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CBS AFFILS ON 2, 5 AND 13

B

Bob E. Nelson

This is an admittedly obscure search for trivia that may be up bpatrick's alley...but anyone with an answer can chime in.

Our local PBS outlet (KERA) was running a Roy Orbison special the other night. During the program, a brief flash of a TV Guide listing with Orbison as a guest on Ed Sullivan was shown. The channels indicated were 2, 5 and 13, all of which were in black as opposed to the white outline glyph. Thus those channels had to be from distinct markets and couldn't have conflicted with other facilities.

I've been checking old (late 50's/early 60's) station lists to identify a market where CBS would have been available on 2, 5 and 13. Initially the Raleigh region seemed plausible (WFMY/2, WRAL/5 and WBTW/13) but then I found that WRAL was ABC/NBC during that era.

So, in what area would TV Guide have listed 2, 5 and 13 as CBS affiliates circa the late 50's?
 
1959:

KFEQ-TV 2 St. Joseph, MO
CBS (primary)

KCMO-TV 5 Kansas City, MO
CBS

WIBW-TV 13 Topeka, KS
CBS (primary)

(Thanks to the Old Gringo's stash-o-yearbooks. :))
 
I have no "stash o'yearbooks," but just poking around on the Web, I was going to suggest a Montana edition:

KOOK-2 (now KTVQ) Billings

KXGN-5 Glendive

KMSO-13 (formerly and later KGVO, now KECI) Missoula

...would have all been CBS primary in that time frame, no?
 
Bob E. Nelson said:
This is an admittedly obscure search for trivia that may be up bpatrick's alley...but anyone with an answer can chime in.

Our local PBS outlet (KERA) was running a Roy Orbison special the other night. During the program, a brief flash of a TV Guide listing with Orbison as a guest on Ed Sullivan was shown. The channels indicated were 2, 5 and 13, all of which were in black as opposed to the white outline glyph. Thus those channels had to be from distinct markets and couldn't have conflicted with other facilities.

I've been checking old (late 50's/early 60's) station lists to identify a market where CBS would have been available on 2, 5 and 13. Initially the Raleigh region seemed plausible (WFMY/2, WRAL/5 and WBTW/13) but then I found that WRAL was ABC/NBC during that era.

So, in what area would TV Guide have listed 2, 5 and 13 as CBS affiliates circa the late 50's?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the vote of confidence :-X but the only TV Guide editions
that even come close in my memory are the Georgia (Atlanta) one;
5 (WAGA) and 13 (WMAZ) were CBS affiliates; however, 2 (WSB)
was NBC in those days and has never been a CBS affiliate; and the
South Carolina one, with 5 (WCSC) and 13 (WBTW); 2 (WUSN, now WCBD)
was NBC at the time, later ABC, and NBC again since 1996.

Possibly, if the South Texas edition existed then, you might have had 5 (KENS)
and 13 (KVTV), but no station on Ch. 2. Likewise, you would have had some
CBS programs on 13 (WAPI) in the Northern Alabama edition, along with 5 (WLAC),
which was and is a fulltime CBS affiliate (now WTVF). Also Maine: 5 (WABI) and
13 (WGAN, now WGME), but I don't know of any CBS affiliates on 2 in New England.

WBTW wasn't carried in the North Carolina edition until 1968. WRAL did not
become a CBS affiliate until 1985.

It sounds as if it's indeed either Kansas City or Montana but I, too, would like
to know the time; Sullivan would have been on at 7 (CT)/6 (MT).
 
bpatrick said:
Bob E. Nelson said:
[...]
...in what area would TV Guide have listed 2, 5 and 13 as CBS affiliates circa the late 50's?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the vote of confidence :-X but the only TV Guide editions that even come close in my memory are the Georgia (Atlanta) one; 5 (WAGA) and 13 (WMAZ) were CBS affiliates; however, 2 (WSB) was NBC in those days and has never been a CBS affiliate; and the South Carolina one, with 5 (WCSC) and 13 (WBTW); 2 (WUSN, now WCBD) was NBC at the time, later ABC, and NBC again since 1996.

Possibly, if the South Texas edition existed then, you might have had 5 (KENS) and 13 (KVTV), but no station on Ch. 2. Likewise, you would have had some CBS programs on 13 (WAPI) in the Northern Alabama edition, along with 5 (WLAC), which was and is a fulltime CBS affiliate (now WTVF). Also Maine: 5 (WABI) and 13 (WGAN, now WGME), but I don't know of any CBS affiliates on 2 in New England.

WBTW wasn't carried in the North Carolina edition until 1968. WRAL did not become a CBS affiliate until 1985.

It sounds as if it's indeed either Kansas City or Montana but I, too, would like to know the time; Sullivan would have been on at 7 (CT)/6 (MT).
Click to expand...

Add the phrase ``well deserved'' in front of ``vote of confidence'' to be more accurate! :)

Unfortunately, I was only halfway paying attention when the shot of the TV listing flew by. A search indicates that the PBS Orbison program was likely ``In Dreams'' (1999). I'll have to watch more closely the next time it airs to discern if the listings were for Mountain or Central time, thus settling the Montana vs. Kansas/Missouri conundrum.

I was using the old Vane A. Jones books to try to come up with the answer but I completely overlooked that KQTV (KFEQ-TV) was one a CBS primary. So I had to depend on the smrat folks in this here chatrum as a lifeline. :)
 
The 4 CBS stations I know of on those channels back then are these:

KNXT 2 LA (O & O)

WCBW/WCBS 2 NYC (O & O)

KPIX 5 SF

WBBM 2 Chicago
 
Note about WBTW, Florence....the station was actually on channel 8 from its 1954 sign-on until 1963, when the station moved to channel 13 (where it remains today even in digital form) and the channel 8 allocation moved to High Point, North Carolina to become WGHP-TV.
 
Stanislav said:
I have no "stash o'yearbooks," but just poking around on the Web, I was going to suggest a Montana edition:

KOOK-2 (now KTVQ) Billings

KXGN-5 Glendive

KMSO-13 (formerly and later KGVO, now KECI) Missoula

...would have all been CBS primary in that time frame, no?


5 could also refer to KFBB-Great Falls, which was a CBS affiliate until 1968.
Click to expand...
 
RadioDze said:
Note about WBTW, Florence....the station was actually on channel 8 from its 1954 sign-on until 1963, when the station moved to channel 13 (where it remains today even in digital form) and the channel 8 allocation moved to High Point, North Carolina to become WGHP-TV.
Click to expand...

True, but it doesn't change the fact that WBTW and Columbia's NBC affiliate, WIS/10,
weren't added to the North Carolina edition until 1968. In 1959 the CBS affiliates in
the North Carolina edition were WFMY/2 Greensboro, WBTV/3 Charlotte, WSPA/7
Spartanburg, SC, WNCT/9 Greenville, NC, and WTVD/11 Durham. WSPA was taken
out the next year when the Carolina-Tennessee edition was created.

A possible place to solve this mystery is Jim Ellwanger's TV Guide website. He has
every edition, some that went belly-up many years ago, with channel listings in
some cases going back to the late '50s. It's possible that 2, 5, and 13 were CBS
affiliates in an edition that became defunct in the late '50s/early '60s. Meantime,
I think you're probably pretty close if it's either Kansas City or Montana.

Some CBS affiliates on 2 that I can think of from that era; I mentioned WFMY above,
but these are also possible, if not definite:

WJBK Detroit
WMAR Baltimore
KDKA Pittsburgh
WMT (KGAN) Cedar Rapids, IA
KBOI (KBCI) Boise, ID
WBAY Green Bay, WI

And on 5, besides WAGA, KPIX, and KCMO (KCTV):

WKRG Mobile, AL
WHEN (WTVH) Syracuse, NY
KENS San Antonio
KSL Salt Lake City
WLAC (WTVF) Nashville
WCSC Charleston, SC
 
oldiesfan6479 said:
1959:

KFEQ-TV 2 St. Joseph, MO
CBS (primary)

KCMO-TV 5 Kansas City, MO
CBS

WIBW-TV 13 Topeka, KS
CBS (primary)

(Thanks to the Old Gringo's stash-o-yearbooks. :))
Click to expand...

Also in that area of western Missouri you might have been also able to receive another CBS affiliate on channel 13--KRCG from Jefferson City (which then had a repeater station on channel 6 in the Sedalia area that is now a PBS station targeting the Columbia/Jeff City market).
 
True, but Jefferson City's Ch. 13 was in the Missouri
edition of TV Guide; Topeka's was in the Kansas City
edition. That might not have been the case in 1959,
but from what I'm getting off this thread it was.
 
I don't know of any CBS affiliates on 2 or 5 in New Mexico
or far west (El Paso) Texas. Ch. 5 is PBS in Albuquerque;
AFAIK, the closest CBS station on 2 is in Los Angeles.
 
Again, I believe KOOL (now KSAZ)/10 was
CBS in Phoenix; KPHO/5 was independent.
And again, no CBS affiliate on 2 in Arizona.

Although this is a bit off-topic, and with
affiliation switches making for different
affiliate lineups since the '50s, I'm going
to put up the current list of CBS affiliates
on 2, 5, and 13. Feel free to add whatever
I leave out:

Channel 2: KCBS Los Angeles
KBCI Boise, ID
WBBM Chicago
KGAN Cedar Rapids, IA
KTVQ Billings, MT
KTVN Reno, NV
WCBS New York
WFMY Greensboro, NC
KXMA Dickinson, ND
KDKA Pittsburgh
KUTV Salt Lake City
KREM Spokane, WA

Channel 5: WKRG Mobile, AL
KPHO Phoenix
KFSM Ft. Smith, AR
KPIX San Francisco
KREX Grand Junction, CO
WABI Bangor, ME
WNEM Flint, MI
KCTV Kansas City, MO
WTVH Syracuse, NY
WRAL Raleigh, NC
WCSC Charleston, SC
WTVF Nashville
KENS San Antonio
WFRV Green Bay, WI
WDTV Weston/Clarksburg, WV

Channel 13: KXD Fairbanks, AK
KOLD Tucson, AZ
KOVR Sacramento, CA
WMAZ Macon, GA
WIBW Topeka, KS
WGME Portland, ME
WJZ Baltimore
KRCG Jefferson City, MO
KRQE Albuquerque, NM
KVAL Eugene, OR
WBTW Florence, SC
KLBK Lubbock, TX
KVTV Laredo, TX
WOWK Charleston/Huntington, WV
 
bpatrick said:
Again, I believe KOOL (now KSAZ)/10 was
CBS in Phoenix; KPHO/5 was independent.
And again, no CBS affiliate on 2 in Arizona.
Click to expand...

KPHO-TV Ch. 5 was CBS primary from sign-on in December 1949 until March 1955, when it lost CBS to then-ABC affiliate KOOL-TV Ch. 10. KOOL, at the same time, lost ABC to brand-new KTVK Ch. 3. KPHO kept the decaying carcass of Dumont for that network's final year. Only then did it become a full-blown indie, which it was until it got CBS back in September 1994 in the Fox/New World mess.

The only full-power Channel 2 in Arizona, KOAI/KNAZ Flagstaff, has always been NBC, even before Gannett bought it and eventually turned it into a satellite of KPNX Phoenix.
 
If we're talking about the late 1950s we can eliminate a lot of current CBS affiliates on these virtual or physical channels, because they either weren't CBS affiliates or weren't on those channels in the time Orbison first hit it big around 1960-61. Case in point; WTVH (formerly WHEN-TV) was on Channel 8 until September of 1962, when it moved to channel 5 at the end of a three year long multi-city realignment of VHF TV assignments in upstate NY to allow new ABC affiliates to sign on in tjr upper VHF band in Albany, Syracuse and Rochester.

Other stations in the list of candidates were on the air on those channels in the 1959-61 period but were not then CBS affiliates. For example, WJZ-TV in Baltimore was an ABC affiliate until the CBS-Westinghouse merger in the early 1990s that turned it into a CBS O&O, which it still is today. KOVR in Sacramento was an ABC affiliate from the late 1950s until 1995 (it is also a CBS O&O today). WNEM, channel 5 in Flint, was an NBC affiliate until recent years. Eastern Michigan north of Detroit was covered by a UHF station then. So today's affiliate list won't help you much

Two possibilities remain. One, is that the whole TV listings page was a made-up graphic done by the show's production staff. The other is that it's a Missouri/Kansas listing from some time in the 1959-63 era.
 
Bob1370 said:
If we're talking about the late 1950s we can eliminate a lot of current CBS affiliates on these virtual or physical channels, because they either weren't CBS affiliates or weren't on those channels in the time Orbison first hit it big around 1960-61. Case in point; WTVH (formerly WHEN-TV) was on Channel 8 until September of 1962, when it moved to channel 5 at the end of a three year long multi-city realignment of VHF TV assignments in upstate NY to allow new ABC affiliates to sign on in tjr upper VHF band in Albany, Syracuse and Rochester.

Other stations in the list of candidates were on the air on those channels in the 1959-61 period but were not then CBS affiliates. For example, WJZ-TV in Baltimore was an ABC affiliate until the CBS-Westinghouse merger in the early 1990s that turned it into a CBS O&O, which it still is today. KOVR in Sacramento was an ABC affiliate from the late 1950s until 1995 (it is also a CBS O&O today). WNEM, channel 5 in Flint, was an NBC affiliate until recent years. Eastern Michigan north of Detroit was covered by a UHF station then. So today's affiliate list won't help you much

Two possibilities remain. One, is that the whole TV listings page was a made-up graphic done by the show's production staff. The other is that it's a Missouri/Kansas listing from some time in the 1959-63 era.
Click to expand...

I think I pointed out some stations on 2 and 5 that were with CBS then but are not now; for example, WJBK Detroit and WMAR Baltimore
(both Channel 2), and WAGA Atlanta and KSL Salt Lake City (Channel 5). Also WTVT Channel 13 Tampa/St. Petersburg was a CBS affiliate from 1955 until it became a Fox o&o in 1994. KFSM/5 Ft. Smith, AR switched from NBC to CBS when NBC was losing affiliates right and left in the late '70s/early '80s; WRAL Raleigh went from ABC to CBS when WTVD/11 became an ABC o&o in 1985.

I still think that's the Kansas City edition on the Orbison special.
 
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