Media in the Tampa Bay Area

The Tampa Bay media market is Florida's second-largest metropolitan area with a variety of print, online and broadcast media outlets serving the region. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the population for the Tampa-St. Petersburg Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) at 2,733,761 as of July 1, 2008. The Tampa Bay media market also includes Citrus, Manatee, Sarasota and Polk counties.^[1] Polk County is also served by media from Orlando.

Newspapers

The two major daily newspapers serving the area are the Tampa Bay Times and The Tampa Tribune.

The Tampa Bay Times (known as the St. Petersburg Times from 1898 until January 2012) is the largest newspaper by circulation in the southeastern United States at over 400,000, which is over 50% more than Florida's next largest newspaper, the Orlando Sentinel.^[2] It distributes a free Monday-through-Friday tabloid called tbt* in most areas of Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco counties.

The Tampa Tribune was first published as a daily newspaper in 1895. Besides the main edition, "the Trib" publishes a portfolio of standalone weekly newspapers throughout the region, including the Plant City Courier & Tribune, Brandon News & Tribune, South Shore News & Tribune, Northeast News & Tribune, Carrollwood News & Tribune, South Tampa News & Tribune, Northwest News & Tribune, Central Tampa News & Tribune, The Suncoast News, and the Spanish language CENTRO Tampa.

The Tampa Bay area is also served by a variety of regional newspapers and weeklies. La Gaceta is a weekly trilingual (English, Spanish and Italian) newspaper published in Tampa's historic Ybor City since 1922.^[3] Two newspapers serve the local black community: the Florida Sentinel Bulletin (Tampa) and The Weekly Challenger (St. Petersburg). Creative Loafing Tampa (also known for a time as the Weekly Planet) is the area's primary alternative weekly. The Oracle serves the University of South Florida and its surrounding community. The Tampa Bay Business Journal is the region's business publication of record. The Osprey Observer is a weekly that serves East Hillsborough County with five separate publications, three of which carry the Osprey Observer moniker and a fourth, The Christian Voice that is distributed through local churches. Some lesser-known papers include Tampa Bay Newspapers TBNWeekly and the Tampa Bay Informer.

Several cities outside the Tampa-St. Petersburg core but within the Tampa Bay media market have smaller-circulation daily newspapers with overlapping coverage and distribution areas. They include The Bradenton Herald, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, The Ledger of Lakeland, The News-Chief of Winter Haven (published by The Ledger), the Citrus County Chronicle (based in Inverness), Hernando Today (based in Brooksville) and Highlands Today (based in Sebring). Both of the Today newspapers are published by The Tampa Tribune.

Television

WUSF-TV studios in Tampa

The Tampa Bay area is the nation's 11th-largest TV market and largest TV Market(DMA) in the state of Florida, according to Nielsen Media Research,^[4] with 1,822,550 TV households.

Fourteen television stations serve the region (network O&O's in bold):

Local cable-only stations include Bay News 9 and Spectrum Sports Florida (operated by Charter Communications) and SNN Local News 6 (operated by Comcast Cable, in partnership with the Sarasota Herald-Tribune).

Radio

The Tampa Bay area is the nation's 19th-largest radio market, according to Arbitron Research.^[5] More than 70 radio stations, split almost evenly between the AM and FM band. Most major programming formats are represented by the corporations of Clear Channel Communications the biggest owner of radio stations in the area, followed by Cox Media Group and CBS Radio. The area is also home to at least two non-profit radio stations, WMNF and WUSF. Christian stations include including The Joy FM and WBVM. In addition, many Orlando-area stations can be heard in the northern and eastern reaches of the metropolitan area.

These stations were rated by Arbitron in January 2014:

References

Tampa Bay Area
Topics	Tampa Bay Climate History Media Sports Tampa International Airport Hillsborough County Public Schools Pinellas County Schools University of South Florida
Central cities	Tampa St. Petersburg Clearwater
Smaller communities	Pinellas Park Temple Terrace Brandon Zeyphrhills Plant City Largo Dunedin Tarpon Springs Lutz Sun City Center
Counties in MSA	Hernando Hillsborough Pasco Pinellas
See also:  Florida