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AS PART OF "TECH VALLEY," THE NEW hotBED OF TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH AND development spanning 18 counties in upstate New York, state capital Albany has recently become home to at least a half-dozen technology parks for firms specializing in fields such as nanotechnology, biotechnology, software development, pharmaceutical research and alternative energy. An estimated $2 billion in public and private spending has already been spent to further the region as Tech Valley, and another $3 billion in investment is anticipated.
The Albany-Schenectady-Troy television market, ranked 55th in die nation, has a DMA population of about 1.35 million and includes counties in New York state and neighboring Massachusetts. The newest station to hit the local airwaves, UPN affiliate WNYA, signed on Sept. 1, 2003, through a joint sales agreement with Freedom Broadcasting's CBS affiliate WRGB. Under the JSA, WRGB handles WNYA's ad sales and its master control. WNYA oversees its own programming and has secured The Bernie Mac Show and My Wife and Kids for this fall, According to Jim for fall '06, and George Lofez for fall '07, says Duncan Brown, WNYA station manager.
WNYA is owned by Venture Technologies Group, which owns or manages UPN affiliates in Lansing, Mich.; Peoria, Ill.; and Davenport, Iowa. The station, licensed out of Pittsfield, Mass., also has a low-power signal out of Albany. WNYA replaces a cable-only UPN affiliate that had been a joint effort between Clear Channel TV's Fox affiliate WXXA-TV and Time Warner Cable.
WRGB, meanwhile, is on a roll since rebranding itself last fall as "CBS6" and flipflopping The Ellen DeGeneres Show and The Jane Pauley Show, moving Jane to 3 p.m. and Ellen to 4 p.m. "We've more than doubled our demos in the [4 p.m.] time period," says Robert Furlong, WRGB vp and general manager, of the new news lead-in. Furlong adds that in November, WRGB overindexed the national ratings as a CBS affiliate by more than 30 percent in prime time.
Hubbard Broadcasting's NBC affiliate WNYT, coming off a record-revenue year thanks to the 2004 Summer Olympics, has been the market's No. 1 station more often than not in morning news (households, adults 18-49 and 25-54) for about three years, No. 1 at 6 p.m. for about six years, and No. 1 at 11...