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ABC Affiliate Upgrades in the late 1970s

S

SteveRichards

When ABC achieved #1 status among the Big 3 networks in the late '70s, the network used the situation as an opportunity to upgrade its affiliates in a number of markets across the country. This was done mainly at the expense of NBC, which was languishing in third place at the time. Some of the higher-profile stations that switched to ABC during this time were KSTP-St. Paul/Minneapolis, WSB-Atlanta, WRTV-Indianapolis, WDTN-Dayton, etc.

I was wondering if anyone knew of any NBC or CBS affiliates that ABC went after during this period, but, for whatever reason, ABC could not seal the deal. At least in the beginning, the status of ABC News as not being quite on-par with NBC News or CBS News could have contributed misgivings to some stations about affiliating with ABC (that was soon remedied by Roone Arledge).

I know it was a long time ago, but I would be interested in anything that anyone might know or remember.

Thanks.
 
No switches of that kind happened in Hartford/New Haven or Portland/Poland Spring (ME). WTNH-TV channel 8 of New Haven and WMTW-TV channel 8 of Poland Spring were both ABC then and still are today.
 
NBC lost out to ABC in East Texas.

KLTV 7 (Tyler) and semi-satellite KTRE 9 (Lufkin) were both NBC primary stations, but in the late 70s, they became ABC primaries. By the early 80s, they were airing almost all ABC programming, except for NFL coverage on Sundays from both NBC and CBS. They did add Late Night with David Letterman and NBC News at Sunrise for a year or two.
 
According to a Forbes article from 1978, WTVH Syracuse was planning to switch from CBS to ABC. Only the personal intervention of CBS president James Rosenfield (interrupting his Hawaiian vacation) kept WTVH in the fold.
 
newsmark said:
NBC lost out to ABC in East Texas.

KLTV 7 (Tyler) and semi-satellite KTRE 9 (Lufkin) were both NBC primary stations, but in the late 70s, they became ABC primaries. By the early 80s, they were airing almost all ABC programming, except for NFL coverage on Sundays from both NBC and CBS. They did add Late Night with David Letterman and NBC News at Sunrise for a year or two.
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How did the NFL situation work? Did they air the singleheader early game, then the DH late game?
 
KGTV (Channel 10) in San Diego switched from NBC to ABC in 1976, when ABC was rated #1. ABC had been on XETV (licensed to Tijuana, Mexico) until that time. NBC ended up on a UHF frequency - channel 39, IIRC.

XETV later became a Fox affiliate, but lost that as well.
 
Interesting topic. ABC actually became the #1 network in the 1975-76 season, with Laverne & Shirley, The Bionic Woman, and The Six Million Dollar Man. 1976-77 added The Happy Days to the Top5.

As for affiliates, I think it should be broken down to O&O compared to non-owned affiliates. I know KABC in LA was doing well during this period, but they put a lot of resources into their local news, offering more hours than the competition. WLS Chicago and WABC New York also did well as I recall. Of course all three of the stations had the popular "Eyewitness News" format.
 
danderson6500 said:
How did the NFL situation work? Did they air the singleheader early game, then the DH late game?
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Typically KLTV would have a Houston Oilers game at noon from NBC, then a Dallas Cowboys game from CBS—often joined in Progress. Then after the Cowboys game they would join ABC programming in progress.
 
LKellerIII said:
KGTV (Channel 10) in San Diego switched from NBC to ABC in 1976, when ABC was rated #1. ABC had been on XETV (licensed to Tijuana, Mexico) until that time. NBC ended up on a UHF frequency - channel 39, IIRC.

XETV later became a Fox affiliate, but lost that as well.
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Yes, NBC has since been on channel 39 which then was KCST, now NBC O&O KNSD. When XETV lost ABC in 1973, it wound up on KCST. ABC wasn't real happy about being on a UHF station, so they got KGTV later.


Atlanta: WSB/channel 2 switched from NBC to ABC on Labor Day 1980, and ABC has been very happy since. In that summer, a rather strange experiment took place. WSB ran ABC daytime shows in the morning and NBC shows in the afternoon while outgoing ABC station WXIA/channel 11 ran NBC in the morning and ABC in the afternoon. There was scuttlebutt that WTCG/channel 17 (now WPCH) wanted to affiliate with ABC in the early 70s, but ABC said no.
 
danderson6500 said:
I do wonder what happened if CBS or NBC switched to another game. Would they not join ABC until the "bonus" game finished?
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I don’t remember but I think they would have cut away from the earlyfame to join CBS, but for the late game they’d stay with CBS until their coverage ended.
 
seatownmedia said:
Interesting topic. ABC actually became the #1 network in the 1975-76 season, with Laverne & Shirley, The Bionic Woman, and The Six Million Dollar Man. 1976-77 added The Happy Days to the Top5.

As for affiliates, I think it should be broken down to O&O compared to non-owned affiliates. I know KABC in LA was doing well during this period, but they put a lot of resources into their local news, offering more hours than the competition. WLS Chicago and WABC New York also did well as I recall. Of course all three of the stations had the popular "Eyewitness News" format.
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Even now in 2018, KABC still offers more local news among the Big Four stations in the market-- just about 8 1/2 hours every weekday, and nearly the same output each Saturday and Sunday, depending on the ABC schedule (and that's not counting the extra daily newscast they provide to KDOC each day). They've also, thought the years, pouring a lot of resources into local non-news programming, such as Vista L.A. and Eye on L.A., plus now coverage of the re-located Chargers (preseason games and team-produced shows).
 
seatownmedia said:
Interesting topic. As for affiliates, I think it should be broken down to O&O compared to non-owned affiliates. I know KABC in LA was doing well during this period, but they put a lot of resources into their local news, offering more hours than the competition. WLS Chicago and WABC New York also did well as I recall. Of course all three of the stations had the popular "Eyewitness News" format.
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that "Eyewitness News" was just another brand name for news, not a news "format." Markets all over the nation would mix and match these names. "Eyewitness News" was the name for some local news on ABC O&Os, but also on Westinghouse owned stations. So in San Francisco, the Westinghouse owned station KPIX (CBS affiliate) had Eyewitness News. So the ABC O&O - KGO-TV branded theirs as Channel 7 News Scene, though the format was closer to KABC than KPIX.

Same with "Action News." Just a brand, not a format. In fact, I was recently in Las Vegas and was surprised to see that a large market station still used the brand - "13 Action News." (ABC)
 
LKellerIII said:
Keep in mind that "Eyewitness News" was just another brand name for news, not a news "format." Markets all over the nation would mix and match these names. "Eyewitness News" was the name for some local news on ABC O&Os, but also on Westinghouse owned stations. So in San Francisco, the Westinghouse owned station KPIX (CBS affiliate) had Eyewitness News. So the ABC O&O - KGO-TV branded theirs as Channel 7 News Scene, though the format was closer to KABC than KPIX.

Same with "Action News." Just a brand, not a format. In fact, I was recently in Las Vegas and was surprised to see that a large market station still used the brand - "13 Action News." (ABC)
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Yes and two Disney Owned stations still use the Action News name KFSN Fresno and WPVI Philadelphia.
 
LKellerIII said:
Keep in mind that "Eyewitness News" was just another brand name for news, not a news "format." Markets all over the nation would mix and match these names. "Eyewitness News" was the name for some local news on ABC O&Os, but also on Westinghouse owned stations. So in San Francisco, the Westinghouse owned station KPIX (CBS affiliate) had Eyewitness News. So the ABC O&O - KGO-TV branded theirs as Channel 7 News Scene, though the format was closer to KABC than KPIX.

Same with "Action News." Just a brand, not a format. In fact, I was recently in Las Vegas and was surprised to see that a large market station still used the brand - "13 Action News." (ABC)
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I disagree when it comes to the 70's, which is what this thread is titled. It was indeed a "format" back then. It meant a quick, tight newscast highlighting crime and/or fast moving news with "eyewitness" or "live" reporting. It also usually offered "happy talk", a discussion among the desk anchors that usually was humorous and/or flippant. This was indeed a "format", and while others have used the term in subsequent years, I am relating this to the 70's as the thread indicates.
 
seatownmedia said:
I disagree when it comes to the 70's, which is what this thread is titled. It was indeed a "format" back then. It meant a quick, tight newscast highlighting crime and/or fast moving news with "eyewitness" or "live" reporting. It also usually offered "happy talk", a discussion among the desk anchors that usually was humorous and/or flippant. This was indeed a "format", and while others have used the term in subsequent years, I am relating this to the 70's as the thread indicates.
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I will agree that some of these terms today are indeed "brands" as opposed to formats, but I was responding to the 1970's. "Action News" in my market today means "Taking Action For you", not stories that have "action", which was the original "format"...stories that show action. Even Eyewitness News was an original format, now is a brand.
 
seatownmedia said:
I disagree when it comes to the 70's, which is what this thread is titled. It was indeed a "format" back then. It meant a quick, tight newscast highlighting crime and/or fast moving news with "eyewitness" or "live" reporting. It also usually offered "happy talk", a discussion among the desk anchors that usually was humorous and/or flippant. This was indeed a "format", and while others have used the term in subsequent years, I am relating this to the 70's as the thread indicates.
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Yes - but my point was - it was never called the "Eyewitness News" or "Action News" format - at least not accurately. Tightly formatted, "if it bleeds, it leads" happy-talk news was everywhere, and was called anything from those 2 names to "NewsCenter <channel #>,"Newswatch <channel 3>," "News Room,", "News Channel <#>" etc. ad nauseum. The worst, IMO were the Channel 11's which all over the country seemed to love "11 Alive." ...so stupid.

A case in point, "Channel 7 News Scene" in San Francisco from 1981. They were the same in the 70's.Same (what you call) 'Eyewitness' format, same Cool Hand Luke theme music, but called News Scene. By the way, KGO-TV owned the local news ratings in those days. The video is bad quality, but you get the idea:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ONygjZ0s5g.
 
LKellerIII said:
Yes - but my point was - it was never called the "Eyewitness News" or "Action News" format - at least not accurately. Tightly formatted, "if it bleeds, it leads" happy-talk news was everywhere, and was called anything from those 2 names to "NewsCenter <channel #>,"Newswatch <channel 3>," "News Room,", "News Channel <#>" etc. ad nauseum. The worst, IMO were the Channel 11's which all over the country seemed to love "11 Alive." ...so stupid.

A case in point, "Channel 7 News Scene" in San Francisco from 1981. They were the same in the 70's.Same (what you call) 'Eyewitness' format, same Cool Hand Luke theme music, but called News Scene. By the way, KGO-TV owned the local news ratings in those days. The video is bad quality, but you get the idea:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ONygjZ0s5g.
Click to expand...

Point taken on the newscast titles. But KGO was ABC O&O back in '81, and they were just doing the Eyewitness News format, but calling it something else as you state. I do agree it was also being done among many stations across the country, mostly in larger markets, and not all used "Eyewitness News", in fact most didn't. But they were certainly doing the format under the guise of a different name.
 
seatownmedia said:
Point taken on the newscast titles. But KGO was ABC O&O back in '81, and they were just doing the Eyewitness News format, but calling it something else as you state. I do agree it was also being done among many stations across the country, mostly in larger markets, and not all used "Eyewitness News", in fact most didn't. But they were certainly doing the format under the guise of a different name.
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Where I grew up, the CBS station was the one with Eyewitness News, so I always thought it was a CBS thing, and a play on words with the CBS "Eye". Because I believed that, it seemed out of place/bizarre once I saw non-CBS stations using that term.
 
NoDakObserver said:
Where I grew up, the CBS station was the one with Eyewitness News, so I always thought it was a CBS thing, and a play on words with the CBS "Eye". Because I believed that, it seemed out of place/bizarre once I saw non-CBS stations using that term.
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No - In San Francisco, Eyewitness News was also on the CBS affiliate, KPIX, as I indicated above. I was used to seeing that brand on ABC O&Os, like KABC-TV. But for some reason, the Westinghouse owned stations also used it, and Westinghouse owned KPIX. So it didn't have any relation to the CBS "eye" logo
 
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