I follow Ken Atkins

I follow Ken Atkins in Wake County on Twitter. First, he may be a relative. Second, Wake County was my home. Third, he has his finger on the pulse of economic activity in the Capitol county of NC.

Today I saw his retweets concerning details from the Neilson ratings that show the Raleigh-Durham (Fayetteville) market has grown in the number of TV families to position 26th largest in the country. Raleigh-Durham was one of three areas in the country to grow in this odd economy. So I wondered, what the ratings and where the other markets were.

Neilson called me for the first time this year and quizzed us on our TV watching. After denying that we ever watch TV except for the News and Today, I had to admit that we do watch it. We were all over the board. I plugged PBS and the History Channel. I had to conclude that we also contribute a significant amount of time to Cartoon Network and TV Land and since I have been out of work, I also confessed to keeping up a once a week habit with The Bold and the Beautiful and RG is burning up ESPN. Finally, I deliberately mentioned 30Rock and The Big Bang Theory. So, there you have it: a normal American family in the Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point market.

But, there is gold in the data. So I looked at the list of TV markets in the US. There are 210 markets. In the top 100 there are 14 markets on the Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail. If you include Philadelphia and Washington, DC where they might be serious American History nuts, this group of Markets, I dub the OVNHT market, comprises about 12% of the total US television market.

This OVNHT market is equal in size to the combination of NY and LA, the top two markets.

The OVNHT market is also equal is size to the remaining top markets of Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, Boston, and Houston combined. And of course I'd claim Boston and the two Texas markets as prime candidates for for the OVNHT market and may just assimilate them that is unless Texas succeeds in succession. Ah H---, that would probably make them like rebellion even better.

So if close to 40% of the American TV market is right on the OVNHT where their grandfather's fought or in a city of strategic importance to the Revolution or are really homesick for their family homeland in Virginia and the Carolinas, the way I sometimes claim to be enthralled with England, then surely there can be a successful TV series wrapped around the Southern Campaign.

Here is a direct quote from King's Mountain and Its Heroes I can just see in the opening episode.... The patriots in hot pursuit routed a group of British and Tory soldiers accompanied by the screams and hollering later referred to in Southern history as the Rebel yell and which stayed long in the memory of one of their loyalist leaders. In the rapid retreat, one Tory, still full of it "turned up his buttock in derision at the Americans" (ie, in 21st century language, the Tory mooned the patriots perhaps thinking he was far enough away to avoid being shot) BUT one of the patriots -I see them rolling their eyes- took aim and delivered on the request to turn him over right in the behind.

Bet you didn't know your forefathers knew anything about that!! Well, you should have seen the lyrics to those old English songs I found when looking up syllabub the other day - blushing milk maids and even flatulance at Queen Anne's table, a terrible who-done-it. I tell you, our forefathers were a racy bunch of people and there are plenty of interesting characters inbetween the history. American TV is crying out for this show.

And if not the networks, how about hulu. I forgot to tell the Neilson people that PJ watches that on this computer about half the time he watches TV.