Jump to content

The NWA/Fort Smith media market - movin' up


KJW

Recommended Posts

The new Nielsen rankings were just released today.  For the first time ever, the Fort Smith-Fayetteville TV market is ranked in double digits, in the top markets in America, at #99.  (As a measuring standard, the market was around 200 or higher 30 years ago, before Benton and a few other counties were added):

http://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/corporate/us/en/docs/solutions/measurement/television/2016-2017-nielsen-local-dma-ranks.pdf

There may be some other interesting news, too in this when the ethnic rankings are released later.

BTW, there was some good media news for Fort Smith today.  Natural State Media, located in the city, is buying the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal.  It will be interesting to see how the combined media grow in the future, but this is an HQ move of sorts back to the Southwest.

http://talkbusiness.net/2016/09/talk-business-politics-to-acquire-northwest-arkansas-business-journal/

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites


The ethnic market rankings will come out later. Fort Smith/Fayetteville has been a top 75 market in America for both Asian and Hispanic viewers in the last rankings, so we'll see if there has been any movement. One last thing: if you add the current FSM/Fayettville/Springdale/Rogers and Little Rock markets together, you get 852,650 TV households. If they were a conjoined market, they would rank #37 in America at this point in time, right behind:

36. Cincinnati
35. Milwaukee
34. Salt Lake City 
33. Kansas City 

There is starting to be some media power in the Natural State.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 months later...
On 9/2/2016 at 1:54 AM, KJW said:

The new Nielsen rankings were just released today.  For the first time ever, the Fort Smith-Fayetteville TV market is ranked in double digits, in the top markets in America, at #99.  (As a measuring standard, the market was around 200 or higher 30 years ago, before Benton and a few other counties were added):

http://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/corporate/us/en/docs/solutions/measurement/television/2016-2017-nielsen-local-dma-ranks.pdf

There may be some other interesting news, too in this when the ethnic rankings are released later.

BTW, there was some good media news for Fort Smith today.  Natural State Media, located in the city, is buying the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal.  It will be interesting to see how the combined media grow in the future, but this is an HQ move of sorts back to the Southwest.

http://talkbusiness.net/2016/09/talk-business-politics-to-acquire-northwest-arkansas-business-journal/

 

The Little Rock market is ranked #57, interestingly ahead of Tulsa at #58 (even though the Tulsa MSA is about 30% larger)...I imagine the relatively close distance between Tulsa and OKC tends to cannibalize the market viewers a bit.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Architect,  the Tulsa MSA is indeed larger, but Little Rock is more like OKC in that it covers most of the state, moreso than the latter, which isn't border-to-border east-to-west the way LR (which extends from Helena to Mena) is...partially (as you point out) because Tulsa blocks it in the east as far south as McAlester.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 6 months later...
  • 5 months later...

Didn't see it reported here that KFSM-TV5 is building their new headquarters in NWA ... the building will be located east of I49 at the Johnson exit and approximately 23,000 sq ft - possibly breaking ground this month.   Upon completion the current Fayetteville KFSM studio will relocate to the new headquarters and the station will remodel their current Ft. Smith studio.

KFSM has been based in Fort Smith for 65 years ... but it sounds like that is about to change while remaining committed to covering Fort Smith.  In my mind its two different markets and doesn't make sense to try and cover news from Northwest Arkansas and the River Valley.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/5/2017 at 9:26 PM, KJW said:

The 2018 Nielsen DMA rankings have been released.  NWA/Fort Smith continues to go up the list, now at #98, up 1 ranking from last year.  Little Rock-Pine Bluff is #58.  There was a time when the difference between the two was about 100 places if not much more.

https://www.tvb.org/Portals/0/media/file/DMA/2017_2018_DMA_Ranks.pdf

It's becoming more and more like the Memphis/Jonesboro and Memphis/Tupelo dynamic as NWA grows.

Edited by TRB
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 years later...

I know this is an older post, but does anyone else think the FT Smith/NWA market should be split in two? The NWA metro has over half a million people now and Fayetteville has overtaken Ft. Smith as the second largest city in the state. 

Edited by bjoh249
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
On 9/2/2016 at 1:54 AM, KJW said:

The new Nielsen rankings were just released today.  For the first time ever, the Fort Smith-Fayetteville TV market is ranked in double digits, in the top markets in America, at #99.  (As a measuring standard, the market was around 200 or higher 30 years ago, before Benton and a few other counties were added):

http://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/corporate/us/en/docs/solutions/measurement/television/2016-2017-nielsen-local-dma-ranks.pdf

There may be some other interesting news, too in this when the ethnic rankings are released later.

BTW, there was some good media news for Fort Smith today.  Natural State Media, located in the city, is buying the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal.  It will be interesting to see how the combined media grow in the future, but this is an HQ move of sorts back to the Southwest.

http://talkbusiness.net/2016/09/talk-business-politics-to-acquire-northwest-arkansas-business-journal/

 

Appreciate the effort to inject life in to this board but it is in a vegetative coma in the message board intensive care unit.

 

No, Don't separate  asgrowth will start filling in the gap and I-49 is the main lifeline.  Ft. Smith no longer warrants being a standalone. These stations already have trouble attracting and keeping decent talent.

Edited by Wayward Memphian
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
On 3/30/2023 at 7:19 AM, Wayward Memphian said:

Appreciate the effort to inject life in to this board but it is in a vegetative coma in the message board intensive care unit.

 

No, Don't separate  asgrowth will start filling in the gap and I-49 is the main lifeline.  Ft. Smith no longer warrants being a standalone. These stations already have trouble attracting and keeping decent talent.

Then Fayetteville’s name should come first in the market name then. It should be 29/40, not 40/29. When the TV market was started Ft. Smith was the larger metro and city. That is no longer the case. NWA metro population is over half a million, Ft. Smith’s is about 250,000. Fayetteville is the second largest city in the state. Springdale is not too far behind Ft. Smith either. In fact, the other two main NWA cities Rogers and Bentonville  are not too far behind Ft. Smith in population. NWA is only behind Little Rock in everything now but the TV market. NWA has the only other professional baseball team in the state, the only other Children’s Hospital campus, the only other National Airport. Why do the call letters of Channel 5 still say KFSM, when it has no presence in Ft. Smith anymore?  There’s really not much room for growth between Fayetteville and Alma anyway.  The I-49 section between Alma and Ft. Smith isn’t supposed to be complete until the end of the decade.

Edited by bjoh249
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Projections show Fayetteville losing the biggest of the 4 title soon enough. No need to usher it to the Top. Generic NWA works best here or cop some other term like The Quad. 

 

And... what the hell are you talking about not much room for growth between Fayetteville and Alma? 

Edited by Wayward Memphian
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/19/2023 at 3:39 PM, Wayward Memphian said:

Projections show Fayetteville losing the biggest of the 4 title soon enough. No need to usher it to the Top. Generic NWA works best here or cop some other term like The Quad. 

 

And... what the hell are you talking about not much room for growth between Fayetteville and Alma? 

Where is your evidence that Fayetteville is about to lose the biggest of the 4 title? What 4 are you talking about?  The big 4 in the NWA metro?

Yeah a more inclusive generic term would be acceptable, but they aren’t using that either and they should.

In case you didn’t know, the area between Fayetteville and Alma is very mountainous. There are few cities down that way, They had to build a tunnel to get the new interstate through. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/21/2023 at 12:12 PM, bjoh249 said:

Where is your evidence that Fayetteville is about to lose the biggest of the 4 title? What 4 are you talking about?  The big 4 in the NWA metro?

Yeah a more inclusive generic term would be acceptable, but they aren’t using that either and they should.

In case you didn’t know, the area between Fayetteville and Alma is very mountainous. There are few cities down that way, They had to build a tunnel to get the new interstate through. 

Really? Have you driven down Ark 265 through Hogeye and the back roada to Prairie Grove from there? Still plenty of pastures that can be developed along old US71 to Brentwood. I have coworkers here in Fayetteville that live in Alma, plenty of land between there and Mountainburg to build on. 

 

This is a fine example  of endless possibilities Screenshot_20230424_063912_Earth.thumb.jpg.a3a1cd1e537aee1167ff134fdf367099.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Wayward Memphian said:

Really? Have you driven down Ark 265 through Hogeye and the back roada to Prairie Grove from there? Still plenty of pastures that can be developed along old US71 to Brentwood. I have coworkers here in Fayetteville that live in Alma, plenty of land between there and Mountainburg to build on. 

 

This is a fine example  of endless possibilities Screenshot_20230424_063912_Earth.thumb.jpg.a3a1cd1e537aee1167ff134fdf367099.jpg

That land is in the NWA metro.

Way to not answer my other questions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/24/2023 at 8:29 PM, bjoh249 said:

That land is in the NWA metro.

Way to not answer my other questions.

It was given orthodoxy around these parts that Benton County would out pace Washington Co in growth. And... that is now true. It was also a given that Springdale would eventually catch up with and pass Fayetteville. It was non more appear than with the 2010 census numbers. Some things changed with that between 2010 and 2022. U OF A aggressively recruited Texas kids with in state tuition offers that led to an explosion of off campus apts. Go look at the new housing subs along 15th/Ark 16 between School and Happy Hollow. Nearly all college kids, lots of Texas plates. The enrollment growth nearly mirrors the widened gap between Springdale and Fayetteville from 2010 to 2020. That will eventually subside when the Uof A enrollment reaches equilibrium within the next 5 years and Springdale will do what was expected more than a decade ago and pass Fayetteville.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...
  • 6 months later...
On 4/27/2023 at 8:11 AM, Wayward Memphian said:

It was given orthodoxy around these parts that Benton County would out pace Washington Co in growth. And... that is now true. It was also a given that Springdale would eventually catch up with and pass Fayetteville. It was non more appear than with the 2010 census numbers. Some things changed with that between 2010 and 2022. U OF A aggressively recruited Texas kids with in state tuition offers that led to an explosion of off campus apts. Go look at the new housing subs along 15th/Ark 16 between School and Happy Hollow. Nearly all college kids, lots of Texas plates. The enrollment growth nearly mirrors the widened gap between Springdale and Fayetteville from 2010 to 2020. That will eventually subside when the Uof A enrollment reaches equilibrium within the next 5 years and Springdale will do what was expected more than a decade ago and pass Fayetteville.

Fayetteville expected to surpass 100k in new population counts due this spring. You are so wrong again. Ft. Smith should be a separate market.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.