bjoh249

Well the difference is the cities you mentioned are part of the same metro. Fort Smith and NWA are two different metros.

And it appears you were right. Correct me if I’m wrong, butI don’t think KFSM has any bureau in Ft. Smith anymore, as they have appeared to have completely moved out of the old Carnegie library building. Although Wikipedia says there’s still a newsroom there, Wikipedia isn’t always reliable. They say there’s also bureaus in Ft. Smith for KNWA/KFTA as well but they clearly left the old studios on Kelly Hwy a long time ago as it’s now some other business. There’s no address for KNWA/KFTA listed for the River Valley area other than a possible newsroom for KFTA in Van Buren. Quite frankly I don’t know why they keep the call letters KFSM or why the station is still licensed to Fort Smith? I don’t understand why KHOG is still a satellite station of KHBS, or why the name of the TV market says Ft. Smith first when Fayetteville outgrew Ft. Smith to become the state’s second largest city awhile back. The population of the NWA metro (population 560,709 as of 2021) has also long outgrown Ft. Smith’s metro (which is still below 300k). Fayetteville is on the verge of becoming the second city in the state to have a 100k population. The NWA metro now comes in second to Little Rock in practically everything but media. NWA has the only other minor league baseball team in the state, the only other children’s hospital campus, a national airport, etc.. It has the U of A Main campus, the Razorbacks, its the home to three Fortune 500 companies. I’m not bashing Ft. Smith. It’s a nice city, but it’s not NWA by a long shot. When I first moved to NWA in 1995, Ft. Smith was larger in both city and metro, and I understood why Ft. Smith had the upper hand in the media market, but times have greatly changed in nearly 30 years. Ft. Smith either needs to become its own market, or Ft. Smith should be made second.