Re: Another TV news station for Springfield

[Paul Anderson <paulranderson@charter.net>]

On Saturday, October 11, 2003, at 04:52  AM, Chris Beckwith wrote:

> Meredith has bought W67DF from Trinity and will operate it as a 
> satellite of WFSB/Hartford and start up a news operation in 
> Springfield.  The switchover is expected to occur on January 1st 
> pending FCC approval.  The station will be branded "CBS3."  Can the 
> market support three players?  Will this knock out Sinclair?  There's 
> been a bad luck streak lately with UHF ABC affiliates...

Unless Springfield area cable companies carry W67DF instead of WFSB, I 
can't see how this will be a success.  No one is going to turn to a 
snowy picture on channel 67 to watch either local news or WFSB programs 
when WWLP and WGGB already do it and WFSB has such a good signal in 
Springfield.

I could imagine that WFSB's production might be of better quality, 
though, so who knows?  WGGB is a Sinclair-owned UHF ABC affiliate, but 
since all but one station in the area are UHF it's not the same 
scenario.

Paul