• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

FROM WORST TO FIRST

B

Bob E. Nelson

The thread concerning shared affiliations here in ``Classic TV'' mentions, among others, WBMG in Birmingham. I recall it as a very bad station, getting the network rejects from WAPI-TV. Now, as WIAT, channel 42 has become a real player in Alabama's biggest market.

What are other similar stories of stations that were often the local joke that became successful?
 
Bob E. Nelson said:
The thread concerning shared affiliations here in ``Classic TV'' mentions, among others, WBMG in Birmingham. I recall it as a very bad station, getting the network rejects from WAPI-TV. Now, as WIAT, channel 42 has become a real player in Alabama's biggest market.
Click to expand...

The reason being is that WIAT was sold to New Vision Television after Media General bought WVTM (the former WAPI-TV) from NBC in 2006. As a result, the tables were turned, with WIAT going from first to worst, and WVTM going from first to at least third.
 
The case could be made that WLKY-32 in Louisville is another worst to first station. I lived in Louisville in the mid '80's, and while the distance between 32 and WAVE-3 and WHAS-11 wasn't as great as the disparity between 42 vs. 6 and 13 in Birmingham, it was still pretty far. Of course, having CBS virtually dumped into their laps when WHAS went to ABC certainly helped WLKY.
 
WTSP/10 Tampa/St. Petersburg is at least a worst to second.
As an ABC affiliate it trailed both WFLA/8 (NBC) and WTVT/13
(CBS), in part due to its transmitter being located north of the
others to avoid short-spacing Miami's Ch. 10, but traditionally
ABC's demographics didn't fit the Bay Area's. After WTVT became
a Fox o&o, WTSP got CBS and WFTS/28, ABC. While WFLA became
number one (perhaps because it stayed put with NBC), WTSP did
begin finishing second and has been a strong challenger to WTVT;
it might do even better if it could get a decent signal into Sarasota/
Bradenton, which, as I understand it, depend as much on Ft. Myers'
WINK/11 for CBS.
 
bpatrick said:
WTSP/10 Tampa/St. Petersburg is at least a worst to second.
As an ABC affiliate it trailed both WFLA/8 (NBC) and WTVT/13
(CBS), in part due to its transmitter being located north of the
others to avoid short-spacing Miami's Ch. 10, but traditionally
ABC's demographics didn't fit the Bay Area's.
Click to expand...

Also not helping the cause was channel 10, back in the days when it was WLCY-TV, was practically a television extension of WLCY radio, with staff managing both TV and radio aspects, and some personalities doing both. This ended in 1978 when the TV side was sold off and became WTSP, with the new owners bolstering its news department.

bpatrick said:
WTSP did begin finishing second and has been a strong challenger to WTVT;
it might do even better if it could get a decent signal into Sarasota/
Bradenton, which, as I understand it, depend as much on Ft. Myers'
WINK/11 for CBS.
Click to expand...

Over the years, WTSP upgraded its transmitter to get into Bradenton and Sarasota better and, earlier this year, moved its digital transmitter to Riverview, where almost everyone else is broadcasting from.

As for WINK-TV -- during its analog days, its signal covered Sarasota sufficiently, though the last several years, it's not even on Comcast in Sarasota (though it is in Venice and Wauchula) or Bright House in Bradenton, opting only for WTSP.
 
Which really should be a boon to Channel 10, with the CBS lineup.
It hadn't occurred to me that the short-spacing issue with WPLG
became moot with the advent of digital.

Somebody mentioned WLKY; where they really gained in the ratings
was in daytime, with "The Price Is Right" and the CBS soaps (although
we know which two are gone now). Putting "Y&R" at 4 was a plus,
since the station usually wins the 5 PM news race, just as WRAL does
(there's a strong ABC affiliate that got stronger with CBS), but unlike WRAL,
carries "Let's Make A Deal" in the mornings. Since I've heard that "Deal" does
best in markets where it's paired with "Price," I wonder if that's true in Louisville
as well.
 
While it can't be said WROC-TV in Rochester has gone from worst to first, I think everyone in the market takes them much more seriously. They have made a lot of improvements in their on air products in the last few years and it shows.
Their ratings have improved significantly in all dayparts. While WHAM-13 (WOKR) seems to have a strangle hold on #1 WROC 8 & WHEC 10 seem to be battling for the # 2 spot. I'm sure that part of it is because WROC is gaining because they are CBS and WHEC is NBC.
 
WYEA NBC 38 in Columbus, Georgia (now WLTZ) had a rough road. CBS & ABC
were on 3 and 9 and being the lone UHF in a non-UHF market was a hard sell
back in 1970. Eventually, they reached parody, but their news hasn't IMO (as I
really don't follow their ratings but think they're most likely #3).

As far as changing to LTZ, I think I liked YEA better. It left something to cheer about.
 
gregg75 said:
...Eventually, they reached parody...
Click to expand...

I think you meant parity, but I digress.

I lived in Auburn during the late '80's. At about that time, WLTZ re-launched their newscast, hiring news anchor Al Fleming away from WRBL. Yes, the same Al Fleming who also owned a strip club along Victory Drive near Fort Benning. The weather forecasts were presented by Bear O'Brien, who was the morning drive DJ on one of the local Top 40 stations. Believe it or not, Channel 38's newscasts in those days was worse than Channel 42 in Birmingham. So, I think it's safe to say that those newscasts had indeed reached parody! :)
 
WKYC/3 in Cleveland was long a distant third behind WEWS/5 and WJW/8, but by 2004 it had surged to first, in what had by then become a 4-station market. I have no idea how they're doing these days though.
 
bpatrick said:
Since I've heard that "Deal" does
best in markets where it's paired with "Price," I wonder if that's true in Louisville
as well.
Click to expand...
It is true, Deal is at 10 a.m. and TPIR at 11.
 
There's been nothing like that in our area, but I'd say one we have is WTEV Jacksonville. That station went from being a low-rated UPN that was sixth in a six-station market, to actually winning in some of the news timeslots.

WCBD in the 1990s went from a deep third in the ratings as ABC, very cheaply-run, to competing with WCSC for the top spot in several newscasts about five years ago. Now, since most of their good reporters left, and because of a few other things, they are now in a distant second in the ratings to WCSC.
 
The "worst to first" progression was followed by a lot of full-power ABC affiliates in the 1960s and 1970s.

In any good sized market where ABC had a full power VHF signal, or got one during the late 1950s and early 1960s, the network's younger-skewing programming grabbed a lot of viewers who stayed with it as they matured. This boosted local audiences, which built further revenues for both their entertainment and news offerings. New York, Chicago, LA, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Detroit, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and many more markets saw their ABC O&Os or affiliate stations gradually move to the top not only in prime time but in 6 and 11 PM news ratings. Good talent hires didn't hurt, but the gradual overall growth of those stations helped them attract better talent to build on.
 
In the '70s I had my own litmus test for an ABC affiliate's
newscast in any given market. If it was able to move the
network news from 6 to 6:30, then, I reasoned, it must be
able to compete head-on with CBS and NBC (I didn't count
the biggest markets like New York, where ABC News was on
at 7 and WABC was number one anyway). By decade's end,
as ABC had established parity in primetime and was making
inroads (thanks to "World News Tonight" and, in 1979, the
network's coverage of the Iranian hostage crisis) in news,
I was finding fewer and fewer stations (except in the Central
time zone) carrying the early feed (another factor in play here
is in markets where ABC changed affiliates; in Jacksonville, WJKS
had carried ABC News at 6, but stronger WTLV carried it at 6:30,
while in Charlotte ABC News moved from 6 on WCCB to 6:30 on
WSOC). No wonder the early, or as some of you like to call it, the
"practice feed", was phased out in 1982.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom