Channel 67
I might have missed this if I didn't actually read my cable TV bill...

In order to comply with contractural obligations necessary to provide our customers with continued CBS Network Programming, effective Jan. 1, 2004, Comcast will be replacing WFSB (3) - CBS (Hartford, CT) with WSHM (67) - CBS (Springfield, MA).

There's a new station in town? Competition for WWLP and WGGB? Well, yes, but not quite in the way you'd think. This isn't what it appears to be. Seems that Meredith Corporation, the Iowa-based parent of WFSB, has hooked up a few Die Hard batteries to a CB antenna, and created a new, low-power station that will pretty much re-broadcast Channel 3 for a couple of blocks around Springfield and Holyoke.

What's the point to that, when the signal on Channel 3 has pretty much served as the CBS station around these parts for a skillion years, and was still there last time I checked in with rabbit ears?

Well, blame, among other factors, the invisible boundaries of the A.C. Nielsen Company. Hartford and Springfield are in separate TV markets, which is unusual for cities so close to one another geographically, but has much to do with the fact both cities already had a bunch of affiliated stations on the air when the time came to draw up marketing boundaries.

Because the "Hartford market" encompasses most of Connecticut, it has a lot more viewers than the "Springfield market." So, the CT market's big enough to be "metered," where a sample of viewers are wired for instantaneous ratings feedback, as opposed to the old-fashioned viewership diaries they use up here during the traditional "sweeps" periods.

Since the meters went in, we ceased to matter at all to the Connecticut stations. They're using this overnight ratings service that only counts CT viewers, and only attracts CT advertisers. How much we stopped mattering has been most apparent on the Fox and CBS networks, which don't have affiliates in WMass, and where they've retreated into such target-market programming as "Connecticut's Prime News." But at the same time, those stations have been cut off from tempting our discretionary income. And they want a piece of that.

So, WFSB has found a way to get back into the game for WMass advertising money. That's all this is about. And, by treating low-power channel 67 as a full fledged, stand-alone affiliate, they can force the weak signal into the local access cable lineups, a trick long employed by the "home shopping" and "Pax network" stations of the world.

How this benefits our north o' the border viewership, or how this represents "broadcasting in the public interest," remains to be seen. No local news or public affairs programming is in the works. Big deal? Well, yes, when you consider the FCC's original intent behind issuing low-power TV licenses was to increase the availability of local channels for local broadcasters, instead of big corporations. 1:02:16 PM    comment []trackback []