Fundraising
VPT is the smallest PBS member in New England, and one of the smallest in the entire PBS system. Most of its viewership lives in Canada, principally in Montreal, a city which is ten times larger than the entire population of VPT's American viewing area. It relies heavily on its Canadian viewership for its survival; most of the major stations in Vermont have lessened their reliance on Canadian revenue in recent years. VPT not only takes its large Canadian audience into account in its programming, but it accepts Canadian dollars for its fundraising efforts even though most of them are targeted toward Vermont viewers.
As is true of Vermont's population as a whole, most of VPT's viewership lives primarily in rural areas or in towns and small cities. The only major urban area that its signal reaches is Montreal.
VPT shares much of its most valuable market (the Champlain Valley in Vermont and New York as well as the southern Quebec and Montreal area) with Plattsburgh, New York-based WCFE-TV.
The major stations in the Burlington/Plattsburgh market (including VPT, WCFE, WCAX-TV, WVNY, WPTZ and WFFF-TV) turned off their analog signals on February 17, 2009 and are now broadcasting solely in digital. For stations such as VPT, the cost of simulcasting during digital transition has been cited as an undue economic burden.
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