Im not sure what the rules are behind TV IDs... im pretty sure a visual would suffice but i dont think theres an inaudible methods like fm translators
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KVOS Seattle (???)
- Thread starter valvashon
- Start date
Im not sure what the rules are behind TV IDs... im pretty sure a visual would suffice but i dont think theres an inaudible methods like fm translators
There have been mutiple efforts over the years to make KVOS a "Seattle" station, for obvious financial benefits. When Barry Ackerley owned both KVOS and the Seattle Sonics, he leveraged basketball broadcasts to make sure he got cable carriage throughout the region. Back in 2009, the current owners (i believe) tried to move the COL and the tower down to a tall hill just north of Granite Falls, which would have gotten the signal as far south as Tacoma. The feds said no to that move.
The heyday for KVOS is way back in the rear-view mirror. It did its best when it could sell ads into the Vancouver market (they had an office and fulll time sales/production staff in Vancouver) as a US indy staiton- we are talking the 60s and the 70s. Once the Canadian government dropped the bomb on advertising write-offs most of that money quicky dried up. I love living up here, but there's no way that Bellingham can support a full power station with actual personnel by itself.
In the days of analog, you absolutely could get KVOS on north facing hills in the Seattle area. My aunt got it fine on her big antenna on the Renton Highlands. When I was a little kid living in the Edmonds bowl, I got my cartoons on Frisky Frolics on KVOS.
The heyday for KVOS is way back in the rear-view mirror. It did its best when it could sell ads into the Vancouver market (they had an office and fulll time sales/production staff in Vancouver) as a US indy staiton- we are talking the 60s and the 70s. Once the Canadian government dropped the bomb on advertising write-offs most of that money quicky dried up. I love living up here, but there's no way that Bellingham can support a full power station with actual personnel by itself.
In the days of analog, you absolutely could get KVOS on north facing hills in the Seattle area. My aunt got it fine on her big antenna on the Renton Highlands. When I was a little kid living in the Edmonds bowl, I got my cartoons on Frisky Frolics on KVOS.
That picture is from OTA reception up on Tiger Mt. The antenna is at one end of the transmitter building at WTM-2. It's a cut 33 antenna mounted facing up so that we can receive a signal on our station on RF33. KVOS comes blasting in even though I took no special measures to receive it.
It wasn't the current owners of KVOS that tried to move it to Granite Falls as a Telemundo affiliate. It was Michael Dell, who bought the station from (then) Clear Chanrel after Ackerley sold out his broadcasting properties.
I too was a Frisky Frolics freak. Fun-O-Rama too
It will one day. It's just not today
It's been fixed and the .1 is IDing correctly. The person I spoke to is not sure how it ended up being done wrong but it's been fixed
One correction: in those days, KVOS was a CBS affiliate, although by the mid-70s they ran a lot of CBS programming out of pattern and preempted more than was usual for a network affiliate. In essence, it was programmed almost as a hybrid between a network affiliate and an independent station. And, yes, it was obviously targeting Vancouver, BC.
And on a good day, I could get the station down in Lakewood (southwest suburb of Tacoma).
They are so old, they were once a Dumont station!
Always were kind of a funky CBS afilliate, which is why I tend to characterize them as more of an indy. They most certianly didn't clear the whole CBS schedule.
Pretty impressive to get them down in Lakewood, especially with 11 and 13 right in the neighborhood. AND with KPTV Portland throwing in a powerful (if distant) co-channel signal as well. For most of the 70s our cable system in Lynnwood WA carried both channel 12s- KVOS was on 12 and KPTV was on 10.
I believe this to be the case. I can see Mt Constitution from my residence and KVOS "12.1" was ID'ing correctly the whole time.
It's possible that they cleared more of it early on (might be verifiable on newspapers.com ), in that they were the de facto CBS affiliate for Vancouver, similar to how KCND Pembina ND provided ABC for Winnipeg. At one time Whatcom County was its own ADI, as late as 1979, this per Broadcasting Yearbook.
I forwarded this thread to the right person as soon as I saw it, who told me he had a review done for all the Weigel-owned stations.
- Trip
Again, the picture in the original post is from OTA reception of their RF 14 signal. This was taken a few days before I posted it and I also noted the incorrect legal ID several weeks before that. This picture was taken at our transmit site on Tiger Mountain; the RF 14 signal comes in cleanly there. It was not the RF 8 translator signal from Tacoma. That is a highly directional signal with most of the signal landing on the Puget Sound. As far as I know our TV up there was not re-scanned after the RF 8 translator was put on the air and I don't think it would be receivable up there anyway.
Val
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
While properly disclaiming that this is based on my fuzzy memory of decades ago, my understanding was that KVOS carried only those CBS shows which were not being carried on the CTV affiliate in Vancouver (CHAN-TV, I believe was the case back then).
That would have made sense. I checked the Bellingham newspaper from sometime in the mid-1970s, I forget the exact year, and their CBS schedule was very skimpy, all I saw was the CBS morning news, 60 Minutes, and maybe one other show that escapes me right now. Given the unique circumstances, Vancouver stations carrying the same shows, and KIRO just down the road, I am assuming that CBS was willing to accept the situation at the time.
Even today Canada cable systems take the feed from a local station when US-fed programming airs at the same time. In other words Cxxx programming overrides Kxxx feed when both carry something like Law z& Order.
That could well be, but I don't think they followed that policy when it came to CBS shows that were carried on the CBC station (CBUT). I'm going from very old memories here, but my recollection is that some shows did run on both CBUT and KVOS, but KVOS would run those shows out of pattern to avoid having them air at the same time as they were on CBUT.
Regarding my ability to receive KVOS intermittently in Lakewood -- yeah, I think it was about 100 miles. But we weren't far from Puget Sound, maybe a mile inland and the ground sloped downward as you went towards the Sound. Since the KVOS transmitter was on top of a mountain on an island up the Sound, it was a pretty clear shot. That said, reception was pretty intermittent and there was usually at least a little adjacent channel interference from the two Tacoma stations.
Later on, when 104.3 in Bellingham shifted to automated Top 40 as KNWR, that station came in very consistently. I didn't listen to it as much, but 92.9 KISM also generally came in pretty well.
Did any Vancouver stations (or even CHEK Victoria) besides CBUT carry CBS shows? I'm pretty sure that Canadian stations carrying American shows didn't necessarily carry programs from just one US network.
CBUT (CBC), CHEK (CBC/CTV), and CHAN (CTV) all carried a mix of programs from all three U.S. networks, along with programs that originated in Canada. So did CKVU (originally on channel 21, now channel 10) when it came on the air in the late 70s.
American programs were sold to Canadian networks in international syndication, so there was no link between which network aired a show in Canada versus the network airing the show in the United States.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
We're now in an area where I know less than nothing, so this is pure conjecture on my part.
CTV was a commercial network but CBC was not (I think). If that was the case, perhaps whatever agreement was in place for CTV to air shows that were also in current runs on ABC/CBS/NBC prohibited KVOS from duplicating anything on CHAN's schedule because of the commercials, whereas CBC had no similar "leg to stand on" for CBS shows they aired on CBUT.
And I rather doubt that we are going to find the definitive answer some 60+ years later.
CBC was nonprofit, but not non-commercial -- CBC stations did (and still do) air paid advertising during their broadcasts. My "source" for this information is that the Vancouver and Victoria stations were all listed in the Western Washington edition of "TV Guide", so that's where I saw the schedules. And the local (suburban Tacoma) cable system actually did carry CBUT -- so when I house sat for the neighbor who had cable, I could watch the station, commercial breaks and all. CBUT also did occasionally come in off-air when conditions were just right.
That said, I suspect that you're right about the agreements that were in place. CTV probably paid a bit extra to get a level of exclusivity that government-owned CBC didn't bother to pay for.
(As a side note, the CBC station in Windsor, ON generally was on the other side of exclusivity deals, as they did not carry U.S. network programs that were part of the CBC schedule. Interestingly, that station was the mirror image of KVOS for many years, and operated as a de facto independent station as CKLW-TV serving Detroit until the mid-70s. They weren't a full independent station since they did carry the CBC's schedule of Canadian-produced programming, though...just as KVOS carried some CBS programs. That ended when the Canadian government forced the sale of the station and it came under direct CBC ownership as CBET.)