October 9: This Day in TV History

[Stanislav]

Just a few random TV related events that happened on October 9. Discuss or comment as you please……

1948: WXYZ-TV (channel 7) launches in Detroit.

1953: Actor Tony Shalhoub (Wings, Monk) is born in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

1954: Actor Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap, Star Trek: Enterprise) is born in St. Louis, Missouri.

1954: Actor and game show host John O’Hurley (Seinfeld, Family Feud) is born in Kittery, Maine.

1981: Actor Zachary Ty Bryan (Home Improvement) is born in Aurora, Colorado.

1982: A major brush fire destroys the outdoor set of M*A*S*H in Calabasas, California, disrupting filming of the 2 ½ hour finale (“Goodbye, Farewell and Amen”). The fire was hastily worked into the script, being explained as the result of North Korean incendiary bombs falling while the 4077th had bugged-out.

1986: Three decades after the demise of DuMont, a new “fourth network” is born as the Fox Television Network debuts The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers on a network of 96 stations reaching more than 80% of U.S. households.

1992: Actor Tyler James Williams (Everybody Hates Chris) is born in Westchester County, New York.

2001: Model and TV “sex symbol” Dagmar (neé Virginia Ruth Egnor) dies in Ceredo, West Virginia, aged 79.

(Just a little featurette I hope to do as time permits. It’s an entirely random selection based on a quick Net search, and is not meant to be comprehensive. So, don’t post nasty messages about “you forgot THIS” or “how could you not mention THAT?” Do so, and I’ll just take my keyboard and go home…..)

 

[KML0224]

Relating to the FOX premiere that night in 1986, I still remember watching that episode while living in Old Orchard Beach, ME on WPXT-TV channel 51 of Portland, who had signed on barely a month earlier. If I'm not mistaken, the first show had Elton John and David Lee Roth as guests.

What I wonder is what percentage of those early affiliates have stayed with FOX since that night, outside of the O & O's? WTIC-TV/DT channel 61/D 31 has been a FOX affiliate for that entire run.

 

[Ultimajock]

...1940: John Lennon is born in Liverpool, England. As a member of The Beatles and a solo musician, sometimes in collaboration with wife Yoko Ono, Lennon participated in landmark broadcasts of several variety and talk programs (The Jack Paar Program, The Ed Sullivan Show, The David Frost Show, The Dick Cavett Show, The Mike Douglas Show, Tomorrow with Tom Snyder, The Jerry Lewis Labor Day MDA Telethon) and appeared in cartoon form on one of ABC's longer-running Saturday morning animated series of the 1960s, The Beatles, from September 1965 to September 1969...

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

Relating to the FOX premiere that night in 1986, I still remember watching that episode while living in Old Orchard Beach, ME on WPXT-TV channel 51 of Portland, who had signed on barely a month earlier. If I'm not mistaken, the first show had Elton John and David Lee Roth as guests.

What I wonder is what percentage of those early affiliates have stayed with FOX since that night, outside of the O & O's? WTIC-TV/DT channel 61/D 31 has been a FOX affiliate for that entire run.

In Illinois, most of the current full-service Fox affiliates based in the state have been with the network since Day One 23 years ago Friday: WYZZ-43 Bloomington/Peoria; WRSP-55 Springfield (but its Champaign sister station/translator WCCU-27 did not sign on until Apr. 25, 1987--about three weeks after the Fox network began Sunday night programming in addition to the "Late Show"); O&O WFLD-32 Chicago; and WQRF-39 Rockford (also KBSI-23 Cape Girardeau, MO for the Paducah/Carbondale market).

The exceptions to this rule have been the affiliates serving parts of the state that are based in states surrounding Illinois: KLJB-18 Quad Cities (which lost the affiliation briefly from 1988-90 and went independent due to massive preemptions of Fox shows), KTVI-2 St. Louis (part of the New World/Fox deal, swapped ABC to Fox in 1995 with KDNL-30), WFXW-38 Terre Haute, IN (formerly WBAK--also moved from ABC to Fox in 1995), WTVW-7 Evansville, IN (also in 1995--Fox originally was on WEVV-44, which is now CBS, as part of the three-station network switch that also involved WEHT-25), and CGEM Quincy (which debuted in 1993 originally only on the Quincy cable system, operated by NBC affiliate WGEM-10. It is now available on WGEM-DT3).

 

[easttxtv]

What I wonder is what percentage of those early affiliates have stayed with FOX since that night, outside of the O & O's? WTIC-TV/DT channel 61/D 31 has been a FOX affiliate for that entire run.

The original Dallas Fox O&O, KDAF/33 (the first station to be an O&O in the market), had to be sold in 1995 as a result of the Fox-New World deal; Fox ended up with KDFW/4 as an affiliate (which became an O&O 2 years later) after buying New World. KDAF/33 (which affiliated with WB after the affil switching was over with) was sold to Renaissance Broadcasting, which was eventually bought by Tribune.

The Shreveport (KMSS/33) and Amarillo (KCIT/14) stations have stuck with Fox since the start. For a time, each also were secondary UPN affiliates, until separate stations came along in each market to take on UPN.

 

[Ultimajock]

What I wonder is what percentage of those early affiliates have stayed with FOX since that night, outside of the O & O's?

...I'm positive that WMSN/47 Madison, WI, has been affiliated since the first night. The Green Bay/Fox Cities affiliation has switched three times -- the original affiliate, WXGZ/32, went dark on Valentines Day, 1992, shifting Fox over to then-indie WGBA/26; then, in August 1995, as part of the Savoy/Fox deal, the affiliation shifted again to then-NBC affiliate WLUK/11...

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

1966: Actress Karyn Parsons (Fresh Prince of Bel-Air) is born in Hollywood, CA.