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America's WORST Independent TV Stations of the 1970's, 1980's and 1990's?
- Thread starter Madmansam
- Start date
"I'll start it out with Leon Crosby's KEMO Channel 20"
Damn! When I saw this thread, I was going to nominate KEMO, but you beat me to it, madmansam. I gather you were not a Joey Bavaresco fan?
Damn! When I saw this thread, I was going to nominate KEMO, but you beat me to it, madmansam. I gather you were not a Joey Bavaresco fan?
Actually not really. KEMO had the worst mixture of shows. KEMO could decide if they were a Spanish Station or a Religious Station. To my knowledge, I believe KEMO was the first to broadcast Asian Programs (On Sunday Nights) before KTSF-26 went on the air. On Friday Nights, there was a show produced by Dan Faris, Owner Of "The Cinema Shop" in San Francisco, called "The Worst Of Hollywood" hosted by "Bob Deckelman" showing pretty much old public domain movies. They also had "All Night Movies" (In English) hosted by Gary Ferry (As "Old Sourdough") before he went to KGSC-36. Gary was succeeded by Carpet Store Owner (And Later Convicted Arsonist ;D) Leon Heskett.Lkeller said:
I nominate WHKY-TV/14, Hickory NC as by far the worst independent in the US, both in the 90s and today. WHKY was put on the air in the late 1960s by WHKY-AM/FM and the local Hickory newspaper. In the 70s and early 80s they aired a lot of very old movies and Tv series, probably all in the public domain, local news, along with lots of locally produced "religious" programs. In the 1990s they increased their power to include most of the Charlotte DMA (market 26). They got on most area cable systems at that time, including the 400,000 subscriber Time Warner Charlotte system. You would have thought programming might improve--instead the opposite occured. All entertainment programs were dropped, with various shopping programs aired during the day and overnight. During prime time, the local "religious" programs increased, most seemingly produced with home video equipment. But the local news programs, at 5:30 PM and 10:00 PM are the real specticle---simply some of the worst television I have ever seen. You'd have to see it to believe it. And the locally produced commercials are also a scream, all a real embarassment to Hickory and the Unifour area. All of this on a station that probably gets into at least 700,000 homes. Would be more except WHKY has never been put on Dish or Direct, despite the FCC's ruling that they are subject to "must carry." I dare you to name a worse station....
I would nominate the early days of WSNS tv 44 Chicago. According to the video veteran www.chicagotelevision.com the station had a habit of airing its commercials, when they actually had any, upside down. They also ran a teltext news service most of the day and at night a half naked woman sitting on a heart shaped bed would read the news. According to the above site it was called "Heart of the News".
WHCT Channel 18, Hartford, CT. A disaster from the day CBS sold it in the 50s, albeit a fascinating disaster.
Read all about it:
www.kylebookholz.com
Read all about it:
www.kylebookholz.com
K
KML0224
Guest
Definitely channel 18 of Hartford! (Today they are Univision affiliate WUVN-TV.) You failed to mention their early experiment with pay television. Then it was Dr. Gene Scott 23 1/2 hours a day. They were taken over by minority-owned Astroline Communications and at least attempted to become a legit indy. They carried a few Hartford Whalers NHL games, wrestling, etc. They were all set to carry the New York Mets when suddenly...they were forced off the air by the FCC in April of 1991. They came back on a few years later and nearly became the PAX station for this area (sometimes I wish they had). Univision took over the station around or just after 2000.
One thing which never changed in that whole time? Their signal. I still can't get a clear picture in the south end of New Britain, CT (southwest of Hartford) even today. Just like 20 years ago!
One thing which never changed in that whole time? Their signal. I still can't get a clear picture in the south end of New Britain, CT (southwest of Hartford) even today. Just like 20 years ago!
"KEMO also had 'All Night Movies' (In English) hosted by Gary Ferry (As "Old Sourdough") before he went to KGSC-36. Gary was succeeded by Carpet Store Owner (And Later Convicted Arsonist ) Leon Heskett."
I remember "Heskett's Carpet Coliseum" and had forgotten about the fire. I guess the inventory blow out sale didn't go well, and he had to burn it out?
Actually, an intesting thread would be - local commerical TV Pitchmen - with emphasis on those who were either sleazy, or just oddballs. Other than Heskett, I'd nominate Ed Barbara from "Furnitooesay" (Furniture USA). I think he had to close up shop for legal reasons, but I don't remember the details. Honorable Mention - Jay Brown from Spartan Dodge on the KNTV-11 All Night Movies, when it was still an ABC affiliate.
Bye Kids
I remember "Heskett's Carpet Coliseum" and had forgotten about the fire. I guess the inventory blow out sale didn't go well, and he had to burn it out?
Actually, an intesting thread would be - local commerical TV Pitchmen - with emphasis on those who were either sleazy, or just oddballs. Other than Heskett, I'd nominate Ed Barbara from "Furnitooesay" (Furniture USA). I think he had to close up shop for legal reasons, but I don't remember the details. Honorable Mention - Jay Brown from Spartan Dodge on the KNTV-11 All Night Movies, when it was still an ABC affiliate.
Bye Kids
I was not impressed in Denver when KTVD launched in 1988 to fill void that KDVR had left when it went to Fox. KTVD was weak just re-running sitcoms and movies that didn't make profit. Infact they almost went bankrupt until their paid programming saved them in the early 90s and they were able to bring some more profitable talk shows, with the final saving graces being their affiliation with UPN and Gannett(also the owner of KUSA) buying the station.
I'll vote for KJTV Channel 14 in Amarillo, TX 1982-86. Complete bottom of the barrel joke. Went on the air with an ancient RCA transmitter, which barely covered the city. On their inaugural evening of broadcasting, the transmitter crapped out, and didn't make it on the air again until the next morning. Programming was picked up from sister KJAA in Lubbock on an off-air receiver midway between the two cities, then microwaved the rest of the way...which made for a crummy feed. The rest of the equipment was new, but bottom-of-the-line. Local commercials were run off of crappy 3/4 inch decks, which glitched and rolled before and after every spot. And since all this equipment was located in a room next to the transmitter, there was constant video RF buzz getting into everything. Most cable access channels had higher standards than this place. Although the station had some good classic movies, the rest of the programming was rather forgettable, although I do recall they ran Larry King's first effort on television (syndicated live on Sunday nights) around 1983.
The station was eventually sold, and the new owners promptly rebuilt it correctly--new studios, all new top-notch equipment, new transmitter, tall tower, and changed the calls to KCIT as well--a rags to riches story. It is now the Fox affiliate in Amarillo.
The station was eventually sold, and the new owners promptly rebuilt it correctly--new studios, all new top-notch equipment, new transmitter, tall tower, and changed the calls to KCIT as well--a rags to riches story. It is now the Fox affiliate in Amarillo.
genius said:
Speaking of Denver, KBDI/12 was a long running joke in the late 70's and early 80's. Their technical problems were legendary, due to to lack of $$$ and their non-comm status. Vastly different station today, from what I can tell.
Try this one on... WKTR Channel 16, Kettering (Dayton, OH) circa late 60s until going “dark” after a court-reversed ABC affiliation gone “south” - later to return as a good PBS station run by former Cox Channel 7 (WHIO) GM Jack Fogerty. “16” signed on at 3PM with the 5-minute U.S.A.F. film “High Flight”... Then constantly shifting color bars until 3:30 when the Underdog cartoon aired. I DID enjoy their hour of non-truncated “Three Stooges” at 5:30. “Prime” was the B&W “Follow The Sun” at 7PM, “Mr Lucky” at 8PM, and the all-too-typical presentation from the cheap “movie package” (most from the 40s and 50s) at 9PM... ‘Then a local version of an appliance infomercial at 11PM preceding sign-off. It was “indy” UHF TV at its very finest!
zman said:
But those were in the VERY early days of the station, barely even into the 1970's. By 1973 WSNS was well on the road to respectability having acquired rights to the White Sox, which would be soon followed by the Bulls and Black Hawks. It probably would have survived and prospered past the mid 80's had Chicago's two other indies at the time, WGN and WFLD, not been VERY strong.
For truly bad Chicago indies, I'd look a generation later to WGBO-66. Its reruns, movies and children's programming were the absolute bottom of the barrel stuff that WGN, WFLD, and WPWR didn't want, although sometimes this led to interesting stuff on its airwaves such as WCW wrestling and the original WWOR Howard Stern TV show late on Saturday nights (after Stern's original ill-fated Chicago radio stint on WLUP-AM). On New Year's Day 1995 it went Spanish with former ethnic-brokered WCIU becoming a general market indie simultaneously. Weigel almost immediately made WCIU a much better indie than WGBO ever was.
And of course, there's the infamous WJYS-62 which has been execrable from the start, although it was slightly less so in the 90's when it ran a few hours of 50's and 60's reruns amidst its tedious blocks of car swindler and bible-thumper infomercials.
Another nominee for the list, from the very early 1970s: KTVW, channel 13 in Tacoma/Seattle. This station, a commercial VHF channel in a top 20 market, did not convert to color operation until 1972!
After the color conversion, KTVW did much better in the programming department, but unfortunately just wasn't able to effectively compete against four other VHF commercial channels. They ended up in bankruptcy two years later, and went off the air in December 1974. I suspect that no one else can make the claim of having had a major market VHF commercial channel go off the air due to bankruptcy any time in the last 40 years or so! Yeah, I know that there are major market stations that failed during this period, but except for KTVW, these were all UHF stations.
For today, I'd nominate KLDT-DT, channel 54 Lake Dallas/Dallas/Fort Worth. Full of technical glitches, missing station IDs, and a digital signal that is sufficiently messed up that this station has no audio with most current digital tuners. Oh, and it carries a paid religious program called "Water of Life", which is definitely on the lunatic fringe of Christian programming.
But the problem with picking an absolute "worst" station is that there are (and were) so many bad stations through the years. We can start with all of the stations that have subsisted entirely on paid programming, infomercials, and home shopping in the past 20 years. But really, with many of these stations, I don't so much see a horrible station as I see a blank slate and a huge opportunity -- I can't help but tune past a station like KLDT and think of all that *could* be done with this channel, if only the ownership cared.
After the color conversion, KTVW did much better in the programming department, but unfortunately just wasn't able to effectively compete against four other VHF commercial channels. They ended up in bankruptcy two years later, and went off the air in December 1974. I suspect that no one else can make the claim of having had a major market VHF commercial channel go off the air due to bankruptcy any time in the last 40 years or so! Yeah, I know that there are major market stations that failed during this period, but except for KTVW, these were all UHF stations.
For today, I'd nominate KLDT-DT, channel 54 Lake Dallas/Dallas/Fort Worth. Full of technical glitches, missing station IDs, and a digital signal that is sufficiently messed up that this station has no audio with most current digital tuners. Oh, and it carries a paid religious program called "Water of Life", which is definitely on the lunatic fringe of Christian programming.
But the problem with picking an absolute "worst" station is that there are (and were) so many bad stations through the years. We can start with all of the stations that have subsisted entirely on paid programming, infomercials, and home shopping in the past 20 years. But really, with many of these stations, I don't so much see a horrible station as I see a blank slate and a huge opportunity -- I can't help but tune past a station like KLDT and think of all that *could* be done with this channel, if only the ownership cared.
Actually a typical program schedule for KEMO in the mid 1970's was : 6:AM-10:AM: "Stock Market Programming", 10:AM-11:30AM: "The 700 Club", 11:AM-2Madmansam said:
M: "Assorted Religious Shows In English", 2M-11M: "Assorted Spanish Language Programming (Telnovelas, Peliculas, Noticias, Futbol, etc.)",11M-12;30AM: "The 700 Club Repeat", 12:30AM-6:AM: "All Night Movies (Public Domain Oldies In English From The 1930's And 1940's)". And the weekends include Variety Shows with Joey Bavaresco, Portugues Programming, Asian Programming (Japanese, Chinese and Hindi) on Sunday Nights From 5M-11M.Chock full of everything thrown together. I am already gagging at the thought of that station, but then again, it is much better than these 24/7 Shopping Channels or Infomercials.TexasTom said:
However, the problem with KTVW-13, was that most of Seattle couldn't get it without an expensive roof antenna! The same thing went for KTNT-11. We couldn't receive it and we lived in the far south end of Seattle (closer to Tacoma). Thank goodness for cable in the mid-70's!
Back in the 1970's, KEMO was the ONLY 24/7 TV Station in Northern California. Back in those days, Even 24 Hour TV Stations signed off "Late Sunday Nights/Early Monday Mornings". But KEMO was the ONLY TV Station broadcasting during those hours when everything else was off the air even though they were OLD PUBLIC DOMAIN MOVIES hosted by Leon Heskett.Madmansam said:Actually a typical program schedule for KEMO in the mid 1970's was : 6:AM-10:AM: "Stock Market Programming", 10:AM-11:30AM: "The 700 Club", 11:AM-2Madmansam said:
I would like to nominate WAIM channel 40 in Anderson SC. They were ABC/CBS. From what I understand, their network feeds consisted of catching ABC Asheville NC (13) over the air for their ABC programs and WSPA CBS in Spartanburg (7) for their CBS feed. They were supposed to "cover" the local spots but frequently the spots for 7 or 13 would air along with their i.d.s.
hipporadio said:
Speaking of WKTR, Here is a Schedule for Monday December, 23 1968.Just as the above poster indicated:
3PM Hi Flight
3:05 Community News
3:30 Underdog
4PM Dennis The Menace-BW
4:30 Kartoon Kapers
5PM Rocky And His Friends
5:30 Three Stooges-BW
6:30 Movie-The Mummy's Tomb-1942-BW
7:55 News
8PM Sports Report
8:05 Movie-Rogues of Sherwood Forest-1950 (Color)
9:55 News
10PM Woody Woodbury-Second tier Talk Show with a former game show host Debuts this night. Guests:Ernest Borgnine, Fashison Designer Jean Louis and The Righteous Brothers
11:30 News
11:35 Country Music-This might be one of the Syndicated shows floating around at the time Like Porter Wagoner, Bill Anderson, Etc.
12:35 News
12:40 Public Service
For Comparison's sake, WSWO-26 in Springfield, Oh. The same date
3PM World Of Women
3:30 Gypsy Rose Lee-Guest Fannie Flagg
4PM Topper-BW
4:30 Bozo-BW
5:30 Mark Saber-BW
6PM News-BW
6:30 Pat Boone
8PM Alan Burke
10PM News-BW
10:30 Nashville Sound
- Status