Princeton Area - NY or Philly? (Toms River, Trenton: live in, station, radio)

[invertigo]

Does anyone know if the Princeton area is considered the NY or Philadelphia market? What TV/radio stations are most prominent there? Geographically, it seems right in the middle.

[mike0421]

It's on the border, kind of like Lakehurst/Lakewood, but it's media circulation (electronic and print) favors New York. New York television stations, and you'll see more Star Ledger than South Jersey Courier Post.

[LittleMissSunshine]

Mercer County is part of both the NYC and Philly MSA. You get NY and Philly TV stations in most of Mercer County (which is cool when you like a syndicated show and it goes on at 7 in the NY market and 7:30 in the Philly market and they each show different episodes!).

You can get some new york radio stations depending where in the county you are, but some do not come in, especially the ones who share a frequency with a philly station like 100.3. Most Philly radio stations come in and then Princeton also has its own NJ hit music station 94.5 PST which they kind of refer to as a "Trenton / Philly Station".

[Badfish740]

I'd have to say it's totally split. In the Mercer County area you have channels 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, and 10 which are all ABC/NBC/CBS/Fox affiliates out of New York and Philadelphia. Depending on which sports scores you want, tune in accordingly As far as news radio you also have a wide selection-1010, 770, 660, and 880 are the AM New York stations, and 1060 and a handfull of others are out of Philly. As the previous poster mentioned there's a large selection of FM stations as well. Although it can sometimes depend on where exactly you are at any given time due to the topography of the land. Sometimes you get New York stations where you wouldn't expect it and vice versa. I always liked that I could switch between 92.3 and 94.1 and hear Howard Stern no matter when I was in the state, but now I have Sirius so that solves that problem. Finally though, if you want spot on traffic and weather, tune into 101.5 which is the one and only New Jersey news/talk station-the talk makes me gag, but I don't get on the Turnpike or the Parkway without listening to their reports first.

As for print media the biggest newspaper in Mercer is the Trenton Times, which is now part of the Star Ledger, so I don't know where that's going-I'm hoping that they don't kill the Trenton Times and just circulate the Star Ledger over a wider area. You really don't see the South Jersey/Philly papers much though. While more indicitive of Princeton itself rather the entire county, the New York Times is everywhere.

You're right though when you say that Princeton is right in the middle. It's the region where "Iggles" and Giants/Flyers and Devils fans collide, some people "tawk" on the phone and some people say the words "phone" and "home" strangely. We Mercerites are conflicted people.

[invertigo]

So am I to understand that you end up with double of the local network stations?? That's weird....or is it one or the other. In other words, will I have a CBS NY, but an NBC Philly or both stations from both cities?

I know Mercerites to be conflicted. My boss likes the Yankees and the Eagles. You can't do that!! I call that a frontrunner!! If you want the pride and tradition of the Yankees, well you have to take the frustrations of the Giants along with it....and vice versa of course.

Also, how does football on tv work? I know in the NY area, if the Jets and Giants are on, no other games can be on against them. I'm sure it's the same thing with the Eagles.....so what if they are both one o clock games??

[Badfish740]

Hmmm...well, here is the rundown:

Channel 2 - WCBS New York (CBS)
Channel 3 - WKYW Philadelphia (CBS)
Channel 4 - WNBC New York (NBC)
Channel 5 - WNYW New York (Fox)
Channel 6 - WPVI Philadelphia (ABC)
Channel 7 - WABC New York (ABC)
Channel 8 - CN8 (If you have Comcast) NJ News/sports
Channel 9 - WWOR (MY9) New York/New Jersey (Out of Secaucus)
Channel 10 - WCAU Philadelphia (NBC)

New York channels run New York games, Philly channels run Philly games. Yep, its weird down here I'm a Devils/Giants fan myself and hate Philadelphia teams with a passion so I was in Flyers/Rangers hell until we got Fox Sports Network on our cable system finally. For some reason as a kid I always gravitated toward channel 6 out of Philadelphia despite the fact that my teams didn't exist to them. I grew up with Dave Roberts, Lisa Thomas-Lori, Tug McGraw, Jim Gardner, and of course, Don Polec!

[invertigo]

Does anyone know where the NY media officially stops? I would assume that starting with Burlington County, it's all Philly all the time.

[JerzBoy]

NY media definitely stops in Burlington Co. Burlco is all philly all the time. I'm not sure about Ocean county tho. Do they get NY or Philly Media or both?

[OBXJunkie]

I live in Mercer and get both - the morning news is all Philly then switches to Today show as an example, however at 10:AM NBC goes back to Philly

[tahiti]

Originally Posted by JerzBoy

NY media definitely stops in Burlington Co. Burlco is all philly all the time. I'm not sure about Ocean county tho. Do they get NY or Philly Media or both?

I know LBI in Ocean County is Philly stations if you get Comcast. I want to say Toms River, about 25 minutes north, is NYC. Oh, and Wildwood is some weird South Jersey (Atlantic City?) station, no NYC or Philly to my knowledge.