[BC] Live n lOcal

[Jeffrey Kopp]

>[Clive:] ** er, any reason why TV shouldn't also be LIVE n LOCAL?

Geography. This is a particular problem in the Pacific Northwest, where 
clumpy population distribution within a long, narrow corridor, low overall 
density causing a high channel per capita ratio, and mountainous terrain 
have combined to make broadcasting weaker in commercial viability. The 
markets have thus become focused upon the largest cities, with allocations 
gradually shuffled toward them over the decades, to the neglect of the rest.

Salem, Oregon, for example, is trapped between the Portland and Eugene 
markets. Their VHF station failed and its allocation removed twenty years 
ago. An independent UHF is currently struggling to get on-air.

Vancouver, Washington (not the bigger Vancouver, 300 miles north in British 
Columbia), is close within the Portland market. The nightly newscast of a 
Seattle station (the nearest Washington TV market, 170 miles distant) is 
carried on their cable system per requirement of the county, to improve 
local accessibility to news coverage of their own state's capital.