Because I have seen sooooo many figures which have been pulled from innumerable unnamed sources I just felt that it would be nice of me to put a semi-respecable one here so we can all see it. This is really the most important one anyway to a league wishing to gain exposure and TV ratings. http://www.nielsenmedia.com/DMAs.html
yup, these are the figures I like to cite. the onlt problem with them is that they lump areas together in strange ways. Example 91 Burlington-Plattsburgh 317,700 0.298 176 Watertown 89,580 0.084 ok, if anyone here knows upstate NY these have true relevence. if you have been to Plattsburg or Burlinngton across the lake in VT you know that they are no where near 317,700 in population combined. let alone potential TV viewers. You also know that the combined populations of Clinton county 79,894 (plattsburg) Chittenden 146571 (Burlington) dont come any where near that figure include grand Isle County 6901 wich lies between them and you havnt helped the numbers much. franklin in VT is reasonably close, and has 45417 residents Washington County and its 58039 residents are quite a hike away, and are centered around Montpiilare (VT's capitol), and Barre anything esle on that side of the river is in Canada. essex 38851 franklin 51132 all either in the Adarondacks and centered around Lake Placid and Saranc lake I grew up in Potsdam wich is in St Lawrence. We got 1 chanel from Watertown, and like 5 from Ottawa in Canada. that is it locally. Jefferson County 111,738 is actually higher in Population than its viewership number. however like I said, I was part of that 89,580 viewers number and I was in the middle of St lawrence 111,931 not to mention that at least once a month we would go to Ottawa, and a few times a year got to Watertown for various reasons. however, only for specific "tourist" reasons go to Burlington, and less than once a year sure i just typed a whole bunch for no reason, but I hope it made my point. furthermore. the NY viewership # is very simular to the actual incorporated city of New York. 7 mill plus. however around 22 million feed off of NY, and consume its media. I live 100 miles east of NY, and rely heavily on the city. all my radio stations are from the city and all tv stations come from NY the only exceptions are TV 55 and Long Island News 12 even those however are fairly NY centric. basicly i am saying BLECH! Lies and Statistics
Alright, first of all here's a link to explain how they define the areas: http://www.krgspec.com/Library/DMA.cfm Secondly, at the top of the list which you are calling population there is written "TV Households." This indicates (to me at least) that it is not a measure of population.
No jokes skippy, but as i see it, you have to have people in order to have TV households. now maybe there is a compound of 50-100k vacant tents with TV access, but if there are no people, then NO ONE IS WATCHING so my difficulty with the numbers still stands
I don't think you understand how this works. The main center of population for a given area is cited, that's the first column. After that is the TV Households figure, which is derived from all the households in the area WHICH IS NOT DEFINED HERE. Just because a certain city is given does not mean that other places may not be included. Even though a place may be, by your experience, quite a hike, that does not preclude it being included in a given area based on "Historical Television Viewing Patterns." Here's the kicker, "Every county or split county in the United States is assigned exclusively to one DMA." So something may be quite a hike or even more from the stated population center, and still be included in the DMA. Your problem, as I understand it, dealt with DMAs 91 and 176 and I really don't believe that they are relevant to a discussion of MLS expansion as they are unlikely to field a bid.
Of course, another measure that should be taken into account when looking at possible expansion locales is the population of their metropolitan areas. Here's a link to an acrobat file from the U.S. Census with numbers from 2000: http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t3/tab03.pdf While most of the Nielsen and Census rankings compare pretty closely, Rochester is one place where there's a fairly significant difference in rankings: Metro Area.....Nielsen rank....Census rank Philadelphia...........4....................6 Detroit..................10..................8 Houston................11..................10 Seattle.................12..................13 Cleveland..............15..................16 Portland................23..................23 Oklahoma City......45..................49 Tulsa....................60..................59 Rochester.............77...................47
I think metro area is a better indicator than nielsen rankings. MLS is a gate-driven league and will be for years to come. Rochester's tv market is smaller because it is technically separate from Syracuse's and Buffalo's. I say "technically" because with the advent of cable, directtv and other satallite networks, I think nielsen rankings will become less and less relevant over the coming years/decades. Nielsen markets are based on network television when most local tv packages for MLS will be brought to you via cable companies that cross nielsen market borders: NESN, MSG, FoxSports Southwest, Cox Cable, etc. The attractiveness of the potential expansions teams' local tv packages may be more important than the perceived size of their media markets. MLS needs to find markets with a combination of high population, a less crowded sports market, and access to a large media market... in other words, when looking at potential franchise cities the league simply needs to do it's homework and not rely solely on dry statistics. <obligatory NASL reference> Tulsa had the NASL's smallest nielsen market but had games shown on the ABC affiliate for it's first 3 years and the NBC affiliate for the next couple of years after that... Chicago had trouble drawing fans until WGN started showing the Sting's games during the baseball strike... Would Rochester have games televised on a local channel or would a regional cable sports network be able to televise games to potential audiences that include nielsen markets in Syracuse and Buffalo? Would games in OKC or Tulsa be shown on Cox Cable, giving them access to both of Oklahoma's nielsen markets? (leaving out cable customers in rural areas of Oklahoma), could they get some games on FoxSports Southwest? (access to a multi-state regional market), or get the equivalent of an ESPNplus that shows games on UPN or WB stations in more than one market? (hopefully). Would Philly be the right place to locate a franchise if Comcast were not involved? If Atlanta gets a team, could MLS access the superstation/TNT market? If so... would anybody watch??? Questions, questions, questions... That's why people pay big bucks for feasability studies, folks...
I remember when MLS started, and I thought "Columbus?!" they've got to be kidding. Well, they weren't, and the Crew have been successful. And probably one of the three best orgainizations (from start to finish -- some teams have had some really lean years). MLS got into central Ohio, before the NHL, and any other major sport. I think MLS should be willing to go to the second tier markets and thrive, as opposed to going into major markets and floundering. Rochester deserves a team. They'll be the only show in town.