Affiliation
Main article: List of MyNetworkTV affiliatesTo date, 172 stations are affiliated with the network, reaching approximately 106 million households and covering 96% of the US. This number includes six stations owned at the time by companies involved in the founding of the competing CW network: three owned by Tribune Broadcasting (located in Atlanta, Georgia; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Seattle, Washington), and three owned by CBS Corporation; however, Gannett Company purchased WATL, the Atlanta Tribune station, shortly after Fox confirmed it as a MyNetworkTV affiliate (Gannett's acquisition of WATL was finalized on August 7, 2006). The Tribune sold out its stake in the WB in exchange for long term affiliation contracts with the CW network and no longer has an ownership stake in The CW. CBS is part owner.
On March 6, 2006, Sinclair Broadcast Group announced that 17 of its stations, mostly affiliates of The WB but also a few from UPN and some independent stations, would become MyNetworkTV affiliates in September 2006. This occurred despite the widespread presumption that affiliation with The CW, which at this point was still available in most markets, would be more valuable; however, Sinclair implied that MyNetworkTV was more financially attractive for the company. Some of the markets the 17 Sinclair stations occupy include Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Tampa, Florida; Cincinnati, Ohio; San Antonio, Texas; Birmingham, Alabama; Raleigh, North Carolina; Syracuse, New York; Nashville, Tennessee; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (The San Antonio station has since switched to The CW.)
On March 7, 2006, Raycom Media announced that its WB and UPN stations would become MyNetworkTV affiliates that September. Those stations were WUAB in Cleveland, Ohio, KFVE in Honolulu, Hawaii, and WBXH-CA in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
One of the stations named in an April 26, 2006 announcement of MyNetworkTV affiliates was KNVA in Austin, Texas, which The CW had added to its list of confirmed affiliates a week previously. On May 1, 2006 KWKB in Iowa City, Iowa, another previously-confirmed affiliate of The CW, signed on to carry MyNetworkTV. Until October 2009, these two stations were the only in the US to be aligned with both new networks. (KNVA has since become a sole CW affiliate as mother station KXAN-TV converted its semi-satellite KBVO to a standalone MyNetworkTV affiliate.) KNVA branded MyNetworkTV shows as "MyNetworkTV on The CW Austin". KWKB's website features station logos labeled as both "KWKB The CW" and "My KWKB". In May, WAWB in Huntsville, Alabama became an official MyNetworkTV affiliate with the call letters WAMY.
On July 12, 2006, MNTV added WBFS in Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, KTVD in Denver, WSYX in Columbus, Ohio, WTCN in West Palm Beach, Florida, WHP in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, WUPL in New Orleans, and WAWS in Jacksonville, Florida. WBFS, WTCN, and WUPL are owned by CBS Corporation (with WUPL sold to Belo in 2007), KTVD is owned by Gannett, WHP and WAWS are owned by Clear Channel Communications, and WSYX is owned by Sinclair Broadcasting. WSYX, WHP, and WAWS will carry MNTV on digital sub-channel stations. The deal with CBS to affiliate their non-CW stations with MNTV came as a surprise to everyone in the broadcasting industry, especially after the icy reception between CBS and News Corp that began after the CW and MNTV came into the picture, as they refused to allow WBFS, WUPL and Boston's WSBK to affiliate with MNTV as a response to pulling UPN names from the Fox-owned stations that were affiliated with UPN.
In August 2006, MyNetworkTV filled in its remaining gaps within the top 100 television markets. On August 11, 2006, MNTV announced WNAC in Providence, Rhode Island as a secondary affiliate; and WNGT-LP in Toledo, Ohio as a primary station. Additionally, on August 22, 2006, the network added KAUT in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and a digital sub-channel of WRGT in Dayton, Ohio to the affiliate list on its website. Also that month, WZMY in Derry, New Hampshire was announced as the Boston-market affiliate. WBIN's (the former WZMY's) affiliation with MNTV ran out in September 2011, and WSBK (which had shunned MNTV at its formation in 2006) took over the Boston-market MNTV affiliation at that time.
From MyNetworkTV's inception until July 2010, Mobile, Alabama was the largest city without a MyNetworkTV affiliate, although the city's DMA (which includes Pensacola, Fort Walton Beach, Florida, and the rest of the Gulf Shores region) has Fort Walton Beach station WFGX as the area's station for the network. This is due to WFGX's weak analog signal, which was not available west of Pensacola, and the lack of a must-carry agreement with Mobile's Comcast system, most likely a remnant of the station's former status as a low-rated Jewelry TV station before the launch of MyNetworkTV. However, WFGX has relocated their digital transmitter to Robertsdale, Alabama which is in the area of the other Mobile-Pensacola television transmitters, and is providing an over-the-air MyNetworkTV affiliate for Mobile for the first time.
On September 28, 2009, the three ION Media Networks-owned stations which cleared MyNetworkTV (WPXX-TV in Memphis, Tennessee and WEPX-TV (and its satellite/full-power repeater WPXU-TV) in the Greenville/New Bern/Washington, North Carolina market), due to an affiliation agreement made by their previous owners, dropped their affiliations and became full-time ION Television stations as they had been before September 2006. A digital subchannel of NBC affiliate WITN-TV took over full affiliation in Greenville/New Bern.
WLMT in Memphis, that market's CW affiliate picked up the network for the sole purpose of carrying SmackDown, and due to the network's reclassification as a programming service, has elected to not carry the remainder of the network's schedule. Eventually, after SmackDown moved to Syfy, WLMT's RTV-affiliated second digital subchannel picked up the remainder of the MyNetworkTV lineup as a secondary affiliation.
Also in September 2009, KDMI in Des Moines, Iowa dropped MyNetworkTV to air This TV full time. For nearly a year afterwards, The CW affiliate KCWI-TV picked up SmackDown and aired it in a very similar manner to WLMT. Until October 3, 2011, Des Moines was the largest Nielsen media market without a MyNetworkTV affiliate — either over-the-air or on cable. On that date, KDMI re-affiliated with the service. on September 19, 2011, KWKB/Iowa City, Cedar Rapids, IA/Waterloo, IA/Dubuque, IA/Iowa City, IA dropped the service in order to concentrate on their CW affiliation. At some point in time, KCRG-TV 9.2 picked up MyNetworkTV.
On August 30, 2010, KMYS, a Sinclair-owned station serving the San Antonio market and licensed to nearby Kerrville (and also one of the 17 Sinclair-owned stations that were charter affiliates of MyNetworkTV), swapped affiliations with then-CW affiliate KCWX (licensed to Fredericksburg), making it the first and so far only known affiliation swap between affiliates of the two netlets in the same market since their formation in 2006.
Due to the availability of "instant duopoly" digital subchannels that are likely easily available on cable and satellite, and the overall lack of a need to settle for a secondary affiliation with shows aired in problematic time slots, both The CW and MyNetworkTV launched with far greater national coverage than that enjoyed by UPN and The WB when they started in 1995. UPN for several years had gaps in the top 30 markets, and by 2005 managed to reach only 86% of the population. This resulted in secondary affiliations with stations carrying other networks. In those markets, programs were either shown out of their intended time-slots or not at all. Examples included Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise; when they were preempted, there were many viewer complaints. There are a small handful of tiny markets, however, which have MyNetworkTV as a secondary affiliation even on digital subchannels because those markets have only one or two stations, and want to place more emphasis on ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox that those markets may have previously lacked on those subchannels.
Nevertheless, because MyNetworkTV was announced after the formation of The CW and thus got most of the "leftover" stations shut out by The CW, there are still availability issues in some markets. In addition, the network is mostly relegated to low-powered stations in some smaller markets, which do not have must-carry status. The arrival of WWE SmackDown to the network has shown this the most, as wrestling fans have complained about the availability issues in several markets that have The CW but not MyNetworkTV. This was most evident in the Lexington, Kentucky market, when local SmackDown viewers actually protested that they couldn't watch SmackDown because of low-powered MyNetworkTV/Retro Television Network affiliate WBLU-LP not being available on cable. That was solved shortly afterward when ABC affiliate WTVQ-TV agreed to move its weather digital subchannel to 36.3 and convert its former spot on 36.2 into a MyNetworkTV affiliate, stripping WBLU of its affiliation in the process.
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