Interesting TV Development … Are There Any More Areas in 2 N
Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2017 4:32 pm
As of last week, cable TV subscribers in southwestern Connecticut will no longer receive the CBS affiliate in Hartford, WFSB, as part of their basic cable package. This comes a few years after the elimination of the Fox Hartford affiliate, WTIC, from the cable package of those in SW Connecticut. Among other things, that means people in SW Connecticut will no longer be able to see basically every Patriots game the way they’ve been able for decades, along with all Jets and Giants games.
Are there any other areas where people are able to watch all games of NFL teams from two different markets via cable? For example, are there parts of central New Jersey where people have both Eagles and Giants/Jets telecasts as part of their basic cable package? Or are there areas somewhere in between Cleveland, Buffalo and Pittsburgh where people can see some combination of every Browns, Bills or Steelers games?
WFSB actually has an interesting history with the NFL going back to the early years of TV. Mention was made recently in another thread of how before 1973, only stations that were more than 75 miles from a market could televise home games of the team in that market. Since Hartford is 100 miles from New York City, WFSB for years televised Giants home games during the time when CBS was home to NFL, and later NFC, games. And since WFSB’s signal reaches most all of Fairfield County, depending on how good an antenna one had, that meant just about everybody in Connecticut could watch Giants home games including folks just a few miles across the New York border.
In the early 1960s when the Giants were regular contenders and Yankee Stadium was sold out every game, fans from New York City, Westchester and other places would travel to Stamford and points east to watch Giants homes games on WFSB in bars, motels, hotels and at the homes of friends or family. For especially big games, according to sources like the New York Herald Tribune, thousands of people would do this. It got so that some larger hotels and motels, rather than requiring each patron or group of patrons to check into a separate room for 3-4 hours, instead set aside rooms with multiple TVs, food spreads and bar service for which they’d charge an entry fee, sort of like the later sports bar scene. According to Gerald Eskenazi’s account of this phenomenon in They Were Giants in Those Days, some even had marching bands come to entertain patrons at halftime.
And though Hartford has long been a Giants stronghold, in at least one season – 1957 – WFSB instead was part of the extensive independent TV network that televised all Browns game prior to the CBS/NFL exclusivity contract. This may have been the case in other seasons as well, though I’ve never been able to find comprehensive information about the Browns network, which apparently reached every part of the country at its peak.
It’s always surprised me that the NFL didn’t exert enough pressure to eliminate the two market thing in SW Connecticut years ago given how dedicated they are to maximizing profits. That’s why I’d be curious to hear if there’s a similar situation elsewhere now, which I highly doubt.
Are there any other areas where people are able to watch all games of NFL teams from two different markets via cable? For example, are there parts of central New Jersey where people have both Eagles and Giants/Jets telecasts as part of their basic cable package? Or are there areas somewhere in between Cleveland, Buffalo and Pittsburgh where people can see some combination of every Browns, Bills or Steelers games?
WFSB actually has an interesting history with the NFL going back to the early years of TV. Mention was made recently in another thread of how before 1973, only stations that were more than 75 miles from a market could televise home games of the team in that market. Since Hartford is 100 miles from New York City, WFSB for years televised Giants home games during the time when CBS was home to NFL, and later NFC, games. And since WFSB’s signal reaches most all of Fairfield County, depending on how good an antenna one had, that meant just about everybody in Connecticut could watch Giants home games including folks just a few miles across the New York border.
In the early 1960s when the Giants were regular contenders and Yankee Stadium was sold out every game, fans from New York City, Westchester and other places would travel to Stamford and points east to watch Giants homes games on WFSB in bars, motels, hotels and at the homes of friends or family. For especially big games, according to sources like the New York Herald Tribune, thousands of people would do this. It got so that some larger hotels and motels, rather than requiring each patron or group of patrons to check into a separate room for 3-4 hours, instead set aside rooms with multiple TVs, food spreads and bar service for which they’d charge an entry fee, sort of like the later sports bar scene. According to Gerald Eskenazi’s account of this phenomenon in They Were Giants in Those Days, some even had marching bands come to entertain patrons at halftime.
And though Hartford has long been a Giants stronghold, in at least one season – 1957 – WFSB instead was part of the extensive independent TV network that televised all Browns game prior to the CBS/NFL exclusivity contract. This may have been the case in other seasons as well, though I’ve never been able to find comprehensive information about the Browns network, which apparently reached every part of the country at its peak.
It’s always surprised me that the NFL didn’t exert enough pressure to eliminate the two market thing in SW Connecticut years ago given how dedicated they are to maximizing profits. That’s why I’d be curious to hear if there’s a similar situation elsewhere now, which I highly doubt.