WLNE airing infomercials in place of 7p news

[Doug Drown]

>> 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. 

Makes me wonder whether a network-affiliated VHF would have survived in 
Worcester, had WTAG fulfilled its plans back in the '50s. 

  -Doug



Quoting Garrett Wollman <wollman@bimajority.org>:
> <<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  Once that rule was repealed, they could -- and eventually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
>