What if Newfoundland joined the US?

Oh, definitely. In OTL, due to the base at Goose Bay in Labrador, the local CBC station there was operated by the US Armed Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS, now the American Forces Network or AFN for short). Who knows, maybe in TTL we could have a Falklands-like situation where AFN is essentially the main broadcaster in Newfoundland (well, apart from the inevitable NPR and PBS member stations, which could be operated by the State of Newfoundland as an outgrowth of VONF - not to mention the wild cards that are VOAR and VOWR, as well as VOCM being its own network, which thus butterflies the Stirlings' media assets away). To make it more accepting to Newfoundlanders, some of the Command Info spots could be replaced with local advertising when transmitted FTA (the replaced CI spots would be accessible to a military audience only). That would be an interesting TL to write.

I would be very surprised if Newfoundland did not get its own television affiliates. Right now, we get all four of the major American channels from either Boston or Rochester. Those channels are way more popular than CBC or NTV is when they are not simulcasting or showing Hockey Night in Canada. Assuming that all of Newfoundland is seen as a 500,000+ person broadcast market then I would be amazed if the big three, later big four networks did not set up affiliates here.

For radio, I can see a lot of changes. VOCM tried to air American style of talk radio during the late 90s, but it failed. Talk radio in Newfoundland is more of an open forum where people can discuss their issues whether political or not. I cannot see Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck taking off here because we are only socially conservative, not fiscally conservative, and that's only a vocal minority. Due to this, I can also see Joey Smallwood staying on radio instead of pursuing a political career.

From a political stance, the most powerful figures would be the Crosby and the Jamison families. Chesley Crosbie was the leader of the movement to make Newfoundland the 51st state. His son was former PC cabinet minister John Crosbie. Baz Jamison could also become a notable figure in this timeline because he was in OTL a PC cabinet minister and a host of Openline. Still, the two major political parties in Newfoundland nowadays are quite similar and only different on various local issues. In this time line, Newfoundland would be way more polarized.
 
I would be very surprised if Newfoundland did not get its own television affiliates. Right now, we get all four of the major American channels from either Boston or Rochester. Those channels are way more popular than CBC or NTV is when they are not simulcasting or showing Hockey Night in Canada. Assuming that all of Newfoundland is seen as a 500,000+ person broadcast market then I would be amazed if the big three, later big four networks did not set up affiliates here.

The reason why you guys get US stations from Boston is because of satellites. Without them, here's the situation - a US territory/state basically isolated from the rest of the US and surrounded by three countries (Canada, France, and Denmark via Greenland). Granted, I could see a *VONF-TV affiliating with NET > PBS, as would either of the two religious stations *VOWR-TV or *VOAR-TV. Via the wonders of standards conversion, it could theoretically also be possible for *VONF-TV and/or the two religious stations to air French-language programmes for the small community there courtesy of FR3's (now RFO's) station in Saint-Pierre. Also, because of the relatively small market that Newfoundland is (smaller than Alaska), it could be possible for TV stations to affiliate with more than one network. Still, I'd think that AFN would be a better bet - either via affiliating with one of the Newfoundland TV stations, or set up its own network in Newfoundland, or both (in the latter case, those programmes that don't fit in the schedule are aired on Newfoundland TV stations instead, even on the PBS stations). This is even more so since, if Newfoundland becomes a part of the US, no matter as a territory or as a state, the US military would probably form a major part of Newfoundland's economy. So we'd have AFN, a PBS station or two, and the remainder made up of independent stations. Not quite a Falklands-like situation, but close.
 
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