WLNE airing infomercials in place of 7p news

[Garrett Wollman]

<<On Thu, 17 Mar 2011 21:21:58 -0400, "Doug Drown" <revdoug1@myfairpoint.net> said:

> There's something about this that doesn't make sense to me; maybe someone 
> can explain it.  If WLNE (nee WTEV) was modestly successful in its early 
> years targeting New Bedford-Fall River and the rest of southeastern Mass., 
> why couldn't the same be true today?

Because Bristol County is in the Providence TV market.  WLNE is
competing against Providence stations for advertisers, all of whom are
selling the entire Providence market.  There is no New
Bedford-specific market for television advertising; it's simply too
small and too close to Providence to have a viable local market.  Such
advertisers as are there and can afford to buy television will be
trying to attract customers from Rhode Island.  (BTW, all five of the
commercial TVs in the Providence market now transmit from Rehoboth,
Mass.)

In days of yore, all stations were required to have studios in their
communities of license.  Indeed, WLNE once filed a rulemaking to
reallocate channels 6, 10, and 12 to "Providence-New Bedford", which
would have allowed it under the old rules to move its studios to
Providence.  Once that rule was repealed, they could -- and eventually
did -- simply move to Providence and mention New Bedford once an hour.

-GAWollman