Pee Dee Gets First NEXTGEN TV Channels

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — ATSC 3.0-powered NEXTGEN TV broadcasts for four services serving a unique DMA that includes this popular oceanfront locale, the nation’s fastest-growing city, has arrived.

It’s thanks to the conversion of transmissions by a Howard Stirk Holdings-owned station operated via a shared services agreement with Sinclair Inc.

As of today, WBTW-13 in Florence, the CBS affiliate owned by Nexstar Media Group; Sinclair Inc.-owned ABC affiliate WPDE-15 in Florence; and South Carolina ETV member station WHMC-23 in Conway, S.C. are offering NEXTGEN TV broadcasts of their respective stations.

So is Howard Stirk Holdings-owned and Sinclair-run Dabl affiliate WWMB-21 in Florence, which is serving as the “lighthouse” for ATSC 3.0 signals in the vast Myrtle Beach-Florence, S.C.-Lumberton, N.C. DMA.

The WWMB transmitter is located in Floyd Dale, S.C., a rural community between Florence and Lumberton that is 60 miles from the Grand Strand of Myrtle Beach. As such, it appears the NEXTGEN TV may not appear for those along the coast, given the distance from the tower.

RBR+TVBR has contacted BitPath, which coordinated the DMA rollout for NEXTGEN TV, for clarification.

Meanwhile, as is the case in other markets where ATSC 3.0 signals are brought to life for the first time, the Myrtle Beach-Florence-Lumberton DMA is incomplete with respect to a “Big Four” transition to the new broadcast standard. WMBF-32 in Myrtle Beach, the NBC-owned Gray Television which launched in 2008; and WFXB-43, the FOX affiliate owned by Bahakel Communications that is also licensed to Myrtle Beach, are not participating.

The likely reason? These stations are licensed to Myrtle Beach and therefore use a different tower, bringing different signal patterns to the DMA.

Historically, the Myrtle Beach and Grand Strand areas of the market as defined by Nielsen were tied to the Charleston, S.C., DMA to the south, before the creation of the Myrtle Beach-Florence-Lumberton market.

As such, television consumption along the Grand Strand gets complex. The southern end of the greater Myrtle Beach area, Murrells Island, S.C., is in Georgetown County. As such, this city as well as Georgetown, S.C., sit within the Charleston DMA. Yet, key MVPDs HTC and Comcast Spectrum offer Myrtle Beach stations as “secondary” affiliates due to consumer demand.

Then, there is the northern section of what is considered to be part of “greater Myrtle Beach” that lies within the state of North Carolina. Those households are within the Wilmington, N.C. DMA. Here, too, Myrtle Beach stations can be found on local MVPDs as secondary affiliates due to viewer demand.

— Additional reporting by Josh Gertzog, in North Myrtle Beach, S.C.