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General Electric Cablevision-Watertown NY 1969

J

jiminCT

Guest
I found an old newspaper clipping of an advertisement for GE's cable service in 1969.

5 dollar connection charge

Channels
WWNY-7-Watertown
WSYR-Syracuse
WHEN-Syracuse
WNYS-Syracuse
WNEW-NYC
WOR-NYC
WPIX-NYC
CJOH-Ottawa/Deseronto
CKWS-Kingston

In addition...Channel 10 was the Watertown community channel (public access)
 
What cable was like all those years ago

Watertown was a 1-station market until 1971. WWNY-7 cherry-picked the Big 3 and also aired PBS programs provided by WNPE (now WPBS). That's why cable imported the Big 3 from Syracuse.

If you can recall the Syracuse stations and New York indies with those call letters, you are getting up in years. The original WSYR is now WSTM-3; WHEN is now WTVH-5; WNYS was later WIXT and is now 9WSYR.

CJOH is ID'd for "Ottawa/Deseronto", which means GE Cable picked up the Deseronto relay on Channel 6. CJOH is now CTV Ottawa and is still on Time Warner Cable on 13 -- its OTA channel in Ottawa.
 
Re: What cable was like all those years ago

chuckydoll said:
Watertown was a 1-station market until 1971. WWNY-7 cherry-picked the Big 3 and also aired PBS programs provided by WNPE (now WPBS).
Click to expand...

I can remember, as late as the early 80s, on one day on ch. 7 one could watch the Today show from NBC in the morning; CBS game shows & soaps during the day; the Walter Cronkite news; then Happy Days & Laverne & Shirley in primetime from ABC. But, I think they had only one direct network link, to CBS; the other nets, I believe, they had to grab off-air from ch. 3 & 9.

When did WUTR/Utica (ABC) put up a translator on ch. 50 there? Anyone know? (This was before WFYF/50 went on the air in 1988)...And did that affect WWNY airing ABC shows?
 
oldschooler1 said:
When did WUTR/Utica (ABC) put up a translator on ch. 50 there? Anyone know? (This was before WFYF/50 went on the air in 1988)...And did that affect WWNY airing ABC shows?
Click to expand...

The WUTR article on Wikipedia only mentions the translators in Watertown and Massena were shut down when WFYF signed on in 1987. It doesn't say when they started, which almost infers they were active from day one. Roy H. Park started WUTR, and I wouldn't be surprised if he spent the money to have WUTR and all the translators online at the same time. (I believe they also have one in Oneonta, which is still active today... although Wikipedia doesn't mention it.)

I would assume WWNY woud have been forbidden from carrying ABC programming once the translators went online... especially if the translators had cable carriage. I don't think Park (or anyone else) would have invested in building those translators if WWNY were going to continue running duplicate programming, even if it was just at certain times of the day.
 
WUTR was on Cable in Alexandria Bay in 1985 (Castle Cable). I assume they picked up the WUTR relay up in Watertown. They tried WSTM off an antenna...which was awful, faded in and out...finally gave up and went to WDIV. Castle Cable is a really primative system.

I had no idea that the NYC indies were distributed upstate as early as that. Would love to know how far west WNEW, WOR, and PIX were distributed.
 
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