America's WORST Independent TV Stations of the 1970's, 1980's and 1990's?

[bpatrick]

I'll nominate WGGS/16 Greenville, SC, an
all-religious station owned by Jimmy and
Joanne Thompson. A lot of the same
problems as WHKY: second-rate production
values, a few syndicated shows in the public
domain (such as Ozzie & Harriet), and the
worst signal you ever saw.

Runner-up, although it barely made it into
the '70s: WSUN/38 Tampa/St. Petersburg
after it lost ABC to Channel 10. They should
have branded themselves the "My Little Margie"
channel, because sometimes it seemed like
the only show the station owned. WTOG/44
was better; it picked up some network shows
(like the CBS Friday and NBC Saturday movies),
had Championship Wrestling From Florida (arguably
the best wrestling show of the '70s), some decent
kids' shows like The Flintstones and Gilligan's Island,
and even Phil Donahue when he was new.

 

[mleach]

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.

Somewhere in my collection of tapes I have the sign-on for KTVD. I think a Nuggets game was their first broadcast.

I remember when KTVD brought the Morton Downey Jr. show to Denver, come to think of it I believe Denver was the last market to get the show. KTVD even had a press conference to announce the addition of Mort to their line-up only to have the chain smoking host get into a tiff with a Denver radio broadcaster. I would say it was the late Paxton Mills from then KMJI-FM but not sure. Over being offended by Mort's smoking at the press conference with Mort sayng "..you can kiss my..butt". However by the time Morton reached Denver his show was in a deep decline and it wasnt long before his "San Francisco skinheads" incident. Anyway Morts show was soon over.

 

[chris12]

I'd definetley have to agree with Chicago WJYS 62 as the worst at even at its peak its general entertainment was only like 4 hours a day. As for WGBO 66 I don't think the station was that bad as even though most of their reruns were second hand stuff they at least had some decent shows like Carol Burnett, Mary Tyler Moore, Highway To Heaven, Dallas as well as some good classic shows like My Three Sons and Dennis The Mennace. I give them some slack though as they were hurt by an owner in Milton Grant who didn't pay his syndication bills so whenever they had decent syndicated shows like Chance of a Lifetime, Family Feud, Dangermouse, they usually ended up being pulled quickly. Also, lots of the credit for WCIU's sucess goes to Neal Sabin who also helped build WPWR in its early days.

 

[Ultimajock]

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".

...actually, Channel 44 always looked like the weakest sister among Chicago independents in the '70s and '80s (several commercial breaks from WSNS' last years as an English-language independent (and similar clips from WFLD/32 and WPWR/60 around the same period) are up on YouTube; they ran really lousy, beat-up prints of "It Takes a Thief" in '82 when Universal was making better 16mm dupes available to other stations, for example. But their all-news teletext programming was hardly new; in the pre-CBS earliest days of WBKB/4 (now WBBM-TV/2) in the '40s, that station would run a primitive news ticker across the bottom of an ID card, partly because the general manager of the station at that time was himself deaf...

 

[HHH]

If you want to step back a few years into the 60s, one of the very worst was WJZB, Channel 14, Worcester, Massacusetts.

In 1967, for example, they would sign on at 6PM, run--if I remember correctly--stuff like Highway Patrol, Whirlybirds, and a grade-Z movie.
They would sign off about 11.

I understand that their transmitter building burned down around 1969 and they never went back on the air.

 

[BoscoGoldBear]

My vote would be for WXNE/25 when Pat Robertson owned it (and WCVB/5 secretly LMA'ed it) in the late 1970s. I can make that 25/5 LMA assumption because 25 bought and ran every Worldvision/Hanna-Barbera cartoon except for Space Ghost and the World Of Super Adventure, which ran on channel 5 (spefically the cartoons which 5 ran were Shazzan!, Birdman and the Herculoids) because Rev. Pat was so religious that nothing concerning ghosts (i.e. Casper, Space Ghost) was to run on his religious TV station.

Even worse than 25 in its pre-Fox days: WQTV/68, which literally ran the rejects which were unwanted by the other 6 TV stations, even channel 25 (still pre-Fox - it was off the hook as a horrible indie TV station). Their one try in running hot off-net reruns (i.e. Dallas) ended disastrously. ;D

 

[Jul]

What about Philadelphia?

I'm shocked that there is no discussion in this thread about the programming on Philadelphia TV stations WPHL channel 17 which was INDEPENDENT from 1965 until 1995, Channel 29 from 1965 until 1986 and WKBS channel 48 from 1965 until 1983 and channel 57 from 1985 until 1995, What are your thoughts on these 4 stations and the porgramming they aired before they became network Affiliates.

 

[Radiofreewill]

Did you really need to post the exact same message in both threads?

 

[neo11]

Even New York has had its share of lame indy stations. I don't go as far back as many here, but one that is still on the air is WMC-63, actually licensed to Newton, NJ. It basically went on the air with the excuse that it would provide local TV service to Northern NJ, out of which the only actual "local" programming it features is an extremely lame afternoon newscast, seemingly filmed on a consumer-grade camcorder, and featuring stories pulled off the satellite. The rest of the schedule is full of infomercials and ethnic programming.

WRNN-62 has also become pretty weak. The "Regional News Network" really only offers a few hours of news in the evening and home shopping the rest of the day.

Back in the mid-90s, a low-power UHF station signed on in NYC, with the WNYX calls, I believe, on channel 38. Programming entirely consisted of live tarot card readers with 1-900 numbers, along with a limited amount of "ethnic" programming. Later, it switched to the short-lived "Telecompras Shopping Network" (in Spanish), and then, I believe, disappeared for a while, before reappearing on Channel 39, with the tarot card readers, some live programs with hip-hop music videos featuring a "VJ" screaming into a consumer-grade camera and taking phone calls that weren't going out over the air. There was still some "ethnic" programming as well.

The redeeming value for Channel 39 came when they started airing "The Box" in the evenings in 1997, and later, MTV2 in its early days. That didn't last long, however, and the programming soon switched to a Hispanic music video format with the name LTV. Now it's the Azteca America Affiliate in NYC, but with a shabby signal that's seemingly weakened over the years. A lot of the tarot card shows and ethnic programs have switched to the seemingly co-owned low power stations that have since sprung up later on 26 and 35.

 

[pqgeorge]

My vote would be for WXNE/25 when Pat Robertson owned it (and WCVB/5 secretly LMA'ed it) in the late 1970s. I can make that 25/5 LMA assumption because 25 bought and ran every Worldvision/Hanna-Barbera cartoon except for Space Ghost and the World Of Super Adventure, which ran on channel 5 (spefically the cartoons which 5 ran were Shazzan!, Birdman and the Herculoids) because Rev. Pat was so religious that nothing concerning ghosts (i.e. Casper, Space Ghost) was to run on his religious TV station.

Even worse than 25 in its pre-Fox days: WQTV/68, which literally ran the rejects which were unwanted by the other 6 TV stations, even channel 25 (still pre-Fox - it was off the hook as a horrible indie TV station). Their one try in running hot off-net reruns (i.e. Dallas) ended disastrously. ;D

I saw a lot of irony with WXNE. "Rev" Pat would not air anything dealing with ghosts (i.e.- "Casper" et.al), but he would run full-length movies, totally uncut during the "Movie Date" show every night at 8. One in particular was the showing of "Network". That took me by surprise. I believe I still have that airing on an old Beta tape. It's a rather blatent movie, especially the end. Channel 25, while still under CBN Continental ownership, aired very little religion in the 1980-1987 era (until FOX bought it). It really wasn't a bad station, in spite of CBN ownership.

WQTV/68 really tried to be a good Indy. They brought back a lot of great syndicated shows ("chestnuts"). But when they got the rights to "Mary Tyler Moore", "Star Trek" and more, it was too much for the young station to pay for. They were the first station in Boston to run "George Michael's Sports Machine" and "Wally George's Hot Seat". 'QTV was making a lot of inroads. The problem was that Arlington bought too much material, TOO soon and over-extended their financing in October, 1985. Had they slowed down a little, they might have made it. I really liked 'QTV. The WABU days were not too shabby either.

 

[kirkiefan]

It was the ill-fated revival of WSWO-TV in Springfield,Ohio in the summer of 1972 after being off the air for nealy two years. The new owner Lester White bought the station after its original owner apperantly lost too much money and being the butt end of jokes in the aftermath of the "bozo no-no" fiasco. The worst children's program I ever saw was "Lighthouse Louie."...bad scripts,ultra cheezy characters and what's more..the worst cartoons from the Famous Studios vaults recycled by NTA and UM&M with their names on it with no credit given to Paramount Pictures. Little Lulu and Screen Songs were among the worst. "Program PM" was done live in color in the evenings...on reportedly stolen equipment. White supposedly flew the coop and the station left the air before the end of the year around Christmas time I think. It returned to the air as Christian station WTJC in 1980 but ended up running paid programming after the PTL scandal that landed Jim Bakker in the klink. It's now doing better as WBDT,the Dayton CW affilliate.

 

[mleach]

My pick for the worst indy has to be WYVN-TV channel 60 in Martinsburg, West Virginia.

When they were an independent after they were dumped by FOX ( I heard ) some of their shows included...

*Club Karaoke-taped at a local bar showing people doing just that, doing Karaoke while the host is seen on camera drinking beer and yelling "HOT DAMN...LETS MAKE SOME NOISE !!". One show they did they called it "Bear-raoke" with hairy gay men singing country tunes using a backdrop of the gay rainbow flag with a bear claw on it screaming "grrrrr" and "woof" into the camera. That was bizarre !!

*Four State Live: a 60 minute talk show where viewers could call in. Problem? After about 15 minutes you cn tell both the host and guest were alreay talked out and oh yes they never did have any phone callers.

*Shenandoah Swings !!-how to dance country style

reruns...Cisco Kid was about it and some really grade Z movies.

No wonder WYVN's days as an indy was numbered.

 

[azumanga]

My pick for the worst indy has to be WYVN-TV channel 60 in Martinsburg, West Virginia.

When they were an independent after they were dumped by FOX ( I heard ) some of their shows included...

*Club Karaoke... One show they did they called it "Bear-raoke" with hairy gay men singing country tunes using a backdrop of the gay rainbow flag with a bear claw on it screaming "grrrrr" and "woof" into the camera. That was bizarre !!

On the subject of "gay", I read somewhere that WYVN had plans to debut a new local talk show hosted by a person named Gay Dawson (I think); the set included an interviewee sitting in front of a wall that had Gay's first name painted on with big letters. Would've been an interesting show, except for one thing -- it never aired. Reason? WYVN's second coming came to a crashing halt, with the station going dark, again.

 

[bk77]

My pick for the worst indy has to be WYVN-TV channel 60 in Martinsburg, West Virginia.

When they were an independent after they were dumped by FOX ( I heard ) some of their shows included...

*Club Karaoke... One show they did they called it "Bear-raoke" with hairy gay men singing country tunes using a backdrop of the gay rainbow flag with a bear claw on it screaming "grrrrr" and "woof" into the camera. That was bizarre !!

On the subject of "gay", I read somewhere that WYVN had plans to debut a new local talk show hosted by a person named Gay Dawson (I think); the set included an interviewee sitting in front of a wall that had Gay's first name painted on with big letters. Would've been an interesting show, except for one thing -- it never aired. Reason? WYVN's second coming came to a crashing halt, with the station going dark, again.

This "Gay Bear" version of Club Karaoke that aired on WYVN, as bizarre as it sounds had this aired in Columbus, Ohio, Indianapolis or Denver rather than West Virginia it would be a HUGE hit. My brother is in the gay-bear lifestyle and those three cities acording to him and I heard the same thing from others too are by far America's top cities when it comes to...well hairy gay "bears". Even though those three state capitals are located in states not really known to be gay-friendly.

 

[zaddick]

The worst children's program I ever saw was "Lighthouse Louie."...bad scripts,ultra cheezy characters and what's more..the worst cartoons from the Famous Studios vaults recycled by NTA and UM&M with their names on it with no credit given to Paramount Pictures. Little Lulu and Screen Songs were among the worst. "Program PM" was done live in color in the evenings...on reportedly stolen equipment.

I think before you talk bad about Lighthouse Louie you need to prove your statements because my dad, Sonny Haire, just recently died, and cannot defend that statement, and his show, Lighthouse Louie, was more popular than it was boring and it was set to be syndicated until that crook White was caught stealing, and, in fact, after White got out of prison, White sold the rights to my dad's show to someplace in Japan, illegally, and behind my dad's back of course. If it was so boring, why was it about to be syndicated? Why wasn't it syndicated anyway you might ask, well, white was tied into the mafia and the mafia was not very popular at that time. The FBI kept my dad for a week for questioning. -zaddick.com

 

[azumanga]

It was the ill-fated revival of WSWO-TV in Springfield,Ohio in the summer of 1972 after being off the air for nealy two years... The worst children's program I ever saw was "Lighthouse Louie."...bad scripts,ultra cheezy characters and what's more..the worst cartoons from the Famous Studios vaults recycled by NTA and UM&M with their names on it with no credit given to Paramount Pictures. Little Lulu and Screen Songs were among the worst.

I think before you talk bad about Lighthouse Louie you need to prove your statements because my dad, Sonny Haire, just recently died, and cannot defend that statement, and his show, Lighthouse Louie, was more popular than it was boring and it was set to be syndicated...

If Lighthouse Louie was indeed popular, then why did WSWO fail? And if it was indeed as popular as you say it was, then why didn't another Dayton station pick it up? And it it was syndicated, why hasn't any stations pick up the program? I believe the circumstances that you brought up doesn't hold water, unless we can verify.

 

[RyanHoward]

In the 1970's, there was the ill-fated WDXR-TV, Ch. 29, in Paducah, KY. They were an
independent station that carried no local programs except for a kids show. They also
didn't come on the air until at least 12:30 pm most days. If I voted for the worst indy
station ever, it would be this turkey, which is now PBS station WKPD, the KET network
outlet for Paducah.

 

[mleach]

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.

OK I know it has been several years since this was posted but looking back now Denver's KTVD's saving grave in the late 80's early 90's was Denver's airing of the infamous Morton Downey Jr. Show. Actually KTVD ( I can still remember this ) paid for Morton to come to Denver in early 1989 to promote it. Highlight of this...then KMJI-FM ( now KIMN Mix 100 ) their then morning guy the late Paxton Mills told Morton Downey to "..put out that god damn cigarette" during the press confrence which had aired live on KTVD only to have Morton Downey Jr. say "..well Paxton you can KISS my ass baby....you god damn ass hole..I can smoke wherever I please..".

Years later Paxton Mills would kill himself and Morton Downey Jr...we all know what had happen to him.