[Sly Fox]

I don't generally drag my business onto the board. But I thought some of you might find the following interesting. Nielsen has released their Top 100 Markets for 2008:

1 New York
2 Los Angeles
3 Chicago
4 Philadelphia
5 Dallas-Ft. Worth
6 San Francisco
7 Boston (Manchester)
8 Atlanta
9 Washington, DC (Hagerstown)
10 Houston
11 Detroit
12 Phoenix (Prescott)
13 Tampa-St. Pete (Sarasota)
14 Seattle-Tacoma
15 Minneapolis-St. Paul
16 Miami-Ft. Lauderdale
17 Cleveland-Akron (Canton)
18 Denver
19 Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbourne
20 Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto
21 St. Louis
22 Pittsburgh
23 Portland, OR
24 Baltimore
25 Charlotte
26 Indianapolis
27 San Diego
28 Raleigh-Durham (Fayetteville)
29 Hartford & New Haven
30 Nashville
31 Kansas City
32 Columbus, OH
33 Cincinnati
34 Milwaukee
35 Salt Lake City
36 Greenville-Spartanburg-Asheville-And
37 San Antonio
38 West Palm Beach-Ft. Pierce
39 Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo-Battle Creek
40 Birmingham (Anniston, Tuscaloosa)
41 Harrisburg-Lancaster-Leb-York
42 Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News
43 Las Vegas
44 Albuquerque-Santa Fe
45 Oklahoma City
46 Greensboro-High Point-Winston Salem
47 Memphis
48 Louisville
49 Jacksonville
50 Buffalo
51 Austin
52 Providence-New Bedford
53 New Orleans
54 Wilkes Barre-Scranton
55 Fresno-Visalia
56 Albany-Schenectady-Troy
57 Little Rock-Pine Bluff
58 Knoxville
59 Richmond-Petersburg
60 Tulsa
61 Mobile-Pensacola (Ft Walton)
62 Dayton
63 Ft. Myers-Naples
64 Lexington
65 Charleston-Huntington
66 Flint-Saginaw-Bay City
67 Roanoke-Lynchburg
68 Tucson (Sierra Vista)
69 Wichita-Hutchinson Plus
70 Green Bay-Appleton
71 Des Moines-Ames
72 Toledo
73 Honolulu
74 Springfield, MO
75 Omaha
76 Portland-Auburn
77 Spokane
78 Rochester, NY
79 Paducah-Cape Girard-Harsbg
80 Syracuse
81 Columbia, SC
82 Shreveport
83 Huntsville-Decatur (Florence), AL
84 Champaign & Springfield-Decatur, IL
85 Madison
86 Chattanooga
87 Cedar Rapids-Waterloo-IWC & Dub
88 Harlingen-Weslaco-Brownsville-McAllen
89 South Bend-Elkhart
90 Jackson, MS
91 Tri-Cities, TN-VA
92 Burlington-Plattsburgh
93 Colorado Springs-Pueblo
94 Baton Rouge
95 Waco-Temple-Bryan
96 Davenport-Rock Island-Moline
97 Savannah
98 El Paso (Las Cruces)
99 Johnstown-Altoona-St Colge
100 Charleston, SC

[Knucklehead]

Yea 67 woo hoo. For the 19 years I've worked here we have bounced from 66 to 69 and all pts in between.

[LUconn]

Roanoke and Lynchburg, that's like 1/3 of the state

[shukcb04]

67 yet we still cant get competition in cable tv.

[El Scorcho]

67 yet we still cant get competition in cable tv.

You mean competing cable services in the same area? That doesn't exist in the United States.

[LUconn]

or better yet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collusion

(there's no picture for that)

[bigsmooth]

sly, i have seen some reporters/anchors go from the rke/lynchburg market to raleigh/durham. so a 67 to a 28. is that more a proximity thing or are the market jumps that big in regards to promotions?? so when you reach a top 30 market is the next move a top 10 or to the network?

[shukcb04]

67 yet we still cant get competition in cable tv.

You mean competing cable services in the same area? That doesn't exist in the United States.

Yes it does. My friend used to live somewhere in Kentucky (can't remember where it was), but he had two choices when it came to cable tv, and no im not including satellite.

[El Scorcho]

Well I'd be interested to know where that was, and also willing to bet there aren't still two competing companies there today.

I've never been anywhere in the U.S. where you had a choice between cable providers because, under FCC rules and regulations the cable companies own the physical infrastructure for the markets they serve. They don't have to share it because it would be a nightmare for two companies to be on the same physical system. It just wouldn't work.

Verizon is emerging as a third option to cable and satellite in many areas, but that'll be a slow roll out.

[thepostman]

67 yet we still cant get competition in cable tv.

You mean competing cable services in the same area? That doesn't exist in the United States.

Yes it does. My friend used to live somewhere in Kentucky (can't remember where it was), but he had two choices when it came to cable tv, and no im not including satellite.

Kentucky?? hmm...odd....I lived in Orlando for a while and 3/4 of the city had BrightHouse (Time Warner) and then a 1/4 had Comcast...but nobody had a choice in the matter...which is why I find it odd that anywhere in Kentucky would have competing cable companies....

[BJWilliams]

Im happy to see my home area slot in at #42.

[prototype]

67 yet we still cant get competition in cable tv.

You mean competing cable services in the same area? That doesn't exist in the United States.

Yes it does. My friend used to live somewhere in Kentucky (can't remember where it was), but he had two choices when it came to cable tv, and no im not including satellite.

El Scorcho is correct on this one. Cable is control by the FCC and rights to particular areas are exclusively offered one cable option. There are in some cases areas with larger MSAs that have two or more cable companies, like the Lynchburg MSA - we have Jet and Comcast, but neither can sell out of their territories.

[LUconn]

and neither can sell in my territory. I'm like on some sort of frontier land or something.

[shukcb04]

the FCC is clearly operated by a bunch of socialists who don't understand the value of competition and free trade.

[El Scorcho]

Or by an educated group of people that understand the technical impossibilities of multiple cable providers operating on a single set of cable infrastructure.

It's like this...

In the city of Lynchburg there are sets of pipes under the ground that bring water to city residents. The city has a monopoly on that water service because it's technically impossible for two companies to pump water through one set of pipes and distinguish who pumped what where. That does even get into who's responsible for all of the pipes, pumps, treatment facilities, etc. along the way. It's just not possible. Every company who wanted to deliver water would have to run their own set of pipes to every house in the city.

It's the same thing with cable companies. They paid to build and maintain the infrastructure, therefore they get a monopoly (albeit regulated) on the service provided over that infrastructure. They made an investment that they're recouping on.

[Sly Fox]

We have both Verizon and AT&T offering broadband cable service in competition to Comcast in certain portions of Houston. It hasn't arrived in my neighborhood yet. But as frustrated as I have been with Comcast since they took over the Houston operations from Time Warner I'd be anxious to give it a shot.

So while it is techincally true that cable companies get a license to have a monopoly in a particular service area, technology is allowing service to begin arriving by other means such as phone lines.

And I fully suspect at some point the cable industry will be deregulated like the power companies so there will be competition over cable lines in the not too distant future. Just like you can choose your energy provider but still have the local utility service the lines, I would suspect it will be a similar arrangement soon for cable services. Then again, technology may render that practice useless once new infrastructure is in place for new means.

[SuperJon]

I've never been able to choose between power companies.

[El Scorcho]

We have both Verizon and AT&T offering broadband cable service in competition to Comcast in certain portions of Houston.

Right, but that's not "cable television". It's IP television over a fiber network. There will be lots of competition for media services once we all have fiber to our homes, because then, finally, there will be the bandwidth and means to support connecting to anyone's network to get your content.

And I fully suspect at some point the cable industry will be deregulated like the power companies so there will be competition over cable lines in the not too distant future. Just like you can choose your energy provider but still have the local utility service the lines, I would suspect it will be a similar arrangement soon for cable services. Then again, technology may render that practice useless once new infrastructure is in place for new means.

If cable gets deregulated, prices are going to go way up. Because, at that point, the only thing the cable companies will have left to profit on is their infrastructure, just like the phone companies. They'll become middlemen in the delivery system and the cost will get passed on to us, the consumers. I'm not sure the cable industry can survive deregulation if it happens after fiber connections become commonplace anyway. The cable infrastructure is vastly inferior to the phone infrastructure when fiber is in the picture.

[shukcb04]

everyone should just get satellite if possible. its far superior price wise as long as you dont have a bunch of tvs and need a receiver for each one.

[SuperJon]

We had satellite at home. The price got so outrageously high that we switched back.

[El Scorcho]

everyone should just get satellite if possible. its far superior price wise as long as you dont have a bunch of tvs and need a receiver for each one.

And as long as you don't need a fast Internet connection.

[shukcb04]

verizon has dsl if you live in the right part of Lynchburg.

[SuperJon]

Cable >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> DSL

[FlameDad]

got connected to fiber optic tv & internet 2 weeks ago

better, faster, cheaper, more options than comcast

[mrmacphisto]

That list is crap.

Oh come on – someone had to say it.