RETRO: Anchorage, Alaska (March 4, 1985)

[johnnya2k6]

Source: Anchorage Daily News "TV News"

2-KTUU (NBC)
4-KTBY (Independent, now Fox)
9-KAKM (PBS)
11-KTVA (CBS)
13-KIMO (ABC)

5:30 am
2-Jim Bakker

5:45
13-Bethel Chapel

6:00
4-The 20-Minute Workout

6:30
2-NBC News at Sunrise
4-Jimmy Swaggart (this must be A Study In The Word)
7-Nightly Business Report (repeat)
11-CBS Early Morning News
13-CNN Headline News

7:00
2-Today
4-Morning Stretch
7-MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour (repeat)
11-CBS Morning News
13-Good Morning America

7:30
4-Cartoons

8:00
4-New Zoo Revue
7-Figure Skating Specatacular

8:30
4-The Great Space Coaster

9:00
2-The Theda Comstock Show
4-Hour Magazine
7-Vietnam: A Television History
11-Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show
13-Good Morning Alaska

9:30
2-All in the Family
11-The Norma Goodman Show
13-Donahue

10:00
2-Time Machine (short-lived game show with John Davidson)
4-We're Cooking Now
7-Latenight America (repeat; PBS' late night precursor to Charlie Rose and Tavis Smiley)

10:30
2-$ale of the Century
4-Treasure Hunt
11-Capitol
13-Ryan's Hope

11:00
2-Wheel of Fortune
4-The Dating Game
7-Sesame Street
11-Guiding Light
13-All My Children

11:30
2-Scrabble
4-The Newlywed Game

Noon
2-Super Password
4-Movie: "Cactus in the Snow" (1972)
7-Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
11-Body Language
13-One Life to Live

12:30
2-Search For Tomorrow
7-The Electric Company
11-The Young and the Restless

1:00
2-Days Of Our Lives
7-The Constitution
13-General Hospital

1:30
11-As The World Turns

2:00
2-Another World
4-Hawaii Five-O
9-Nova
13-Sally Jessy Raphael

2:30
11-Press Your Luck
13-CNN Headline News

3:00
2-Santa Barbara
4-I Love Lucy
9-New York's Master Chefs
11-One Day at a Time
13-Trivia Trap

3:30
4-Cartoons
7-Sesame Street
11-Anything For Money
13-Fish

4:00
2-The Jeffersons
4-He-Man and the Masters of the Universe
11-The Price Is Right
13-Wheel Of Fortune (nighttime)

4:30
2-Star Trek
4-Family Affair
7-Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
13-Family Feud

5:00
2-Good Times
7- 3-2-1 Contact
11-The $25,000 Pyramid
13-Buck Rogers in the 25th Century

5:30
2-WKRP In Cincinnati
4-The Joker's Wild
7-Capital '85
11-M*A*S*H

6:00
2-NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw
4-Tic Tac Dough
7-Business of Management
11-CBS Evening News with Dan Rather
13-ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings

6:30
2-Newservice 2 (anchors unknown)
4-Family Feud (nighttime)
7-Aviation Weather
11-Eyewitness News (anchors unknown)
13-Action News 13 (I'm thinking Terrence O'Malley and Cindy Suryan)

7:00
2-TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes
4-Rat Patrol
7-MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour
11-Entertainment Tonight
13-Voyagers!

7:30
4-This Week in Country Music
11-Yukon Quest Sled Dog Race Highlights

8:00
2-NBC Monday Night at the Movies: "Murder on the Orient Express" (1985)
4-Movie: "The Forbin Project" (1969)
7-Wonderworks ("Tail of a Tiger")
11-Billy Graham Special ("Inside Russia", Part 1/3)
13-Hardcastle and McCormick

9:00
7-American Playhouse ("The Ghost Writer")
11-Kate & Allie
13-ABC Monday Night Movie: "The Gauntlet" (1977)

9:30
11-Newhart

10:00
2-Newservice 2
4-Bizarre
11-Cagney & Lacey

10:30
2-Newsmakers
4-The Merv Griffin Show (Guests: Robert Gulliaume, Jim Fowler, and Anne Reinking)
7-Death & the Mistress of Delay

11:00
2-The Best of Carson
7-Nightly Business Report
11-Simon & Simon
13-Alaska Statewide News

11:30
4-The 700 Club (followed by sign-off at 12:30 am)
7-Latenight America
13-Movie: "Hot Millions" (1969)

Midnight
2-Jerry Prevo (followed by sign-off at 1:00)

12:10 am
11-McMillian and Wife (followed by sign-off)

1:30
13-Nightline

2:00
13-CNN Headline News (followed by sign-off at 2:30)

KIMO had been the #1 station in Anchorage with the top-rated news since the mid-'70s (when ABC was finally the #1 network), but they knew their dominance was about to come to an end. In 1986, with "The Cosby Show" already becoming "Must-See TV" for NBC, longtime third-place KTUU hired some young guy named John Tracy would would later turn things around in the news department. KIMO crashed to last place almost immediately, while KTVA remained at #2.

As for the lineup in 1985: Pretty good, especially for KTBY as an independent station at the time. The real growth would begin in 1986 when they joined a new network which started out with Joan Rivers' late night talker as the only show until things really kicked into high gear in the spring of 1987: The Fox Broadcasting Company! They're still with them over 20 years later.

Jonathan Allen

 

[ssetta]

Give me a clue, here. is KAKM (PBS) Channel 7, or channel 9? In the channel guide you listed it as Channel 9, but in the listnings, you had it as Channel 7. I'm confused.

 

[johnnya2k6]

Give me a clue, here. is KAKM (PBS) Channel 7, or channel 9? In the channel guide you listed it as Channel 9, but in the listnings, you had it as Channel 7. I'm confused.

Yes, KAKM is Channel 7. Sorry.

Jonathan Allen

 

[searadiofreak]

I lived in Anchorage from '96 to '98. Always have been interested in the development of tv in the State. When I was there, cable had taken over and pretty much offered all the options that the lower 48 did. But I know it wasn't always that way.

When did cable TV become mainstream in Anchorage?

Was there a time when Seattle stations were piped in?

I also remember a local telling me that in the 60's, network shows were taped and flown into Anchorage for airing a day later? Can you confirm?

Regardless, an interesting TV history up there.

Favorite Anchorage TV memory...getting up about 8:30 AM in the middle of winter, still pitch dark outside, and watching a midwest NFL game live in bright sunshine. Kind of puts the geopgraphic differences in perspective...

 

[genius]

That KTVA schedule is pretty whacky. Interestingly enough, Capitol and Guiding Light aren't on a day delay as 10:30AM and 11:00AM AST correlate to 2:30PM and 3:00PM EST.

I've met the present owner of KTVA several years ago when I lived in Denver. I think it's the only TV station he owns, as Singleton and his Media News Group are for better or (mostly) for worse known in the newspaper business.

 

[radiorob2.0]

3:30
13-Fish

As in the Abe Vigoda Show?

 

[johnnya2k6]

I lived in Anchorage from '96 to '98. Always have been interested in the development of tv in the State. When I was there, cable had taken over and pretty much offered all the options that the lower 48 did. But I know it wasn't always that way.

When did cable TV become mainstream in Anchorage?

Was there a time when Seattle stations were piped in?

I also remember a local telling me that in the 60's, network shows were taped and flown into Anchorage for airing a day later? Can you confirm?

Until the start of the 1984-85 season (and this schedule was from March 1985), network shows were on a one-week delay in Anchorage, two in Fairbanks.

Cable came to Anchorage in 1978 with Visions, a channel showing programming cherry-picked from various channels like HBO and ESPN; it became Multivisions Cable with more channels added sometime in the early '80s. Fairbanks would follow suit in late 1979 with Frontier ColorCable. Providers would change over the years (Anchorage: Sonic Cable then Prime Cable; Fairbanks: McCaw, Cooke Cablevision, Alaska Cable Network) before GCI -- the current cable provider -- took over in the mid-'90s.

Jonathan Allen

 

[ohdxer]

When the network shows were on one or two week tape delay in Alaska before 1984, were national commercials shown with the network shows or did the Alaska tv stations show local commercials during network shows?

 

[johnnya2k6]

When the network shows were on one or two week tape delay in Alaska before 1984, were national commercials shown with the network shows or did the Alaska tv stations show local commercials during network shows?

It was the former.

Jonathan Allen

 

[searadiofreak]

You guys are talking about a 1-2 week delay. My sources said it was a just a day delay, flying up the video from Seattle. Or maybe that was just the network newscasts?

 

[mleach]

These listings from Alaska are very interesting. Now lets go back a bit, the big Anchorage Earthquake of 1964. I assume the force of that quake made the local stations there go off the air, if not I wonder what the coverage was like? Did the Fairbanks TV/radio outlets get involved?

And if shows were delayed to Alaska in those pre-satellite days, I wonder how this event was covered in the lower 48?

 

[searadiofreak]

I was too young to remember, but I remember my Mother telling me that she heard about it on the radio, and they didn't get pictures on TV for a day or so later. Different media world for sure back then.