Cox Asks FCC To Exclude Its Fairfax County, Va., Systems From Market of Dover TV Station

Cox Communications asked the FCC Media Bureau to change the market of WMDE Dover, Delaware, to exclude the cable operator's systems in Fairfax County, Virginia. Those two areas are "in demonstrably distinct television markets, which are separated not only by vast distances and substantial geographic barriers, but also by significant economic and political boundaries," said the operator in a petition posted Wednesday in docket 12-1. "No market nexus exists between WMDE and the Cox Communities." Cox said WMDE is owned by Western Pacific Broadcast, where an executive had no comment Thursday. Western Pacific won one of the last TV station auctions, for WMDE, and got FCC approval to move it from Seaford to Dover (see 1302140060 and 1405020044). Cox noted that after that change, which moved the station to the Philadelphia market from a much smaller market, WMDE got Nielsen to move its designated market area to Washington. But the operator said Nielsen didn't reassign WMDE's city of license, Seaford, which remains in the Philadelphia DMA despite the broadcaster's "DMA-shopping activities."