Interesting TV Development … Are There Any More Areas in 2 N

[Andy Piascik]

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.

[MarbleEye]

At one time, one could see at least some home games of Buffalo, Pittsburgh and Cleveland in Erie, Pennsylvania which is beyond 75 miles from each of those 3 communities. I don't know if that is still true or not (but would guess it isn't).

In the 1960's growing up in Cleveland, we had a paleozoic cable system called Telerama that was designed primarily to give TV to areas that had very poor TV reception. The side benefit to having Telerama was, in the days before specific cable channels like ESPN or USA, was that their antenna was so tall it easily pulled in TV signals from Detroit, Toledo, Youngstown, Erie, Pittsburgh, London Ontario etc. So you could see most Browns home & away games and probably some other games as well (it's been awhile now.)

Living in Clark County NV I get local TV stations from Salt Lake City and Las Vegas on my cable system, but my NFL coverage seems to be the same as if I was in just one market. It doesnt appear I get anything extra in the way of NFL, which is probably by design and not accident.

[Rupert Patrick]

I live halfway between Atlanta and Charlotte and they're always shifting the local TV market between the Panthers and Falcons based on which team did better the previous season and making that team the primary team and the other the secondary team. I guess in 2017 Greenville-Spartanburg-Asheville will be a Falcons TV market again.

[Steviek]

I recall that there were a lot of viewers on Eastern Long Island that could easily pick up the WFSB Channel 3 signal being that it was only about 30 miles from Hartford as the crow flies. So I would imagine there were a lot of similar motels that used this to their advantage to show Giants games.

WFSB also televised a lot of Hartford Whaler games back in the day, but obviously that wasn't as bit of a deal in the NY area.

[Andy Piascik]

Interesting stuff, thanks. At least one book I read years ago, maybe Eskenazi's, claimed there were several bars in midtown Manhattan that could get an intermittent signal from WFSB many years ago. The picture would fade in and out so much, though, that it was basically impossible to really follow the game.

Needless to say, the number of Patriots fans in SW Connecticut has increased dramatically the last 15 years. In the 1960s and early 1970s when I was a kid and still followed sports, there were hardly any even among people who rooted for the other Boston teams. It was very common to find somebody who rooted for the Red Sox, Celtics, Bruins and, say, Cowboys or Packers as their football team and that was still true before the Patriots won the Super Bowl for the first time. Now they're everywhere and I imagine a lot of them are going to be ticked off when they find out they're going to have to ante up for Sunday Ticket to see all Patriots games.

I suppose this is one instance where if football is the main thing somebody watches on TV, that it would actually be beneficial to get rid of cable, as I believe it's still possible to get WFSB in Fairfield County if you have a good antenna.

[BD Sullivan]

I've mentioned before that the last weekend if December 1964 must have offered up a booming business for motels in Erie. On Saturday, the Bills were playing at home in the AFL Championship and the next day, the Browns were hosting the NFL title game. Considering it was Christmas weekend, it presumably would have meant plenty of vacancies, so it was probably a godsend for those places.