Once great indies that went downhill

[chris12]

What were some stations in your area that were once great independent stations that have since gone downhill. I'm from the Chicago area and WFLD 32 and WGN 9 used to be great indies, channel 9 with Bozo, Ray Rayner, Garfield Goose, classic movies and great syndicated children's programming and now it's all CW ,news and trash talk show junk and WFLD used tohave Son Of Svengoolie, Super Cartoon Sunrise and Afternoon Fun with Dr. Don, game shows in prime time, white Sox baseball, and other great shows but now it's a corporate Fox channel, fortunatley there is a great website fuzzymemories.tv to help preserve the footage and memories.

 

[KML0224]

In Hartford/New Haven, my choice would be channel 26 of New London. Today, they are WHPX-TV, an ION affiliate. They started as an independent in 1986 as WTWS-TV (W-TWenty-Six). At their peak, this station had their own weeknight 10 PM newscast called NewsBeat 26, significant because this was before WTIC-TV (FOX) channel 61 of Hartford started their 10 PM newscast in the spring of 1989. They were this market's home to WPIX New York Yankees baseball games and WWF wrestling (WWE today). What do I watch on this station today? Absolutely nothing!

 

[Stanislav]

Most of the good indies are long gone. Too many network affiliation possibilities (how many great indies are now Fox, CW, etc.?) and too lucrative to run paid programming instead of shows they have to actually pay for. Most of the shows that were standard indie fare (both original and reruns) are now on cable channels anyway. We have one local indie (WRDQ-TV) that has absolutely not one show of any interest to me. BUT, they do carry RTN on their digital sub-channel, so that's kind of like having an old-fashioned independent on the dial. ;D

 

[Ultimajock]

fortunatley there is a great website fuzzymemories.tv to help preserve the footage and memories.

...yeah, but it's too bad they have such a small selection of WSNS/44 product and absolutely nothing from WBBS/60 except for one night when they handed the channel over to WPWR who then ran The Third Man. At least I'd hope they could put the Bob Luce/pro wrestlers spot for Ben's Auto Sales and One Stop grocers from WCIU/26 Sundays in the early '80s...

 

[mjlarochelle]

WUAB, Channel 43 in Cleveland quickly comes to mind. Even though I was not alive for the heyday of that station in the 70s and 80s, they were still a strong independent at the beginning of the 90s with Indians baseball, Browns basketball, nightly news at 10, lots of movies, and quite a few cartoons. Of course on weekends they also had "Superhost" Marty Sullivan, a little before my time. After being part of the short-lived PETN (Prime Time Entertainment Network), they affiliated with both UPN and The WB in 1995, went to UPN only in 1997, and the station rapidly went downhill. Today as a MyNetworkTV affiliate "My43" it reportedly airs more infomercials per week than any other station in the Cleveland market, including large blocks on weekends that used to be occupied by cartoons and movies, and they even have been known to air infomercials in prime time. Their newscast isn't what it used to be either; it's now 19 Action News at Ten from hyper-tabloid WOIO, and I have heard that it gets much lower ratings than WJW's 10 PM newscast. WUAB still airs the odd Cleveland Browns game, but it seems to be fewer every season.

 

[KML0224]

Um...Browns basketball? Do you mean the NFL Browns in preseason?

 

[wbhist]

What were some stations in your area that were once great independent stations that have since gone downhill. I'm from the Chicago area and WFLD 32 and WGN 9 used to be great indies, channel 9 with Bozo, Ray Rayner, Garfield Goose, classic movies and great syndicated children's programming and now it's all CW ,news and trash talk show junk and WFLD used tohave Son Of Svengoolie, Super Cartoon Sunrise and Afternoon Fun with Dr. Don, game shows in prime time, white Sox baseball, and other great shows but now it's a corporate Fox channel, fortunatley there is a great website fuzzymemories.tv to help preserve the footage and memories.

You mention WGN. I'd opine that its New York sister station, WPIX, likewise went downhill after going the WB/CW route. Once known for the likes of "Officer" Joe Bolton and "Captain" Jack McCarthy, "Beachcomber Bill" Biery who stayed as a staff announcer after his run as children's-show host came to an end, The Magic Garden, Time for Joya / Joya's Fun School, Yankees baseball, classic films (including the horror-movie umbrella Chiller) and TV shows, and so forth.

Going up and down the dial, there's the old WNEW-TV (now Fox 5 WNYW), which was the top-rated indie for years, with the likes (over the years) of Soupy Sales, Chuck McCann, Sandy Becker, Wonderama with such hosts as Mr. Becker, Sonny Fox and Bob McAllister, Looney Tunes cartoons, Creature Features, et al. Not to mention The 10 O'Clock News during the Bill Jorgensen and early John Roland years, plus such memorable voices as Tom Gregory, Ed Ladd, Fred Scott and Lou "The Creep" Steele. From 1983 onwards, a sister station to WFLD.

And while WOR-TV (now My9 WWOR) was the last of the NY indies ratings-wise and otherwise (with a programming budget that ironically rivalled the early years of SCTV which WOR ran in that show's first two years in U.S. syndication), it did boast the inimitable Joe Franklin, as well as Million Dollar Movie and other memorable film umbrellas (The Big Preview, The Flick, Movie 9, The 4 O'Clock Movie [with the Switch-derived opening titles and the theme music from Neil Richardson's library-music classic "The Riviera Affair"] and Fright Night), Romper Room, and providing New Yorkers with their first exposure to Benny Hill. (Which Chicagoans got via WFLD.) To say nothing of being the first home of William F. Buckley, Jr.'s Firing Line, before it moved to PBS. Even in its early years as WWOR, they gave Mario Cantone an early big break via his hosting one of the last big children's shows, Steampipe Alley.

 

[mbatchelor]

KPLR Channel 11 in St. Louis was a great independent station for many years under the ownership of the Koplar family, they played a great mix of classic TV shows, cartoons, first run syndication, British shows like "Benny Hill," "The 3 Stooges" every Saturday late night, and the KPLR mainstay from 1959 to 1983, "Wrestling at the Chase," which broadcast from the Chase Park Plaza Hotel, which was also owned by the Koplars. Many wrestlers who would go on to fame in the WWF, like Rik Flair, Harley Race, and "Dick The Bruiser" got their start on Wrestling at the Chase.

In the 90s, KPLR became a CW affiliate, and was sold by Ted Koplar to Acme Communications, and Acme later sold the station to Tribune. They are now a CW affiliate, and it has been downhill ever since.

Channel 11 used to play movies between 7 and 9 pm on most evenings, followed by the 9PM news, and for many years "The Jokers Wild."

St. Louis was also home to another independent, which was never quite as successful as the VHF Channel 11 - KDNL Channel 30, which is now the ABC affiliate. KDNL used to get second dibs after KPLR on syndicated fare, and for several years in the 80s scrambled their signal in a short lived Pay TV channel called Preview, where you would lease the decoder to watch the evening programming. Later, KDNL would become one of the very first FOX affiliates, when their programming was only on weekends, and an affiliation shakeup back in '95 landed them the ABC affiliation that they still hold today.

 

[ShawnHill1]

Um...Browns basketball? Do you mean the NFL Browns in preseason?

I think M.J. meant Cavaliers basketball, which WUAB has ran on and off since the mid-70s. Its current sister, WOIO, carried games from the late 80s until the early to mid 90s. Channel 43 currently only carries five regular season games and selected playoff via a simulcast from FSN Ohio.

Speaking of indies going downhill...of course Los Angeles is the home (at one time) of the largest group independent stations in the nation. Besides the usual suspects (KTLA, KHJ/KCAL, KTTV, KCOP), you have the smaller stations like Anaheim's KDOC. You also had indies that were once English, and then later converted to Spanish (KWHY, KVEA). A lot of the programming selection aren't as great as they used to be. For example, in a lot of markets, sports telecasts have migrated to cable television. Detroit, as of this fall, becomes the latest market where its non-NFL teams will be cable-exclusive, as the Pistons will move all of their local telecasts to FSN Detroit. As it stands, the San Antonio Spurs and Los Angeles Lakers will be the only NBA teams left with a significant schedule of over-the-air telecasts (at least 35 games).

 

[YEKIMI]

Cleveland also at one time had WKBF which was a rival to WUAB. Then at one point they went to paid programming [I spent many an hour fiddling with my tuner to try and descramble the "dirt movies" they were showing......sometimes had luck, sometimes not. Not sure of the order but they became an HSN station and now is part of Univision, Spanish 24/7, which I don't understand so never watch anymore.

 

[bk77]

Someone earlier mentioned New York City's WNEW channel 5..

The exact same thing can apply to Washington DC's WTTG. Actually WTTG WAS WNEW !! Same logo (well both stations are on channel 5 ), pretty much the same syndicated fare, even The Ten O'Clock News !! Both the New York newscast and DC's were so much alike..right down to the music, they could pass off as twins !! None of this is really a surprise since both were part of the old DuMont/Metromedia group and today both are owned by FOX.

I don't believe Becker or McCann ever appeared on WTTG but I think Sales's show did when WNEW taped it. Bob McAllister OTOH, made so many public appearances around DC back in the 70's that many actually believe Wonderama was a LOCAL WTTG show even though it wasn't. One story I remember was when The Jacksons appeared on Wonderama. A group of kids hanged around the outside of WTTG thinking the band was inside only to be sadly disappointed when they found out the show "came from New York".

Today WTTG is pretty much your average FOX channel. Last time I was in New York and checked out WNYW, well some things have never changed.

 

[pqgeorge]

Someone earlier mentioned New York City's WNEW channel 5..

The exact same thing can apply to Washington DC's WTTG. Actually WTTG WAS WNEW !! Same logo (well both stations are on channel 5 ), pretty much the same syndicated fare, even The Ten O'Clock News !! Both the New York newscast and DC's were so much alike..right down to the music, they could pass off as twins !! None of this is really a surprise since both were part of the old DuMont/Metromedia group and today both are owned by FOX.

I don't believe Becker or McCann ever appeared on WTTG but I think Sales's show did when WNEW taped it. Bob McAllister OTOH, made so many public appearances around DC back in the 70's that many actually believe Wonderama was a LOCAL WTTG show even though it wasn't. One story I remember was when The Jacksons appeared on Wonderama. A group of kids hanged around the outside of WTTG thinking the band was inside only to be sadly disappointed when they found out the show "came from New York".

Today WTTG is pretty much your average FOX channel. Last time I was in New York and checked out WNYW, well some things have never changed.

Boston had some very interesting Indies as well......

WXNE-TV Channel 25 (now WFXT) was owned by Pat Robertson's CBN Continental. But, other than two daily dishings of "The 700 Club", you'd never know it. This station had a rather decent lineup of programming including "Mission: Impossible", "WKRP in Cincinnati" (a BIG favorite of mine), "Family" (a highly critically acclaimed drama series of the late 70's), and get this..... they ran the movie "Network" complete and uncut. Highly unusual for a station owned by a religious operation. But, "Pat" is a shrewed businessman and ran his UHF's like a business. Channel 25 still has the best UHF signal in the market. It always had an excellent on-air presentation during the CBN days. So, what did Pat do? He sold it to FOX, how ironic. Even though WXNE was the Boston affiliate of the new start-up FOX Network, he refused to let Channel 25 run "The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers" until the day FOX took possession of Channel 25 in January, 1987.

WSBK-TV Channel 38, a big Indie indeed. It always had the best shows. It had the best sports programming with the Bruins and the Red Sox and was Boston's first cable superstation in the 70's, thanks to an impressive microwave network that spanned in all 6 New England states and New York (including NYC, Long Island and the Capital District of Albany). To this day, it still runs the "Three Stooges" and has been doing so since 1971! It was famous for "Ask The Manager", which was a fan favorite and was loaded with letters sent in by viewers and gave you a chance to learn about "TV38 and/or the broadcasting industry in general". Dana Hersey was "the voice" of TV38 right until the station was sold to UPN.

WLVI-TV Channel 56. Had one of the largest movie libraries in the market. It always was #2 in the market as an Indie but it had a faithful following, especially with kids. It also brought you "The Lou Gordon Program", produced by sister station WKBD/50 in Detroit. 56 was the first UHF'er in the market, signing on 1953 as WTAO. The station went dark in '56 and returned under Kaiser/Globe ownership in 1966 as WKBG-TV.

WQTV/Channel 68 was the last Indie to sign on in 1978. During the first 5 years of operation, it was mainly a subscription TV station broadcasting first run movies, specials and so on... including some late-night soft-porn called "Private Screenings" . The two or three hours a day of required unscrambled programming were pretty low budget such as "Boston: Live", "News Cap 68" and "Leslie The Shrew" (syndicated for cable and now on Channel 68). Eventually cable killed OTA (over-the-air) subscription TV, and Channel 68 relaunched in September, 1983 as a general independent station. It was the "Oh, WOW!" station with lots of chestnuts, not seen in years such as "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea", "The Mod Squad", "It Takes A Thief", "The Invaders" and more. It was getting a small but growing following. Then somebody decided to buy some stronger first run programming and the station grinded to a halt. Within 3 months of buying the stronger programming such as "Star Trek", "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "The Bob Newhart Show", the station overextended itself and withered on the vine. All programming was returned to the distributors as the station was in bankruptcy. For the next two years it ran nothing but public domain material, infomercials and some NBC discards that the local affiliate (WBZ at the time) would not clear. Today after two tries of Independent programming under the ownership "The Christian Science Monitor" and Boston University (as WABU-TV), Channel 68 is now the Boston affiliate of ION television.

Honorable mention......
WSMW-TV Channel 27 (later as WHLL, and now WUNI)
WXPO-TV Channel 50 (now deleted)
WJZB-TV Channel 14 (now deleted)
WNDS-TV Channel 50 (now WZMY)
and WNHT Channel 21 (now WPXG)

 

[wbhist]

The exact same thing can apply to Washington DC's WTTG. Actually WTTG WAS WNEW !! Same logo (well both stations are on channel 5 ), pretty much the same syndicated fare, even The Ten O'Clock News !! Both the New York newscast and DC's were so much alike..right down to the music, they could pass off as twins !! None of this is really a surprise since both were part of the old DuMont/Metromedia group and today both are owned by FOX.

At one point in 1980, WTTG's Ten O'Clock News used as their opening theme a selection from a 1978 album by Vince Montana, Jr. (architect of The Salsoul Sound) on Atlantic, of music that was inspired by Close Encounters of the Third Kind. This contrasted with the "boom boom" percussion (with clacks and horns) that was used for WNEW's Ten O'Clock News at the time.

 

[Davros2006]

Some things to note about some of Detroit's then-independent stations (this coming from someone who only saw the "Big 3" back in my youth because of CANCOM/Shaw Broadcast Services)...

WXON on channel 20 had the "ON-TV" subscription service in the early '80s and the price to have it wasn't cheap (and some people, especially across the border in Windsor, Ontario, in order to get the scrambled stuff for free, built their own decoders to get the grown-up stuff at night).

WKBD-50 had been (for the most part) the leading independent in Detroit until FOX signed on. It's also interesting to note that the Kaiser/Field stations that were ultimately sold in 1983-84 when the company dissolved eventually changed their call letters or had already done so, with the exception of WKBD, which has retained them since its inception in 1965. (WKBS in Philadelphia shut down in 1983 when a suitable buyer wasn't found and as such, the equipment used to run it, and the programming they had to the end, was sold instead.)

WGPR-62 (now WWJ) always lagged behind the other indies of the day but they had some (somewhat) interesting programming of their own.

 

[Davros2006]

And I'm sure there's some information to tell about WTBS (prior to the split which saw the call letters in Atlanta change to the present WPCH).

I have a small bit of mid and late '90s TBS footage on some tapes (as a Superstation) which featured such programs as National Geographic Explorer, WCW Wrestling, and for the kids, cartoons in the mornings and late afternoon. Oh, and there was always a classic (and sometimes not-so-classic) movie, either theatrical or made for TV, shown every night, and sometimes all night. And don't forget about Atlanta Braves Baseball, which still airs locally, but less frequently since the split last October.

 

[dxnemo78]

Don't have any "local" indies here and never have, but what I've seen of WGN and Superstation TBS (or whatever it is now) in recent years makes me a little sad. I also remember the glory days of KPLR and KDNL from when I would visit St. Louis. I sorta remember that "Preview", seems like they sometimes offered a 5 minute teaser before they scrambled it. I'm not quite sure about that, but I know sometimes you still got audio, but the video was scrambled. I seem to recall "The Rose" with Bette Midler being on that way once.

 

[mjlarochelle]

Um...Browns basketball? Do you mean the NFL Browns in preseason?

I think M.J. meant Cavaliers basketball, which WUAB has ran on and off since the mid-70s. Its current sister, WOIO, carried games from the late 80s until the early to mid 90s. Channel 43 currently only carries five regular season games and selected playoff via a simulcast from FSN Ohio.

I don't know how that happened, haha. Cavaliers basketball it was - although I'm not sure if WUAB also had pre-season Browns.

 

[bk77]

WXON on channel 20 had the "ON-TV" subscription service in the early '80s and the price to have it wasn't cheap (and some people, especially across the border in Windsor, Ontario, in order to get the scrambled stuff for free, built their own decoders to get the grown-up stuff at night).

Both Washington and Baltimore had a similar service called "Super TV" back then ( early to mid 80s ). Super TV aired on DC's WCQR channel 50 and Baltimore's WNUV channel 54. before Super TV went on the air for the night ( 7pm weeknights, 3pm weekends ), both WCQR and WNUV were totally different in the programming department. At first WNUV would air strictly a business format from FNN with Jim Bakker and very old movies mixed in. By the summer of 84, WNVU did start airing more "normal" programming like Chips for example.

WCQR..well they aired nothing. really !! Just a camera shot from their tower of a Northern Virginia neighborhood with the VO guy saying simply "WCQR..Washington" ( or something like that ) in a continous loop.

Even though Super TV would have died anyway with cable expanding they way it did, even during their hayday Super TV did have a problem with those building and even buying those decoders without going through Super TV at all. Oddly despite the powerful signals of both WCQR and WNVU, Super TV wouldn't rent out those decoders to anyone outside the DC and Baltimore metro areas even if they did get a good signal from WCQR and WNUV. In other words not past Leesburg, VA or Frederick, MD. So those viewers went the other routes to get those decoders. That cost Super TV dearly.

 

[bullet bob]

KPLR Channel 11 in St. Louis was a great independent station for many years under the ownership of the Koplar family, they played a great mix of classic TV shows, cartoons, first run syndication, British shows like "Benny Hill," "The 3 Stooges" every Saturday late night, and the KPLR mainstay from 1959 to 1983, "Wrestling at the Chase," which broadcast from the Chase Park Plaza Hotel, which was also owned by the Koplars. Many wrestlers who would go on to fame in the WWF, like Rik Flair, Harley Race, and "Dick The Bruiser" got their start on Wrestling at the Chase.

In the 90s, KPLR became a CW affiliate, and was sold by Ted Koplar to Acme Communications, and Acme later sold the station to Tribune. They are now a CW affiliate, and it has been downhill ever since.

Channel 11 used to play movies between 7 and 9 pm on most evenings, followed by the 9PM news, and for many years "The Jokers Wild."

St. Louis was also home to another independent, which was never quite as successful as the VHF Channel 11 - KDNL Channel 30, which is now the ABC affiliate. KDNL used to get second dibs after KPLR on syndicated fare, and for several years in the 80s scrambled their signal in a short lived Pay TV channel called Preview, where you would lease the decoder to watch the evening programming. Later, KDNL would become one of the very first FOX affiliates, when their programming was only on weekends, and an affiliation shakeup back in '95 landed them the ABC affiliation that they still hold today.

Dick The Bruiser never wrestled much for the WWF. He may have in the old days but by the time the WWF went National he was up in age. He owned the Indianapolis territory and generally cooperated with McMahon once he began his National expansion.


Channel 17 out of Philadelphia aired Jim Crockett's Wrestling which eventually became WCW. Channel 29 in Philadelphia always aired the WWF.

 

[radiorob2.0]

WDRB Louisville along with WXIX Newport (Cincinnati) enjoyed extended coverage via cable. Today, they are basic Fox stations. The same can be said for WTTV Bloomington(Indy).

I have the Dish Network Superstation package but thinking about dropping the service since the signals aren't unique beyond news. Though WSBK Boston since dropping network programming is returning to an old school indie.