Are their any independent local stations anymore?

[vchimpanzee]

A long time ago, my dream was to be program director for an independent station. In the 80s, many of them would show their movies uncut and uncensored. I thought by the year 2000, they'd have even more freedom of content but instead it got far more repressed. KTXL in Sacramento started editing movies after numerous complaints, and it was never the same after that- of course the Fox network soon started also and completely killed what that station used to be. If I ran a station now I'd still try to be daring and show things that were hard to find elsewhere. REALLY glad I didn't end up working in TV though, I likely would have found some way out of it by now if I had.

The s-word started showing up after the V-chip rating was introduced and I even remember seeing women's rear ends.

I'm not sure what changed but I think it was the Janet Jackson incident.

And I am grateful.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

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Consider another one Sony Pictures syndicate their tv and movie content via Amazon Prime. It’s another nail why independent TV Stations that did things the old way is gone. Syndication still exists but it’s more directed to Fast channels and various TV apps this time around.

 

[TexasTom]

A long time ago, my dream was to be program director for an independent station. In the 80s, many of them would show their movies uncut and uncensored. I thought by the year 2000, they'd have even more freedom of content but instead it got far more repressed. KTXL in Sacramento started editing movies after numerous complaints, and it was never the same after that- of course the Fox network soon started also and completely killed what that station used to be. If I ran a station now I'd still try to be daring and show things that were hard to find elsewhere. REALLY glad I didn't end up working in TV though, I likely would have found some way out of it by now if I had.

Yeah, I once had a similar dream to own, manage, and program an independent station. But it became increasingly apparent in the last twenty years that particular dream was dying because those stations were fading out of existence fast. Some version still existed in 2005, but by 2015 that window was completely gone.

Still, it's sad when a dream dies.

 

[crainbebo]

I have a ton of KTXL content on VHS (from eBay and estate sale lots), including a dozen or so Night Comfort broadcasts. KTXL was a pinnacle of independent television in the 1980s (and I will count the first few years of Fox as they were only 2-3 nights a week). Very few technical issues on that station. You will never find the artistry of television magic nowadays. Everything is central-casted, automated, and sloppy.
A few Fridays ago KIMA Yakima went from Kelly Clarkson's show, cut to a CBS feed of Lucky Dog for 2-3 minutes (probably being fed for Saturday broadcast), went right into a commercial mid-sentence, cut the commercial off, went back to Kelly for 5-10 minutes, then the same thing happened another 2-3 times over the course of an hour. This crap would NEVER fly back in the '80s when real, living, breathing humans ran local master control.

 

[yeoldeschool]

I have a ton of KTXL content on VHS (from eBay and estate sale lots), including a dozen or so Night Comfort broadcasts. KTXL was a pinnacle of independent television in the 1980s (and I will count the first few years of Fox as they were only 2-3 nights a week). Very few technical issues on that station. You will never find the artistry of television magic nowadays. Everything is central-casted, automated, and sloppy.

Alas.

You should upload your finds to Youtube, by the way. And if they have somehow escaped your notice, there are already two Youtube accounts, here and here, offering enormous amounts of Sacramento-area television memorabilia, including countless items related to KTXL.

 

[crainbebo]

I already have uploaded quite a bit from KTXL (through the AVTB channel), like this:

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

Here is the other reason why local independent TV Stations are rare today. They have to compete against FAST streaming channels from Samsung, Roku, PlutoTV, Tubi, Zeam, Xumo for viewers. its where we are now.

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[IM42A]

There was this quirky little LPTV in Columbus that presses some of the right buttons for an independent station, if a low-budget one:

Channel 8

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

I have a ton of KTXL content on VHS (from eBay and estate sale lots), including a dozen or so Night Comfort broadcasts. KTXL was a pinnacle of independent television in the 1980s (and I will count the first few years of Fox as they were only 2-3 nights a week). Very few technical issues on that station. You will never find the artistry of television magic nowadays. Everything is central-casted, automated, and sloppy.

Here’s a rare clip of KTXL when Pete Wilson and Gary Radnich were in Sacramento in the early 1980’s. It’s one of the rare ones given that they were starting to get their names established on TV. But then again it gets overshadowed by how big and legendary they became when they went to KRON 4 News in San Francisco in the 1990’s and up to the time NBC affiliation moved from KRON to KNTV.

 

[TexasTom]

Here is the other reason why local independent TV Stations are rare today. They have to compete against FAST streaming channels from Samsung, Roku, PlutoTV, Tubi, Zeam, Xumo for viewers. its where we are now.

Frankly, the local independent TV stations were dead even before FAST came along -- but FAST is one more factor that ensures that they're not coming back.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

Frankly, the local independent TV stations were dead even before FAST came along -- but FAST is one more factor that ensures that they're not coming back.

True and when cable TV was at its peak in the 1990’s and early 2000’s had to be another one why local independent TV stations started to decline. It was the era when stations signed affiliation deals with UPN and WB at that time.

 

[IM42A]

True and when cable TV was at its peak in the 1990’s and early 2000’s had to be another one why local independent TV stations started to decline. It was the era when stations signed affiliation deals with UPN and WB at that time.

Local independents flourished in the 1970s and 1980s when a station would be imported to cable systems in markets that didn't have their own independent outlets. WXIX Cincinnati was wildly popular in Ohio and Kentucky during that time, carried on basically every cable system north of Interstate 64, and even made it as far east as Huntington and Charleston WV. Columbus didn't get its own independent station until the mid-1980s (WTTE), and WVAH Charleston went on the air at about the same time (though WVAH was hobbled by first being on UHF channel 23 in rough terrain, then on VHF channel 11 as a drop-in that had to be bobtailed to protect WJHL and WIIC/WPXI). The death knell came for independents as providers of unique programming with the advent of Fox, and later UPN and WB. The proliferation of cable networks also played a part, providing a diversity of programming that no local independent could. Ironically, WVAH has found a kind of second life with Sinclair's placing Catchy Comedy on them, transferring Fox to WCHS 8.2. The programming lineup is not unlike that of a sitcom-heavy independent. A far cry better than Roar or Dabl.

 

[bertie343]

What about KPVM that had the HBO series done on it? That's still independent, right?

 

[michael hagerty]

And to answer the original poster's question: no, those kinds of stations don't exist anymore.

While independent TV stations (ie, those that aren't affiliated with any national network) do still exist, they are pretty much always part of a duopoly with another station that is a network affiliate. 90% of the time, they serve as a dumping ground for third-rate syndicated court shows and other low-rated product, with perhaps a rebroadcast of local newscasts from their duopoly partner.

There are also a handful of independent stations that have a heavy focus on local news. A good example is WJXT in Jacksonville, FL.

But if you're looking for the sort of independent station that used to run a mix of syndicated comedy reruns, movies, sports, and children's programs, that model died over twenty years ago. It's not surprising that many of us feel nostalgic for such stations -- anyone who grew up during the 70s, 80s, or 90s probably grew up with that sort of station. And that certainly includes me.

The problem is that most of the programming mix that those stations carried is now available in multiple other places. More often than not, the programs are available on multiple diginets and cable networks, streaming services, and DVD or Blu-Ray pre recorded media.

So it's not that nostalgia doesn't pay -- apparently it can pay pretty well judging by the success that Weigel Broadcasting is having with diginets like ME-TV and Heroes & Icons -- but rather that local independent stations didn't turn out to be where that nostalgia is best fulfilled. But I have wondered how it would work if one of the multitude of nostalgia channels (ME-TV, Antenna-TV, etc) tried using some of the formatics of those old independent TV stations in their on-air imaging.

I was Director of Programming and Promotion for KAZT in Phoenix from 2004-2008. I joined the station in 2002 as the promo voice and producer/host of a half-hour weekly automotive magazine show that ran for six seasons on Saturday mornings.

The station launched (a re-launch, actually---it had been KUSK, Prescott) in '02 with what they thought would be the all-star lineup of classic TV---The Andy Griffith Show, My Three Sons, Hogan's Heroes, Bewitched, The Lucy Show, Happy Days, Perry Mason and (in a move to grab some younger demos) Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Saved by the Bell.

It didn't work, the original Director of Programming and Promotion was let go after a year and a half and I was asked to step up, since I'd had radio programming experience.

What I found was that while everybody loved The Andy Griffith Show and a lot of folks watched it sometimes, not enough people would watch it, or any of the other shows all at once and consistently. You'd have a night where Perry Mason would do a big number at 9:00 p.m.---but that usually just meant the other choices were weak that night.

I got ownership to back me on going after fresher syndication. We began by stealing Frasier from my alma mater, KTVK---because they didn't believe we were serious, they lowballed their renewal offer to Paramount. We had made a serious offer. That went in the 9:00 p.m. hour---back-to-back half-hours---and the first week it was on our air, we beat KTVK in the timeslot.

Getting Frasier put us in the game for everything else---Cheers, Seinfeld, George Lopez---eventually, M*A*S*H was the oldest thing on our air.

I left shortly after the GM who hired me died in a car crash and went back to on-air work at ABC15 and then came home to California five years after that, but you're right, Tom---diginets, FAST channels and all have pretty well killed that model for local indies. I see that Nexstar is running KAZT now in a time brokerage deal and it's a CW affiliate.

And KTVK---which had gone indie during the big affiliate shuffle of 1994 with Oprah, Dr. Phil, Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Simpsons and Frasier is now newscasts, talk shows and court shows.