverage from there. Some folks with fringe antennas can pick up Atlanta in certain areas, and it would be nice if the Atlanta stations could add some translators to better serve that area as they may have done in years past.

And regarding the Dallas towers, they are indeed the strongest signals from Charlotte, transmitting from 2000 foot towers in western Gaston County. WBTV has had a very strong signal for years, and with the repack WJZY and WCNC are now top mounted as well. WSOC improved their repack signal by moving to RF19, but their tower inside Charlotte is not as tall. But they do have a translator on RF12 that reaches Spartanburg transmitting from Crowder's Mountain in Gaston County.

[tylerSC]

I have always been curious about the lower portion of Kentucky. I sometimes travel there to visit Frisch's Big Boy and the White Castle. Next time I may bring my own 24 inch TV and antenna and see what I can pick up. It is probably too far to pick up WLOS from Asheville, which reportedly reaches into Knoxville, Tennessee. But in areas such as London, Kentucky, can you receive Lexington or Louisville signals? Or stations from Knoxville or West Virginia? It may be a bit of a "no man's land" as you suggest. And around Lexington, are you able to pull in signals from Cincinnati? Interesting region.