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Lima, OH (February 4, 1984)

T

TR1968

from Lima News via Newspapers.com

Lima
2 Showtime
4 Local Origination
5 WLIO-NBC Lima
6 WBGU-PBS Bowling Green
7 WHIO-CBS Dayton
8 WTBS Atlanta
9 WDTN-ABC Dayton/WBNS-CBS Columbus/WPTA-ABC Fort Wayne/WKEF-NBC Dayton
10 CNN
11 WTOL-CBS Toledo
12 WDHO-ABC Toledo
13 WTLW-Rel Lima
14 WTVG-NBC Toledo
15 CBN
16 Lifetime
17 Disney Channel
18 WANE-CBS Fort Wayne
19 ESPN
20 Nickelodeon
21 Cinemax
22 The Movie Channel
23 HBO
24 TNN
25 USA Network
26/27 News
28 SPN
31 ACSN
32 MSN
33 MTV
34 WFFT Fort Wayne

Shawnee/Cridersville
2 WDHO-ABC Toledo
3 WLIO-NBC Lima
4 WXIX Cincinnati
5 The Movie Channel
6 WBGU-PBS Bowling Green
7 WHIO-CBS Dayton
8 WFFT Fort Wayne
9 WPTA-ABC Fort Wayne
10 WBNS-CBS Columbus
11 Nickelodeon
13 WTLW-Rel Lima/WTVG-NBC Toledo/MTV
17 WTBS Atlanta
18 CNN
19 ESPN
20 Lifetime
22 USA Network
 
Channel 9 must have been one of those "wild card" channels, where pre-empted network shows are picked up from an affiliate from another market.
 
The News also indicated Lima cable 15 and 31 as shared channels, but didn't list what was the other service(s) on those channels...
 
If I had to guess, I would say that WDTN was the default station on channel 9, but was overlaid by WBNS, WPTA, or WKEF if a network program on CBS, ABC, or NBC respectively was otherwise unavailable due to pre-emption. Unless the wild-card channel were just color bars or some kind of computer-generated text (such as AP news, stock prices, etc.), you'd need something to put on the channel at times when it was unneeded for pre-emptions, and a desirable out-of-town network affiliate would be as good as anything else, though a cool independent station such as WXIX or WUAB would be nice too.

(In the pre-Fox days, WXIX was wildly popular everywhere within a 50-mile distance from the Ohio River, great movie catalog, it even got up as far as Huntington and Charleston WV on cable. For a time, it basically served as the Charleston-Huntington market's independent station before WVAH, and achieved 50%+ viewership in Boyd County KY [Ashland], all this cable-only, as OTA would have been impossible. It got down as far as Morehead KY, where both WCPO and WXIX were carried on cable.)

I have to think that wild-card channels were a mess to program --- you'd pretty much have to educate the cable subscriber "hey, if the program you want is pre-empted on the channel you're used to seeing it on, try channel 9 and it'll probably be there instead".
 
Tim from Springfield IL said:
Unless I missed it, I'm surprised that neither system carried the then-superstation WGN (considering that Chicago is 232 miles west of Lima).
Click to expand...
You'd also think they would carry WUAB from Cleveland. At or around this time, this station was carried via microwave throughout a wide swath of Ohio and even into West Virginia. According to one correspondent, may have been here, may have been AVS Forum, it even got into far southeastern Kentucky (Letcher County IIRC). WTTV Bloomington also made it as far as Huntington WV.

Those days of the regional superstations were pretty wild. WRET Charlotte functioned like a mini-WTBS throughout the Carolinas, and Washington stations WTTG and WDCA were carried all down the East Coast, WTTG getting as far as Columbia SC.
 
IM42A said:
If I had to guess, I would say that WDTN was the default station on channel 9, but was overlaid by WBNS, WPTA, or WKEF if a network program on CBS, ABC, or NBC respectively was otherwise unavailable due to pre-emption. Unless the wild-card channel were just color bars or some kind of computer-generated text (such as AP news, stock prices, etc.), you'd need something to put on the channel at times when it was unneeded for pre-emptions, and a desirable out-of-town network affiliate would be as good as anything else, though a cool independent station such as WXIX or WUAB would be nice too.

(In the pre-Fox days, WXIX was wildly popular everywhere within a 50-mile distance from the Ohio River, great movie catalog, it even got up as far as Huntington and Charleston WV on cable. For a time, it basically served as the Charleston-Huntington market's independent station before WVAH, and achieved 50%+ viewership in Boyd County KY [Ashland], all this cable-only, as OTA would have been impossible. It got down as far as Morehead KY, where both WCPO and WXIX were carried on cable.)

I have to think that wild-card channels were a mess to program --- you'd pretty much have to educate the cable subscriber "hey, if the program you want is pre-empted on the channel you're used to seeing it on, try channel 9 and it'll probably be there instead".
Click to expand...
WXIX and WTTV were microwaved around the midwest in the 70s and 80s
 
WUAB was removed from the Toledo-Lima edition of TV Guide sometime between 1983 and 1984, while WXIX remained long after. WTTV never appeared in it that I can find.
 
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