I live in Portland, Maine and visit Boston a few times a year. In both cities, I tend to see ads on TV involving elections in New Hampshire. What exactly is the point of this? Residents of Maine and Mass. can’t vote in the New Hampshire election, so why show them the ads?
I’m sure there are people who live in New Hampshire who can pick up Boston or Portland stations.
We get ads for candidates in Massachusetts in Albany, NY <shrug>
It’s impossible to get TV signals to stop at state borders. In some areas, the best way to reach the voters is to use a station in another state. I’m guessing that Boston stations carry ads for New Hampshire candidates routinely.
Here is a map of television designated market areas. You’ll notice that there is no market for New Hampshire – part of it is covered by the Boston market, and part by the Portland-Auburn market. That’s where New Hampshire voters get their TV, so that’s where the politicians are going to put their TV advertising.
There are a whole bunch of TV markets that reach into two, three, or even four states. That ends up being a lot of wasted coverage for political ads, but that’s how it goes.
There is really only one NH Network channel. Channel 9, WMUR, which is an ABC station. For any other network, we watch those out of MA, or if further north and east, Maine. I’d imagine up in the North country, VT might provide coverage into that area.
I used to live in Berkshire County, at the far western end of Massachusetts. The “local” broadcast networks were based in Albany; it’s the closest population center by a fairly good margin.
Most people in Delaware watch TV based in Pennsylvania. Most people in New Jersey watch TV based either in New York or Pennsylvania. Where else would political ads for those states be placed?
Though I live in MN and most of the TV stations have their antenna in MN (and one has their actual station here), they are WI TV stations. I’ve seen <5 MN election ads (and a couple from IA) but easily 200 (maybe 1,000) WI ads (I keep my finger on the remote)
Brian
Thanks, but that is one of most poorly-labeled maps I’ve ever seen. From what I can tell, part of southern NH is in the pink area served by Boston, but north NH and Vermont are in an unlabeled green area. Similarly, CT and RI are in an unlabeled yellow area – are they not in any market area at all? The map has far more areas than labels; I don’t get it.
I agree that many of the labels are missing.
Just guessing: That unlabeled green area of northern NH and VT is the Burlington, VT market.
Wouldn’t also some people such as students keep their registration in NH even if they happen to be in a neighboring area? I never bothered move mine while I was in college, but I don’t know if that’s OK under US voting rules. If you know there is a big chunk of your target who are in the next state over, it may make sense to throw some ads that way.
When I lived in Dover NH before the digital broadcast transition, I had a simple pair of rabbit ears and I could pick up most of the Portland stations and some of the Boston ones. My aunt who still lives in Dover has cable and she gets all the Boston stations and most of the Portland ones. The Merrimack Valley (within range of Boston) and the Seacoast (within range of both Boston and Portland) are far and away the most densely populated parts of the state. I imagine well over half the population of NH has access to either Portland or Boston stations through broadcast or cable.
Back when I used to visit family in New Jersey, I saw that they were hit with political ads from both Philadelphia/Pennsylvania and New York City/State, in addition to their own local ads.
This map shows the state boundaries a little better. Notice that part of New Hampshire is blue, part is purple and part is a different shade of purple. The light purple in the lower right is the Boston market, the slightly darkle purple in the upper left is the Burlington/Plattsburgh market and the blue is Portland/Auburn.
Here are closeups, with the counties in each market shaded: