"ABC PRIMARY" AFFILIATES IN TWO-STATION MARKETS

[Hal Erickson]

Back in the 50s and 60s, if you lived in a city with only two TV stations, chances are they were primary affiliates of the "big ones" NBC and CBS,
with ABC shows cherry-picked by the two outlets.
But in some two-station markets, ABC enjoyed a primary affiliation, and it was either NBC or CBS who were underrepresented.
I can think of only four such markets:
Dayton, Ohio, where WLW-D (Channel 2) was ABC primary, NBC supplementary possibly because WLW-T in CInicnnati was only 40 or so miles away;

Lexington, Kentucky, where from 1961 through 1966, WKCT (Channel 27) was ABC primary, with only a handful of CBS shows (the NBC affiliate, WLEX/18, also
ran a few CBS offerings); again, powerful CBS affiliate WHAS in Louisville wasn't all that far away.

Toledo, Ohio, where WSPD (now WTVG), Channel 13, was ABC primary, NBC a distant supplementary for many years (viewers had to pick up WWJ/4 in Detroit for most of the NBC lineup)

Rockford, Illinois, where WREX-TV 13 was ABC primary; only the "top" CBS shows were carried, and even some of those had to be picked up by the NBC affiliate WTVO;
this maket overlapped with Madison, where WISC broadcast CBS shows on Channel 3.


Any other such markets?

 

[Bob1370]

Not technically a two station market, Buffalo between 1954 and 1958 was virtually a two station major market because it had only two VHF stations with competitive signals, one of which was an ABC primary. WBEN-TV channel 4, the market's first station, was primary CBS from the time it signed on in 1948. Two UHF stations, first WBES (channel 59) and WBUF (channel 17) signed on in 1953 and each split the offerings of all the other networks that WBEN didn't want, but neither of them convinced a lot of people to buy UHF converters. WGR-TV signed on in 1954 on Channel 2 and promptly became an ABC primary, with a few NBC and DuMont shows cherry-picked. WBES had failed even before WGR-TV ever signed on, so for the 1954-55 season Buffalo had a CBS primary, an ABC primary, and no NBC primary at all....NBC shows were either split between channel 2 and 4, carried by Channel 17 if neither WGR nor WBEN wanted them, or in some cases weren't carried by a Buffalo station at all and seen only in the eastern part of the market that could easily pull in WHAM-TV (channel 5) out of Rochester. Later in 1955 NBC bought WBUF and upgraded its signal as part of an experiment to see if a big signal UHF station with full network commitment and program investment could reach parity with the V's. They hung in there from 1955 to 1958, never remotely coming close to parity with Channel 2 (now fulltime ABC) or Channel 4 (now fulltime CBS) in the ratings, despite the full NBC schedule and a big investment in local programs and facilities. In 1957 almost half the TV sets in Buffalo still couldn't pick up UHF, and even those that did, didn't spend much time with Channel 17.

It all started heading toward its end in the fall of 1957 when a ten year fight for the third VHF allocation in the Buffalo market, for Channel 7, was finally resolved by the FCC in favor of WKBW, Inc. Within a year, WKBW-TV was getting ready for full power sign-on, and NBC concluded it would lose out to the new station even if it signed on as an independent as it originally planned to. NBC tried to sell WBUF, found no takers, and then gave away the license to the local educational TV council. NBC then signed an affiliation with Channel 2 that lastes to this day, while ABC hooked up with Channel 7 the moment it began broadcasting and has been affiliated with Channel 7 ever since. In a short time Buffalo went effectively from a two station market with CBS and ABC primaries, to a market with strong ABC and CBS primaries and an NBC affiliate with a noncompetitive signal, to one of the most hotly competitive three network markets in the country.

 

[LKellerIII]

In the late 60s and into the 70s,KNTV (broadcast channel 11) in San Jose affiliated with ABC and duplicated KGO-TV Channel 7 out of San Francisco. Other that the network duplications, KNTV was notable for being one of two stations in that era that broadcast all night (movies), instead of signing off at 1:30 or 2:00 AM.

After a few years as an independent station, and then a WB affiliate, KNTV has been the Bay Area's NBC O&O.

 

[Mike Stroud]

Down here in Dixie (sorry to beat bpatrick to this), it looks like this:

Birmingham: from 1961 to 1965, ABC was on what was then Alabama's most powerful station, WBRC. UHF WBMG (now WIAT), which, as bpatrick and others have described before in detail, got the CBS and NBC leftovers from what WAPI (now WVTM) didn't want, beginning in '65. It was rumored that for many years after WBMG's first sign-on, WBRC could brag of having in most dayparts an audience bigger than WAPI and WBMG combined.

Columbus, Georgia: beginning in 1960, WTVM, which began seven years earlier as an NBC primary, switched to the Alphabet Channel because the nearest ABC affils in Atlanta and Montgomery, Alabama did not have strong enough signals to reach much of western Georgia and eastern Alabama, something that was not the case with the NBC stations in those places (respectively, WSB and WSFA). In fact, the owners of the UHF that started up in 1970 to provide the Peacock full-time, WYEA (now WLTZ), tried unsuccessfully to sue WSFA in order to stop that station from increasing its power and potentially destroying WYEA's chances to get a foothold.

Greenville/Greenwood, Mississippi: WABG joined ABC not long after its inception in 1959 for very much the same reasons that WTVM in Columbus did: Memphis (WHBQ) was too far away, and Jackson wouldn't get ABC coverage until 1970 (WAPT). In fact, WABG itself didn't have competition in the Mississippi Delta region until 1980, when the Eyeball Channel appeared on UHF startup WXVT. It must be remembered, of course, that the area then was very impoverished economically, and probably had one of the lowest rates of set ownership in the country, rivaling places like Appalachia or the Rio Grande Valley. Put in layman's terms, there wasn't enough demand for more than one station for a long time.

Bowling Green, Kentucky: WBKO, still with ABC today, enjoyed a de facto monopoly in southern Kentucky for ages, from the 1960s until 1989 (although with ABC only since 1967). It was only when the fledgling UHF WNKY began carrying NBC in 2001 that things really changed, and when WNKY added CBS to a digital subchannel in 2007, that effectively ended the region's dependency on nearby Nashville for the other Big Two. The reason WBKO took ABC to start with was because Nashville's Alphabet outlet, WSIX (now WKRN), was by far the weakest of the three Music City stations; CBS (WLAC, now WTVF) or NBC (WSM, now WSMV) would have said no, while ABC was hungry in Sixties to get any piece of the pie it could. (Yes, yes, I know a case can be made that Bowling Green really wasn't a market in and unto itself. It is now, though.)

Augusta, Georgia: For about two years in the late 1960s, WJBF switched its primary from NBC to ABC, again due to intense out-of-market competition, this time from nearby Columbia, South Carolina (the Peacock was on powerhouse WIS, while ABC and CBS were on low-powered UHFs that did not reach the Augusta area). Although NBC signed up with the new WATU (now WAGT) in late 1968, that UHF crashed and burned within two years because the execs at 30 Rock let WJBF and Eyeball primary WRDW continue their long-standing practice of cherry-picking their best shows, a la Birmingham's WAPI. WJBF (and WRDW) got a four-year reprieve until 1974, when NBC signed an exclusive deal with WATU, to get that station back on the air for good.

 

[bpatrick]

Mike, you left out Raleigh/Durham. WRAL switched from NBC
to ABC on August 1, 1962. WTVD, which had been CBS primary,
ABC secondary, now became an NBC secondary. In 1968 WRDU
(now WRDC) signed on, ostensibly as the Triangle's new NBC affiliate,
but WTVD continued to cherry-pick CBS and NBC for three more years.
WRDU's management complained to the FCC about WTVD's having first
pick, especially when neighboring CBS affiliates such as Greensboro's
WFMY and Greenville's WNCT were showing up in the Raleigh/Durham
ratings books whenever WRDU was broadcasting a CBS show (WFMY was
on Channel 2, WNCT on Channel 9, and WRDU on Channel 28). The FCC
finally ordered WTVD to pick one network or the other; since CBS did better
in the Triangle (and North Carolina in general), that's the network they chose,
and remained there until becoming an ABC o&o with the CapCities purchase of
the Alphabet Network in 1985. WRDU (later WPTF, then WRDC) proved to be
one of NBC's weakest and most pre-emption happy affiliates; NBC bought WNCN
and switched affiliates in 1995; WNCN is now owned by Media General, is still
behind RAL and TVD (this is, basically, a two-station market), but does better
than WRDU/WRDC ever did as an NBC affiliate.

As for Augusta, we had WJBF and WRDW on cable in Athens when I was at the
University of Georgia (1973-76), and at the time both stations carried some NBC
programs (WJBF, for example, carried the "Today" and "Tonight" shows; WRDW
carried the soap opera "Somerset" and NBC's "Saturday Night At The Movies");
I think it was around 1977 that WJBF became exclusively ABC, WRDW exclusively
CBS, and WAGT exclusively NBC.

Another one is Wilmington, NC. WECT had been the market's only station and
had carried all three networks until WWAY signed on in 1964 and took the ABC
affiliation (although it occasionally picked up some NFL football games from NBC,
as well as "As The World Turns" when "Days Of Our Lives" went to an hour at
1:30 and WECT was forced to carry the NBC soap). For the most part, however,
CBS has been locked out of the market, unless you can get WRAL, WNCT, or WBTW
Florence, SC; WJKA/26 was one attempt in the '80s/early '90s, but I think CBS dropped
it because its ratings were so bad (it's now WSFX, a Fox affiliate); currently New Hanover
and Brunswick counties can receive CBS on WILM-LP, but the rest of the market still has
to make do with out-of-market CBS affiliates.

There were some in the '70s and beyond as well.
How can you forget Salisbury, MD? WBOC (CBS) and WMDT (ABC).
Victoria, TX: KVCT (ABC) and KAVU (NBC), now KVCT (Fox) and KAVU (ABC).
Lower Rio Grande Valley, TX: KRGV switched from NBC to ABC in the mid-'70s,
in a two-station market with KGBT (CBS/NBC) until KVEO (NBC) signed on in
the early '80s.
Lafayette, LA: KATC (ABC), KLFY (CBS). Lake Charles' KPLC is the de facto NBC
affiliate but is in a separate DMA.
Dothan, AL: WTVY (CBS), WDHN (ABC) since 1970
Panama City, FL: WJHG (ABC, then NBC), WMBB (NBC, then ABC). In 1972, when
Panama City was still a one-station market, WJHG switched from NBC to ABC;
WMBB signed on as the NBC affiliate in 1974. In 1982, WJHG inexplicably switched
back to NBC. WTVY is the de facto CBS affiliate for Panama City.
Tallahassee, FL: WECA (now WTXL) signed on as the market's second commercial
station in 1976, as an ABC affiliate (WCTV is CBS). That didn't last long; WTWC
(NBC) soon signed on as well.
Utica, NY: WKTV (NBC), WUTR (ABC), although I think CBS is available on WTVH Syracuse.
Florence, SC: WBTW (CBS) and WPDE (ABC); NBC was provided by WECT and WIS Columbia, SC,
until WMBF signed on as the NBC affiliate in 2008.

 

[Mike Stroud]

bp's right. I did inadvertently leave out Raleigh/Durham, and Wilmington just slipped me entirely. I promise you, I have nothing against the fine people of the Tarheel State, North Carolina. Living in Alabama as I do, North Carolina is awfully far away geographically, and that's probably why I overlooked those markets.

As for Augusta, I have a May 1974 South Carolina edition TV Guide from the days when WATU was just starting up again. It looks like WJBF got the morning NBC shows and maybe the Tonight Show, while WRDW, I think, only had the Bill Cullen game show Three on a Match, an afternoon NBC offering. WATU didn't even sign on for the day until 12 Noon (with NBC's Jackpot!), meaning that the station was in the progress of building back its schedule, holding off on a full-day sked until 30 Rock began twisting the other stations' arms. bp says that it would take three years before the Peacock went to WATU exclusively; that sounds about right, given the long-standing arrangements there. Still, WATU, not surprisingly with two established VHF neighbors and a thousand-pound gorilla of a signal up the road (Interstate 20) in WIS, didn't make any impact on the Nielsens until cable (and Syndex) hit a critical mass in the Savannah River region--by which time the station was now WAGT and 20-some years old.

While some might, because of bp's memories of getting WJBF and WRDW on Athens cable in the 1970s, think that Atlanta's WSB had impact on WJBF's decision to go with the Alphabet as primary, Augusta is over 100 miles away, and the only way people in the area would have seen Atlanta TV (excepting, of course, Ted Turner and WTCG in the early 1970s) would have been via cable, with relay signals. Likewise, Savannah's WSAV was about the same distance away as WSB. Columbia was far closer to Augusta, by contrast, and the WIS blowtorch covered more than half of the entire state of South Carolina (save for the "Upcountry"--Greenville-Spartanburg--and "Lowcountry"--Charleston--regions)

Dothan/Panama City was something of a borderline, as I always thought both places were so close together that they had always constituted a single market. However, WTVY and WJHG were the only two there until 1973, when the present WMBB began. WJHG, though, was primary Peacock except for a period between 1973 and 1982.

One interesting aside about Lafayette: that market actually had an NBC affil of its own from 1968 to 1976, KLNI, on channel 15. Surrounded by VHFs in nearby Lake Charles, Alexandria, and Baton Rouge and up against ABC and CBS VHFs in its own backyard, it didn't make it. A few years later, new owners re-started it as an indie, KADN, which is now with FOX.

 

[mleach]

How can you forget Salisbury, MD? WBOC (CBS) and WMDT (ABC).

Sometime ago somebody had posted on DCRTV that WMDT at first had plans on hooking up with NBC only to run into issues with Hearst/WBAL out of Baltimore. In other words Hearst used their power to block WMDT from joining NBC. That was in 1980..oddly enough the next year WBAL would pick up CBS when that network had dumped WMAR.

My guess would be that the strong lineup ABC had in the early 80s and lack of a good one with NBC was the reason why WMDT had stayed with ABC rather that switching to the peacock. I doubt Hearst would have had a say in this since WBAL was part of CBS. Today OTOH..ah yeah WMDT wouldn't be able to join NBC even if they watned too because of..ah hmmm..Hearst/WBAL but WMDT had a chance..a 14 year chance to go with NBC. But they didn't.

 

[KML0224]

What about Springfield, MA? They're home to WWLP-TV channel 22, the long time NBC affiliate. Their competition for many years was WGGB-TV channel 40, an ABC affiliate which was CBS affiliated WHYN-TV before that. That changed when WTIC-TV channel 3 of Hartford went from being an independent to a CBS affiliate around 1960. Until recently, channel 3 was the de facto CBS affiliate for their market. There were other times in the past when channel 40 tried to go back to being a CBS affiliate and Hartford blocked it.

Today, Springfield has "CBS 3", which is actually WFSB-DT 3-2, programmed from the channel 3 studios in Rocky Hill, CT. However, WSHM-LD (low-power digital) signed on recently. I believe they show the same programming as WFSB-DT 3-2.

These days, WGGB-DT 40-2 is "FOX 6", with "6" referring to the analog cable channel position on Comcast in Springfield. For many years, WTIC-TV channel 61 of Hartford was the de facto FOX affiliate for their market, much like channel 3 was for CBS.

 

[RyanHoward]

In the 70's, the Johnstown/Altoona area had WOPC, Ch. 38(today's WATM-TV, Ch. 23) which was a half-witted ABC affiliate in a market that also had a powerful NBC(WJAC-TV, Ch. 6) and two CBS affiliates (WTAJ-TV, Ch. 10 and the ever-popular WJNL-TV, Ch. 19, now owned by CBS as WPCW,
the Pittsburgh CW affiliate).

 

[mjlarochelle]

Erie, PA was one such market in the early 1960s. At that time WICU/12 was with ABC, while WSEE/35 was with CBS. There was a construction permit for an NBC affiliate on Channel 66, WEPA. The CP was owned by Alfred Anscombe, but WEPA never signed on. NBC eventually moved back to Channel 12 and ABC ended up on another UHF station that signed on in 1966, WJET/24. NBC likely would have been receivable from Cleveland, Youngstown, or Buffalo in the interim. Channel 66 remained vacant until 1986 when a station that later affiliated with FOX signed on.

Utica, New York was another such market in the 1970s and 80s, with WKTV/2 as an NBC affiliate and WUTR/20 being an ABC affiliate. The market has never had its own CBS affiliate, instead relying on WTVH from Syracuse (which I believe fought to prevent CBS from affiliating with any stations in Utica).

Flint-Saginaw-Bay City never was such a market per se, but in the early days of television the CBS affiliate was on UHF while ABC and NBC were on VHF. At least in the Flint part of the market, CBS could have been received on VHF from Lansing or Detroit.

 

[bpatrick]

Re WRDW: When I first started at the University of Georgia,
WRDW aired "Somerset" at 4 PM (they carried "Secret Storm,"
which was still on CBS at 4, at 1 PM, same time as WAGA).
By May '74 "Tattletales" had replaced "Secret Storm," and I
think WRDW did pick that up. They did carry "Three On A
Match" at 9:30 AM, IIRC.

I think, re WJBF's going with ABC exclusively, you have to
look at what ABC affiliates surrounded Augusta in the '70s:
WXIA/11 Atlanta, WOLO/25 Columbia, WLOS/13 Greenville/Spartanburg/
Asheville, and WJCL/22 Savannah, none of which could have
put a signal into Augusta. Even when WSB switched to ABC, it
wouldn't have mattered; Augusta is about 125 miles from Atlanta,
and even a station on Channel 2 couldn't reach that far. By contrast,
there are parts of the Augusta market that can get NBC from Greenville
and/or (possibly) Columbia on cable.

 

[rwells2265]

Columbus, Georgia: beginning in 1960, WTVM, which began seven years earlier as an NBC primary, switched to the Alphabet Channel because the nearest ABC affils in Atlanta and Montgomery, Alabama did not have strong enough signals to reach much of western Georgia and eastern Alabama, something that was not the case with the NBC stations in those places (respectively, WSB and WSFA). In fact, the owners of the UHF that started up in 1970 to provide the Peacock full-time, WYEA (now WLTZ), tried unsuccessfully to sue WSFA in order to stop that station from increasing its power and potentially destroying WYEA's chances to get a foothold.

http://www.uiowa.edu/~cyberlaw/FCCOps/1970/21F2_729.htm

It stemmed from WSFA's proposal to relocate their transmitter from Mt. Carmel (north Crenshaw County) to a taller stick near Union Springs (Bullock County) ... which, without a doubt, would have put a good signal of channel 12 into Columbus, with perhaps city grade coverage lapping at Phenix City. 

12's parent Cosmos was trying to do just that prior to WYEA-38 signing on.  Opposition to this new tower came not only from the owners of 38's CP, but also from such players as WTVM, WTVY-4/Dothan and "sore loser" local competitor WCOV-20 (I say that because, as some of you know, had 20 only been PATIENT, *THEY* could have been channel 12). 

The "Tall Tower" ended up being built at Grady, halfway between Montgomery and Troy, going online in 1977.  Ironically, WCOV now has their antenna on that very tower. 

I do remember one day back in 1998 poking around in the TV department of the Sears store in Columbus (my then-g/f was living in Cols.), and looking at one of the B/W battery portable models not hooked to their in-house distribution cable.  I tried to see if WSFA came in, and - sure 'nuff - I received a snowy picture, barely watchable.  And that was coming from Grady ... through a TV tuner section that I'm sure was vastly inferior to the VHF sections of older sets! 

Speculating, had 12 prevailed in their attempt at placing a 2,000' stick at Union Springs -- if the regulatory environment of the time hadn't been focused on building up UHFs -- Columbus might well have been like Dothan, with WSFA serving as their de facto NBC affil, too.  38 would never have had a prayer.

PS - another NBC in the southern part of WTVM's coverage area was/is WALB-10 in Albany. 

As for WTVM, aligning with ABC as a primary net was a good move.  With it, they came awfully close to being an ABC "superstation" for that part of the country -- even today, they're carried on a few cable systems more than 100 miles away.  In Troy, Ala. (95 crow-miles), it was the only ABC one could get pre-1974, when Troy's first cable system powered up.  And that required an outdoor rig.  Montgomery and Dothan's (UHF) ABC affils were not an option, even with the best residential UHF antennas.

--Russell

 

[bpatrick]

In the 70's, the Johnstown/Altoona area had WOPC, Ch. 38(today's WATM-TV, Ch. 23) which was a half-witted ABC affiliate in a market that also had a powerful NBC(WJAC-TV, Ch. 6) and two CBS affiliates (WTAJ-TV, Ch. 10 and the ever-popular WJNL-TV, Ch. 19, now owned by CBS as WPCW,
the Pittsburgh CW affiliate).

While I believe WTRF Wheeling-Steubenville has added ABC on its digital subchannel, aren't most viewers in western Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia perfectly happy with Pittsburgh's WTAE as their de-facto ABC affiliate?

 

[therealjm12]

West Palm Beach: WEAT-TV12 (now WPEC) was an early ABC affiliate from the 50's. WPTV -5 was NBC. No CBS except the distant signal out of Miami. Since then there has been all kinds of affiliate swapping in Palm Beach and Miami. Just too detailed to go into here but, Palm Beach has all the major affiliates now and WPEC is CBS.

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

While I believe WTRF Wheeling-Steubenville has added ABC on its digital subchannel, aren't most viewers in western Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia perfectly happy with Pittsburgh's WTAE as their de-facto ABC affiliate?

And on the Ohio side of the market, add in Youngstown's WYTV/33.

That said, WTRF's "Ohio Valley ABC" actually displaced WTAE on the Comcast analog lineup (4) recently, so that historic viewing pattern will change for cable viewers. I think you can still get WTAE up in the digital channels, but the prime real estate is now WTRF"s.

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

After a few years as an independent station, and then a WB affiliate, KNTV has been the Bay Area's NBC O&O.

Two additions here:

1) KNTV/11 was an ABC affiliate much later than the 1970's. The change, first to independent, then to WB, was very recent...and then, of course, the NBC O&O status.

2) KNTV was, in its time as an ABC affiliate, the "defacto" ABC affiliate for the nearby Salinas/Monterey market.

When that affiliation changed, the market lost ABC OTA service altogether, and that's never been replaced. KGO/7 launched an "ABC 7" cable channel in the Monterey/Salinas market, which sells local ads on top of the SF Channel 7 feed. (IIRC, they also have to do some syndex preemption to protect syndicated rights of shows that air on in-market stations.)

 

[bpatrick]

I remember seeing San Francisco editions of TV Guide in
the '80s, and KNTV was indeed one of three ABC affiliates,
along with KGO and KOVR (since become a CBS o&o).

However, check the National TV board. KSBW is adding
ABC on Channel 8.2 come spring 2011. Much like KBMT
Beaumont, TX, which put NBC on 12.2 after KBTV swiched
from NBC to Fox, KSBW will air its local newscast on both
8.1 and 8.2.

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

As mentioned, KGO/7 has been running an "ABC 7" cable service in Monterey/Salinas, but ABC must want a full-fledged station there (even as an OTA subchannel). I'm actually surprised it took so long.

 

[fortmill]

Re WRDW: When I first started at the University of Georgia,
WRDW aired "Somerset" at 4 PM (they carried "Secret Storm,"
which was still on CBS at 4, at 1 PM, same time as WAGA).
By May '74 "Tattletales" had replaced "Secret Storm," and I
think WRDW did pick that up. They did carry "Three On A
Match" at 9:30 AM, IIRC.

I think, re WJBF's going with ABC exclusively, you have to
look at what ABC affiliates surrounded Augusta in the '70s:
WXIA/11 Atlanta, WOLO/25 Columbia, WLOS/13 Greenville/Spartanburg/
Asheville, and WJCL/22 Savannah, none of which could have
put a signal into Augusta. Even when WSB switched to ABC, it
wouldn't have mattered; Augusta is about 125 miles from Atlanta,
and even a station on Channel 2 couldn't reach that far. By contrast,
there are parts of the Augusta market that can get NBC from Greenville
and/or (possibly) Columbia on cable.

It's no surprise that channel 26 had a very hard time in the 60s and 70s. WJBF and WRDW didn't air just a few NBC programs--they made it their business to grab any popular NBC program. In addition to WJBF airing Today and Tonight, they also showed several NBC programs in real time, time shifting the ABC offering to off-periods--WRDW did the same, and RDW also showed NBC programs at 7 each night, sometimes dropping the 7:30 CBS program for completion of 60 minute NBC programs. When prime time was was changed to 8:00, that made the situation all the more worse. In addition, Augusta cable carried both WSB (via microwave) and WIS during the 60s and 70s. Aiken county cable systems (across the river from AUgusta), also carried WNOK/19 and and WOLO/25 into the 80s at least. I believe they still carry WIS as a significantly viewed signal.

 

[bpatrick]

Yeah, I do remember some things like WRDW carrying Flip
Wilson (NBC) instead of "The Waltons" (CBS) on Thursdays,
and WJBF carrying "Sanford And Son" (NBC) instead of "The
Brady Bunch" (ABC) on Fridays, as well as NBC's soap block
of "Days Of Our Lives," "The Doctors," and "Another World."

I never knew, though, that WSB was carried on cable that
far east; WIS I can understand. But if Augusta cable was
still carrying out-of-market stations in the early '80s did it
pick up WXIA when it became Atlanta's NBC affiliate?