# What determines the DMA?



## Link (Feb 2, 2004)

What exactly determines what counties make up a DMA? One county just west of us, Clay County, Illinois gets St. Louis Locals on Dish Network as well as distant stations and has for a few years now. According to Dish, Clay County is in the map for St. Louis.

However, in this same county, if you have Directv, they don't consider it in St. Louis DMA but in Terre Haute's DMA, so they won't let customers there have St. Louis locals. When you type in zip codes for that county on zap2it.com's TV listings it comes up as DISH Terre Haute as a choice, but its actually Dish St. Louis.

How can Dish offer one DMA to a county but Directv considers it another? This makes no sense. Needless to say there are more Dish customers.


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## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

Basically a major ratings service whose name begins with a N draws up the lines and determines which counties are part of a particular DMA. The SHIVA legislation which authorizes the locals to be carried over DBS has the FCC use those maps to determine which locals you can subscribe to.

No, the broadcasters do not want you to be watching locals outside of your local market even though they may be carried on your local cable system.


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## Greg Bimson (May 5, 2003)

And, because a DBS company can use any year's maps starting with 1999, Dish Network is using a map of St. Louis that contains Clay County, while DirecTV is using a different years map which does not contain Clay County.


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## Link (Feb 2, 2004)

Greg Bimson said:


> And, because a DBS company can use any year's maps starting with 1999, Dish Network is using a map of St. Louis that contains Clay County, while DirecTV is using a different years map which does not contain Clay County.


Interesting. Quite honestly, I'd say the whole county is in a white area. I don't see how they can receive St. Louis stations or Terre Haute stations over the air clearly. Both cities are at least 100 miles away.


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## Geronimo (Mar 23, 2002)

White areas are still in DMAs. All that would mean is that you could also get ditant nets under current law.


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## Greg Bimson (May 5, 2003)

Nielsen measures viewership of stations on a per county basis. Although the county may be a "white area", it most certainly has been served by cable for some time. It wouldn't surprise me to learn the cable company in Clay County has been rebroadcasting both the St. Louis and Terre Haute local channels. And, of course, that is exactly what Nielsen is using to measure the viewership, and specifically how much of the county is watching channels from one locality more than the other.


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