Market Territory Map

The map presented above outlines 210 television markets in the United States. We structure these territories according to the "designated market areas" (DMAs) established by Nielson Media Research. As you'll see when you look at the detail maps for specific market areas, the boundaries of each market area follow county boundaries. Nielson Media Research assigns each county in the nation to a particular market area, based on which stations are viewed by the majority of residents within that county.

Multiple Broadcast Opportunities Within Each Market: When you secure the exclusive right to air one of our programs within your DMA market area, you have the right to run the show on both broadcast television stations and cable television franchise territories located within that particular market. Although the number of households within each market area varies significantly from area to area, most markets typically have a least two or three broadcast stations, and also a number of cable television territories. For example, the map of the Tucson, Arizona area shows that this single broadcast market also includes multiple cable franchise areas located within the three counties that comprise this designed market area.
Tucscon market map
Most broadcast markets include multiple cable television system territories,
such as the Tucson, Arizona market, as shown above.
 
Market Overlap: In outlying areas of some markets, residents can sometimes receive broadcast television signals from an adjacent market area in addition to signals from stations within their own market. This cannot be entirely avoided with broadcast television. However, consider that approximately 56% of American households subscribe to cable television, and cable system territories follow very specific geographic boundary lines, which guarantees that a show will air only to households within the cable franchise territory area.

When you license a program for your market, the license agreement specifies a list of broadcast and cable stations assigned to your market. We require that licensees buy air time only from the list of approved media specified in their license agreement. This prevents licensees in one market from running their show on media that airs in adjoining markets.

Broadcasting on "Superstations" and Satellite Networks: A handful of broadcast television stations in the country operate as "superstations" because their broadcasts reach multiple market areas via satellite relays. For example, superstations include broadcasters like WSBK in Boston and WPIX in New York. In order to preserve the exclusivity of the programming for our licensees, we do not allow our shows to be licensed for airing on superstations or on satellite television networks.
 


 
 
Cable vs. Broadcast TV

Within each market territory you generally have two options when it comes to buying half-hour time slots: cable franchises or local broadcast television stations. Here's a quick overview of how they compare:

Broadcast Television: These are stations that transmit over the air waves. Broadcast stations typically include the familiar "VHF" stations, such as the local affiliates for networks like ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. Broadcast stations provide a wider geographic coverage area in comparison to specific cable franchise areas, and also serve a larger percentage of the population, since this is "free" TV available to households that don't subscribe to cable television.

Cable Franchises: Cable systems provide "hard wired" television service to subscribers within carefully delineated geographic territories, and most broadcast markets include many separate cable franchise areas. For example, the map at left shows cable systems within the greater Tucson market area, and all these cable systems lie within a single broadcast DMA market.

Many cable franchises offer half-hour time slots for very inexpensive rates, and this is a great way to test a local show for a modest investment. Another advantage of cable television is that the average household income of cable subscribers tends to be higher than that of non-cable television households.