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Indy Radio Coverage Of Kennedy Assassination

B

BobOnTheJob

I know this thread isn't relevant to most who read this, but having grown up in Cincy, I'm curious to hear what Indy radio was like after President Kennedy was shot & killed in November 1963. WSAI in Cincinnati (the legendary top 40 station in the day) immediately stopped playing all music & went wall to wall news for several days. Finally when things started to return to normal, they would only play middle of the road leaning top 40 tunes such as Jack Jones - Wives And Lovers. Of course, the Beatles arrived on radio about 6 weeks later...what a radical change from November 1963 to January 1964. How did WIFE and the other area stations handle that event?
 
I remember watching TV more at the time. I wouldn't get my first six transistor radio until Christmas a month later. I do remember WIBC, WFBM, WIFE, WHUT all picking up network feeds. I don't think
WIBC or WIFE were affilliated with a network at the time and had to get permission to join the network temporarily for wall to wall radio coverage. WFBM was a CBS affilliate at the time. WHUT was an ABC
station. (they had Don McNeill on in the mornings.)
 
I was 8 at the time so I don't remember much. In Bloomington, all I remember on radio was WTTS (and probably WTTV-FM as well since they simulcasted back then) carrying either ABC news or some kind of somber/funeral music. My folks kept their radio on 1370 so I don't know what the Indy stations were doing. I have no idea what WFIU did. I don't believe anything like NPR existed at the time.

TV was wall-to-wall news coverage, of course. Both Channels 4 and 13 carried ABC - the only time I can think of that WTTV used its still-active (secondary) ABC affiliation since they stopped being that network's full-time affiliate in '57.

I didn't even find out about it until I got home from school that day and turned on Channel 4, hoping to watch the usual cartoons or whatever was on at the time, and finding ABC News on instead. Channel 13 barely made it to Bloomington in those days so I'm guessing that's why WTTV was allowed to carry ABC - to cover the south end of the market (Bloomington/Bedford/Columbus) that WLWI couldn't reach.
 
The subject of 1310's JFK coverage was brought up on a reelradio message board. It seems 1310 had just dropped the WISH call letters and CBS affiliation the day before. The station borrowed KLIF's coverage thanks to a friend in Dallas who placed his phone receiver next to a radio. Also, after they dropped WISH they had the calls of WAWE for a couple of weeks before WIFE.

Also, I had read elsewhere, maybe on the classic TV board, that WTTV held on to an ABC affilation through the 60's and used ABC for news coverage on that day.
 
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