No, you're fine! I wish they came back.
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Lexington, KY (December 7, 1981)
- Thread starter Bluenoser
- Start date
No, you're fine! I wish they came back.
I've read about that WLEX microwave relay system before, don't remember where. I think one of the relays (Sadieville?) was on top of a wooden pole.
I might be remembering when WBLG/WTVQ (don't remember which one it was at the time) carried Nick Clooney's show from WKRC. Again, I don't remember particulars.
As a kind of aside, I wonder if any of the Cincinnati or Louisville stations ever considered setting up a satellite or semi-satellite in Lexington. That wouldn't have been at all incongruous for Crosley/Avco --- "WLWL"? It wouldn't have had to be NBC. Indianapolis had WLWI which was ABC, yet carried all the WLWx local shows, Bob Braun, Paul Dixon, Phil Donahue (originally from Dayton), and so on. When you think about it, having to jump through all kinds of Rube Goldberg hoops to get network programming from Cincinnati, WLEX and WKYT were kinda-sorta semi-satellites anyway, albeit with local news.
I'm not sure how they accomplished this. I'm in Campbell County in northern Kentucky, which is much closer to Dayton than Mason County is, and Dayton stations were always very hard to get. I had to watch Dayton stations when Cincinnati stations preempted stuff, and it was quite a chore.
Broadcast signals do weird things in hilly terrain and valleys. You might have some locations with "sweet spots" where Dayton could be received fairly easily.
You start losing Louisville stations around Mt Sterling on I-64, and both Lexington and Cincinnati pretty much peter out by the time you get to the escarpment that runs from western Lewis County (around Tollesboro) and goes south-southwest. Past Morehead, you're in a world of hurt, and pretty much only the Charleston-Huntington stations remain.
Sadieville was correct for WLEX. Taft Broadcasting did purchase Channel 27 and changed to ABC to align with the other Taft station. They sold it in the late sixties. Bob Braun aired on WLEX from the mid seventies until the show ended in 1984.
Nick Clooney might've been on videotape when airing on Channel 62. Speaking of Channel 62 they would air WHAS' derby coverage via an antenna as there were some over the air noise. Meanwhile WLEX had a high gain antenna aimed to Cincinnati as a network back up.
He was also on WSAZ Huntington WV, I'm pretty sure, on a one-day delay basis.
I want to say it was simulcast with WKRC, but I wouldn't swear my life to it. Bicycling tapes to Lexington would have been cumbersome (but apparently WSAZ did the same thing with Bob Braun), and if it were taped off-air from WKRC, what would have been the point, aside from time-shifting?
WSAZ would have been too far, and over bad terrain, to get a reliable OTA signal from WLWT, even from Barkers Ridge where the WSAZ transmitter is located.
And just out of curiosity, does anyone know how Crosley/Avco distributed live programs to their various stations (WLWT, WLWD, WLWC, and WLWI)? Dedicated coaxial link, OTA from WLWT (or WLWD in the case of Phil Donahue, I don't know if WLWC or WLWI ever originated any Crosley/Avco programming), or microwave?
I always thought it was kind of weird that WLWI was ABC while the other WLWx stations were NBC.
I always thought it was kind of weird that WLWI was ABC while the other WLWx stations were NBC.
Ironically, WLWI would switch to NBC not long after the Crosley/Avco network broke up!
Yes, I know, when they became WTHR. Strictly speaking, though, carrying the Crosley/Avco shows (Bob Braun, Paul Dixon, Phil
Donahue, Midwestern Hayride IIRC, possibly others) didn't rely upon the WLWx station being affiliated with any one particular network. Still, though, the daytime schedules for WLWT, WLWC, and WLWD were basically identical for this reason as well as due to all being NBC affiliates. Pretty much only local news shows were different, along with some syndication.
The answer to WLWI not getting NBC is pretty simple: WFBM had deep ties to NBC, first on radio and then as the first TV station in town, and it and its sister Time-Life stations were too important to NBC to lose.
I remember reading an article somewhere from years ago that Crosley/Avco did have microwave transmitters to distribute their live programs from Cincinnati to the other stations in Columbus, Dayton, and Indianapolis.
Makes sense. It'd be more viable than any other option in the pre-satellite era.
Yes, but it wasn't all that far from Louisville OTA. Points east of Louisville would have presented more of a challenge.
WTTV (and WXIX) was fed to distant stations by microwave
Actually, per this article, Crosley did try to buy WLEX in the early 1960s, but the deal fell through because of having two NBC stations that close together (but no closer than WLWD was either to WLWT or WLWC):
A History of WLEX-TV | engineerscott.com
A History of WLEX-TV | engineerscott.com
If WLEX had been purchased by Crosley, at that time, both of Lexingtons stations would have been under Cincinnati based ownership. This if course, during the two station era.
As I said earlier, as a practical matter, WLEX and WKXP/WKYT were kinda-sorta satellites of Cincinnati stations, at least where some network programming was concerned. That all changed when Lexington got a third station (WBLG/WTVQ) and direct network feeds.