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PRE-1970 STATIONS (NOT O & O) STILL WITH THEIR DEBUT NETWORK

Steve N. said:
you forgot WHYN-WGGB/40 in Springfield, MA since at least the late 1960s

Huh? WHYN-TV was a CBS primary for a long time before flipping to ABC.
 
KKTV 11 Colorado Springs went on the air in 1952 with as a CBS primary affiliate with secondary affiliation with NBC (1952-1953 when KCSJ-TV in Pueblo went on the air), Dumont until they folded, and ABC until 1960.

KCSJ-TV 5, now KOAA, has been with NBC only since it went on the air in 1953.

KRDO-TV 13 was the second NBC affiliate in the area from 1953 until 1960 when the took the ABC affiliation after the Pueblo and Colorado Springs markets were combined. Before 1960, KRDO was not really watchable in Pueblo and KCSJ was not watchable in Colorado Springs. The KCSJ tranmitter was moved from their studios in Pueble to a tall tower north of city. KRDO either moved its transmitter up to Cheyenne Mountain or increased power or both. I was 8 at the time and I remember everyone being exicited about getting a third channel.

KTSC 8 in Pueblo went on the air as a PBS station in 1971. It had its transmitter on the KOAA tower. Since the digital transition, KOAA and KTSC are at the Cheyenne Mountain antenna farm.
 
WSAZ-TV Huntington-Charleston, WV...a primary NBC affiliate since signing on in 1949. It also had secondary affiliations w/ABC, CBS and DuMont
 
I don't know if it's possible to generalize about why a market
such as, say, Roanoke or Tri-Cities doesn't have a switch, but
a Huntsville, AL does (WAAY went from NBC to ABC in 1977).
I think a lot of it is out of necessity (CapCities buys ABC, WTVD
is owned by CapCities, presto--it moves from CBS to ABC), some
of it reflects changing demographics (Atlanta is skewing younger,
WSB wants a younger audience, and in 1980 the only way it can
get it is to change from NBC to ABC). But mostly I think it's the
attitude of management; I've talked to executives at WFMY (CBS)
Greensboro and WYFF (NBC) Greenville, SC, when ABC was riding
high in the late '70s, and neither thought ABC could stay there.
They were right; CBS regained number one in the 1979-80 season,
while NBC was number one in the second half of the '80s.

I suppose it comes down to the question: Do people watch programs
or do people watch stations? If, say, WFMY had moved from CBS to
ABC (probably putting CBS on WGHP at the time), they'd have been
taking a big gamble that their audience would watch "Happy Days,"
"Laverne & Shirley," "Three's Company," "Charlie's Angels," etc. It's
one they preferred not to take.

I don't find that the status quo (rankings of individual stations) changes
that much with a switch: WSB was number one in Atlanta with NBC; it's
number one with ABC (WXIA thought it could pick up WSB's audience for
the "Today" and "Tonight" shows and "Nightly News"; it didn't). But there
are exceptions: WLKY has done far better with CBS than it ever did with
ABC; WHAS is not as strong with ABC as it was with CBS. Likewise, Tampa
Bay's former ABC affiliate, WTSP, has done much better with CBS, and given
the age makeup of that market that's not too hard to understand.
 
bpatrick said:
Likewise, Tampa Bay's former ABC affiliate, WTSP, has done much better with CBS, and given
the age makeup of that market that's not too hard to understand.

I think you could factor the "old line, southern market" thing in for your examples from Greensboro and Greenville/Spartanburg. CBS as a rule does VERY well throughout the south, no? Even for CBS Radio News, it's their strongest area by far.
 
CBS ruled when in rural areas when they had The Andy Griffith Show (and its successor Mayberry RFD), The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, Gomer Pyle, USMC, Green Acres,Hee Haw and Glen Campbell.
 
I'm pretty sure WDBJ/7 in Roanoke STILL runs "The Andy Griffith Show" reruns weekdays right before its early newscasts, up to this day.

I just checked, and sure enough, WDBJ runs "Andy" weekdays at 5:30 PM, right between "News 7 at 5" and "News 7 at 6".
 
OhioMediaWatch said:
I'm pretty sure WDBJ/7 in Roanoke STILL runs "The Andy Griffith Show" reruns weekdays right before its early newscasts, up to this day.

I just checked, and sure enough, WDBJ runs "Andy" weekdays at 5:30 PM, right between "News 7 at 5" and "News 7 at 6".

Which if one looks at it does make sense since had Mayberry grown up to be a bigger town chances are it would be a lot more like Roanoke than any city in North Carolina. Imagine going into a time machine to 1960 and telling the cast of TAGS and tell them that in 2010 Charlotte would be a big as it is today..and that one can fly to London from Raleigh..non stop !! They would think you must be nuts :D

On the flip side Roanoke though hardly a small town in its own right really hasnt changed all that much over the years from the days of Andy Griffith other than the usual such as new buldings, more shopping centers and the like...but population wise..about the same. Sounds somewhat like the pace of Mayberry.
 
mleach, you're forcing me to say a few words about Charlotte. They could not only fly non-stop to London, but a number of other European cities, not to mention several SOuth American cities, even Honolulu. Not surprising for a city of over 750,000 in a metro area of over 2,000,000 (DMA #23). Yeah, the QC has come a long way, baby, but Andy Griffith just disappeared from local airwaves last year when WAXN/64 dropped him for WENDY WILLIAMS!
 
Last I heard, WDBJ still runs Andy at 5:30 for one big reason - it kills in the ratings. It owns the TV dial at that hour. Last I'd heard, at any rate.

Sure enough, from an article last month in the Roanoke Times:

http://www.roanoke.com/extra/wb/262274

For the past 26 years, "The Andy Griffith Show" has aired in the Roanoke-Lynchburg market on WDBJ (Channel 7). The show still dominates the 5:30 p.m. time slot, beating both "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and the WSLS 5:30 newscast. Oprah will end a 25-year career as the queen of daytime TV, but she never beat "Andy" in Roanoke.

WDBJ is more of a sprawling, regional station, and I bet a lot of rural Southwest Virginia would watch WDBJ even if you paid them money to watch WSLS or WSET (and west of Roanoke, WSET isn't an option outside of cable/satellite).
 
WFMY is now running Andy twice a day, at 10 AM and 5:30 PM.
I don't know how he's doing in the morning (they've shown nothing
but the color episodes since adding the morning show in September),
but, as in Roanoke, he's a monster at 5:30, beating out local news
on WGHP and WXII.

I remember once, sometime in the '80s, when Ch. 2 was going to
give Andy a rest and put "Newlywed Game" at 5:30. Boy, the letters
and phone calls they got! "Newlywed" soon ended up at noon (this was
before Ch. 2 started a noon newscast) and Andy was back at 5:30; he
hasn't moved since.

OTOH, I don't know how much of a factor Andy's been in Charlotte.
WSOC ran him for maybe three or four years in the early '70s, WRET
(Ch. 36) had him but I think dropped him after Ted Turner sold the
station to Westinghouse. I remember WBTV airing him very briefly in
the '90s against Oprah and going nowhere, then he ended up on WAXN.
But then, it has appeared to me for years that Charlotte viewers are
partial to news and talk shows ("The View" gives "The Price Is Right" a
pretty good run for its money in Charlotte).
 
WFMY is another old line CBS affiliate, no?

And of course, the GSO market is the home market for the inspiration of the fictional Mayberry...

A lot of parallels there between WDBJ and WFMY, and Roanoke and Greensboro. I assume WFMY is more powerful in the rural parts of the G/H-P/W-S market than the other stations.
 
WFMY is an old-line CBS affiliate; it signed on in 1949
and does tend to do well in most rural areas of the market,
even though, because this is a hyphenated market, viewing
tends to skew to the nearest big city; for example, Mt. Airy
(the real Mayberry) tends to watch WXII because Winston-
Salem is closer than Greensboro. Yet when the overall market
is measured, WFMY will nearly always come in number one
sign-on to sign-off.

But WFMY and WDBJ program similarly and always have;
both stations run "Wheel Of Fortune" and "Jeopardy!" for example,
and in the past both stations have run such syndicated hits as
"Hee Haw" and "PM Magazine".
 
OhioMediaWatch said:
WDBJ is more of a sprawling, regional station, and I bet a lot of rural Southwest Virginia would watch WDBJ even if you paid them money to watch WSLS or WSET (and west of Roanoke, WSET isn't an option outside of cable/satellite).

Even if WSET had a signal that blanketed the entire commonwealth of Virginia many still will NOT watch WSET only because of it being a Lynchburg station..with Lynchburg meaning Liberty University meaning the late Jerry Falwell. Of course WSET has nothing to do with the university but it still doesn't stop people from thinking that there is some sort of inside connection between the two. In other words for many to watch WSET or even simply to do business in Lynchburg is like supporting the efforts of Liberty U.
 
Though a case could be made for direct ties between Falwell's organization and WSET, even (the GM, at least at one time, was a Thomas Road Baptist Church parishoner whom Falwell called a "good friend" when he pre-empted a controversial ABC show)...I think you're generally overstating the case.
 
OhioMediaWatch said:
Though a case could be made for direct ties between Falwell's organization and WSET, even (the GM, at least at one time, was a Thomas Road Baptist Church parishoner whom Falwell called a "good friend" when he pre-empted a controversial ABC show)...I think you're generally overstating the case.

I actually remember that but since Falwell's death I haven't heard of WSET or any of the market's other TV and radio stations doing anything that was under pressure from Liberty but for a time whenever WSET/WDBJ/WSLS would pre-empt a program for any reason or whenever the local K-92FM didn't play a certain rock song, right of the bat it wasn't hard to find those who tried to link the decision to Jerry Falwell even in the end the results were, well nothing.
 
OhioMediaWatch said:
WDBJ, WSLS and K92 are all in Roanoke, where Falwell basically had limited pull, anyway. They were overreacting.

I totally agree with you...and so does singer Elton John ;).

I can remember back in the early 80s when Elton John was supposed to do a show at the Roanoke Civic Center only to have the show cancelled due to an illness ( I believe he had the flu if memory serves correctly ) However no sooner when word got around that the show was cancelled, gawd the rumors. "..Jerry Falwell had stopped the concert !! " " the civic center was under pressure by Thomas Road Baptist Church.."..etc..

Didn't take very long for both the civic center and even Elton John himself telling people who had believed such stuff to "..hey get a life" with Elton adding "..do you wanna see a note from my doctor ?" Classic ! !
 
I'm not going to get into Jerry Falwell; I am going to say that
viewers in hyphenated markets (and I've lived in more than my
share of them) tend to watch the station closest to them, simply
because particular stations tend to report the news for their
immediate areas. So you're not likely to find a Greensboro viewer
watching WXII's news, nor are you likely to find a Winston-Salem
viewer watching WFMY's, simply because WXII's coverage of Greensboro
is pretty sporadic, as is WFMY's of Winston-Salem.

Which no doubt explains why people in Roanoke would likely avoid
WSET; its coverage is oriented toward Lynchburg and Danville. I think,
and somebody correct me on this, if you live along U.S. 29 you're probably
going to watch WSET; if you live along U.S. 220 you're probably going to
watch either WDBJ or WSLS.

My original statement, that WSET is in the best position to take over leadership
in the Roanoke/Lynchburg market as WDBJ's audience dies off, is based on something
I read sometime back, and I think it was predicated on the fact that ABC, at the time,
had the youngest demographics. If that's the rationale, then WFXR would have a better
shot at becoming number one than WSET.

Still, picking your station in a hyphenated market is easier than, say, Atlanta, where
you have to consider which station has the best coverage or which anchor team you
like best (and, if the numbers mean anything, that's probably going to be WSB). But
even in a case like that, loyalties are divided: in Nashville WTVF tends to do best in
the city; WSMV in the outlying areas because of its folksier approach (I don't think
WKRN is much of a factor). That may sound strange because WTVF is a CBS affiliate;
WSMV, an NBC one, but WTVF puts on an almost-network-quality newscast that attracts
a little more upscale audience.
 
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