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Retro Example (1967) of Multi-Network Programming (#1)

S

Stanislav

There was a thread recently about stations that were affiliated with more than one network (a common practice in the first 2-3 decades of U.S. TV when many markets did not have sufficient allocations to have a full-time affiliate for all 3 commercial nets).

I thought it would be interesting to look in detail at a few examples from "back when," gleaned from old TV Guides, to show how individual stations handled this situation. (As previously discussed, some of these multi-network affiliates carried just a handful of shows from their secondary network(s), while others were more ambitious.) Hey, this may seem a little pedantic, but no more so than the tons of other "retro" postings on here! (Grin)

One such ambitious station seems to have been WKTV in Utica NY (NBC primary, ABC secondary). From an April 1967 TV Guide, here is a summary of all the relevant shows in one typical week: ABC shows that were carried live or on delay, and NBC shows that were "bumped" or delayed in favor of the ABC offerings:

WKTV (2) Utica NY (NBC Primary, ABC Secondary) April 1-7, 1967
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SATURDAY

12:30 pm - ABC “Wide World of Sports” on one-week delay
5:00 pm - NBC “Girl From U.N.C.L.E.” on 4-day delay (see Tuesday below)
6:00 pm - NBC “Captain Nice” on 5-day delay (see Monday below)
7:00 pm - ABC “The Green Hornet” on 1-day delay

SUNDAY

10:00 am - ABC “Linus” live
10:30 am - ABC “Peter Potamus” live
11:00 am - ABC “Bullwinkle” live
11:30 am - ABC “Discovery ‘67” live
(Apparently NBC didn’t program Sunday mornings back then…)
1:00 pm - ABC “Beatles” on 1-day delay
1:30 pm - ABC “Magilla Gorilla” on 1-day delay
2:00 pm - NBC “Wild Kingdom” on one-week delay (see below)
2:30 pm - ABC “King Kong” on 1-day delay
4:00 pm - *** Greensboro Open (Golf) live (see below)
5:30 pm - ABC “Time Tunnel” on 2-day delay
7:00 pm - ABC “F Troop” on 3-day delay
10:15 pm - ABC Movie “Kissin’ Cousins” delayed 1 hour, 15 minutes
(After 15 minutes local news at 10:00 - pre-empted NBC “Andy Williams Show”)

*** Not sure if this was network or syndicated -- it followed “CBS Sports Spectacular” but was carried by 6 channels: 3 NBC Primaries, 2 CBS, and one ABC. At any rate, it pre-empted NBC “Wild Kingdom.”

MONDAY-FRIDAY DAYTIME

9:00 am - (M) ABC “Hoppity Hooper” on 2-day delay
(Tu) ABC “Beany and Cecil” on 2-day delay
(W) ABC “Casper” on 4-day delay
(Th) ABC “Bugs Bunny” on 5-day delay
(M) ABC “Milton the Monster” on 6-day delay
9:30 am - ABC “General Hospital” delayed (1-day or one week?)

MONDAY P.M.

7:00 pm - ABC “Batman” on 5-day delay
8:30 pm - ABC “Rat Patrol” live (delaying NBC “Captain Nice” - see
Saturday above)
9:00 pm - (Pre-empted NBC “Road West” and “Run For Your Life” for locally
originated movie)

TUESDAY P.M.

5:30 pm - ABC “Rango” on 4-day delay
7:00 pm - ABC “Batman” on 5-day delay
7:30 pm - ABC “Combat!” live (delaying NBC “Girl From U.N.C.L.E.” - see
Saturday above)
8:30 pm - ABC “Invaders” live (delaying NBC “Occasional Wife” - see below)
9:30 pm - NBC “Occasional Wife” on one-hour delay
10:00 pm - ABC “The Fugitive” live
(Above ABC shows totally pre-empting the NBC Tuesday movie)

WEDNESDAY P.M.

All NBC shows carried in pattern - no ABC shows, live or delayed

THURSDAY P.M.

7:00 pm - ABC “That Girl” on one-week delay

FRIDAY P.M.

7:00 pm - ABC “Bewitched” on 1-day delay
10:00 pm - ABC “The Avengers” live (pre-empting NBC “Laredo”)
(Actually, this specific week ABC pre-empted “Avengers” for a
sports special, which WKTV did carry -- I’m assuming they
normally carried “Avengers” in pattern given its
popularity at the time…..)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To sum up, a rough count shows WKTV this week was carrying approximately 20 ½ hours of ABC programming (6 hours “in pattern” and the rest tape-delayed). They time-shifted about 2 ½ hours of NBC shows and pre-empted about 5 hours in favor of the ABC alternatives (plus 2 more hours for a local movie). This is a very ambitious and busy tape-delay schedule. I wonder if they had some sort of primitive timer on the machine(s), or if there was a tech whose job was to keep track of all this and start/stop the machines manually on schedule.

Of particular note is Tuesday evening, on which WKTV carried the entire ABC schedule live, except for “Peyton Place” which ran in the time slot used for the delayed “Occasional Wife.” (Maybe “Peyton Place” was too racy for Utica?) Also note that they were very careful to pretty much carry ALL the ABC cartoons somewhere on the schedule.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If this is of any interest at all, I may post a few more such examples. If not, say so and I won't take up any more board space with it!!
 
> There was a thread recently about stations that were
> affiliated with more than one network (a common practice in
> the first 2-3 decades of U.S. TV when many markets did not
> have sufficient allocations to have a full-time affiliate
> for all 3 commercial nets).
>
> I thought it would be interesting to look in detail at a few
> examples from "back when," gleaned from old TV Guides, to
> show how individual stations handled this situation. (As
> previously discussed, some of these multi-network affiliates
> carried just a handful of shows from their secondary
> network(s), while others were more ambitious.) Hey, this
> may seem a little pedantic, but no more so than the tons of
> other "retro" postings on here! (Grin)
>
> One such ambitious station seems to have been WKTV in Utica
> NY (NBC primary, ABC secondary). From an April 1967 TV
> Guide, here is a summary of all the relevant shows in one
> typical week: ABC shows that were carried live or on delay,
> and NBC shows that were "bumped" or delayed in favor of the
> ABC offerings:
>
> WKTV (2) Utica NY (NBC Primary, ABC Secondary) April 1-7,
> 1967
--------------------> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>
>
> SUNDAY
>
> 10:00 am - ABC “Linus” live
> 10:30 am - ABC “Peter Potamus” live
> 11:00 am - ABC “Bullwinkle” live
> 11:30 am - ABC “Discovery ‘67” live
> (Apparently NBC didn’t program Sunday mornings back then…)

They didn't. Meet The Press, at 1 PM, was the first show on
NBC's Sunday schedule.
>
>
> 4:00 pm - *** Greensboro Open (Golf) live (see below)

At the time, the GGO was aired on an ad-hoc network, Sports
Network Inc., which later became Hughes Sports Network.
>
> 10:15 pm - ABC Movie “Kissin’ Cousins” delayed 1 hour, 15
> minutes
> (After 15 minutes local news at 10:00 - pre-empted NBC
> “Andy Williams Show”)

I remember WSVA (now WHSV)/3 Harrisonburg, VA, doing something
similar at the time. Now ABC only, in 1967 this station carried
ABC, CBS, and NBC. After carrying Bonanza (NBC) at 9 PM on
Sundays, it carried the ABC Sunday Night Movie on a one-hour
delay at 10.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
--------------------> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
 
> There was a thread recently about stations that were
> affiliated with more than one network (a common practice in
> the first 2-3 decades of U.S. TV when many markets did not
> have sufficient allocations to have a full-time affiliate
> for all 3 commercial nets).
>
> I thought it would be interesting to look in detail at a few
> examples from "back when," gleaned from old TV Guides, to
> show how individual stations handled this situation. (As
> previously discussed, some of these multi-network affiliates
> carried just a handful of shows from their secondary
> network(s), while others were more ambitious.) Hey, this
> may seem a little pedantic, but no more so than the tons of
> other "retro" postings on here! (Grin)
>
> One such ambitious station seems to have been WKTV in Utica
> NY (NBC primary, ABC secondary). From an April 1967 TV
> Guide, here is a summary of all the relevant shows in one
> typical week: ABC shows that were carried live or on delay,
> and NBC shows that were "bumped" or delayed in favor of the
> ABC offerings:
>
Boy, you did your research! That was great! Though they carried all those shows on tape delay, it doesn't mean they did it well. Think of all the network promos they'd have to cover, when they came up in the middle of of shows, or at the end before the net outcue, or as voice-overs during credits. I can remember watching network shows on tape delay or on a secondary affiliate, and when promos came up for a show they weren't going to carry, the MC op would simply punch to black. And sit there, 'til the promo was done. (any old KTV'ers out there care to share memories?) A couple years later, this all went out the window, as WUTR ch. 20 went on the air as an ABC affiliate(just across the road, I might add, on Smith Hill).

As for multi-carriage, CBS primary WWNY in Watertown was still doing it into the 80's. On that one station, you could watch the Today Show in the morning, CBS game shows and soaps in the day, then Happy Days/Laverne & Shirley on a Tuesday night, followed then by CBS programming from 9PM -on. They didn't carry the Tonight show, though. Again, that ended when WUTR from Utica used ch. 50 as a translator for that area, before ch. 50 WFYF went on the air in ealry '88 as a stand-alone ABC primary.

One particularly funny story from WWNY (one of many, really) -- they used to run Hill Street Blues on delay Sunday nights at 11:30. One week, the MC op forgot to roll the tape on the feed (the off-air signal from WSTM in Syracuse). The GM stepped in and said "my daughter has it on VHS at home!" Yep. They ran a VHS tape on the air.
 
> > There was a thread recently about stations that were
> > affiliated with more than one network (a common practice
> in
> > the first 2-3 decades of U.S. TV when many markets did not
>
> > have sufficient allocations to have a full-time affiliate
> > for all 3 commercial nets).
> >
> > I thought it would be interesting to look in detail at a
> few
> > examples from "back when," gleaned from old TV Guides, to
> > show how individual stations handled this situation. (As
> > previously discussed, some of these multi-network
> affiliates
> > carried just a handful of shows from their secondary
> > network(s), while others were more ambitious.) Hey, this
> > may seem a little pedantic, but no more so than the tons
> of
> > other "retro" postings on here! (Grin)
> >
> > One such ambitious station seems to have been WKTV in
> Utica
> > NY (NBC primary, ABC secondary). From an April 1967 TV
> > Guide, here is a summary of all the relevant shows in one
> > typical week: ABC shows that were carried live or on
> delay,
> > and NBC shows that were "bumped" or delayed in favor of
> the
> > ABC offerings:
> >
> > WKTV (2) Utica NY (NBC Primary, ABC Secondary) April 1-7,
> > 1967
> -------------------->
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > SUNDAY
> >
> > 10:00 am - ABC “Linus” live
> > 10:30 am - ABC “Peter Potamus” live
> > 11:00 am - ABC “Bullwinkle” live
> > 11:30 am - ABC “Discovery ‘67” live
> > (Apparently NBC didn’t program Sunday mornings back
> then…)
>
> They didn't. Meet The Press, at 1 PM, was the first show on
>
> NBC's Sunday schedule.
> >
> >
> > 4:00 pm - *** Greensboro Open (Golf) live (see below)
>
> At the time, the GGO was aired on an ad-hoc network, Sports
> Network Inc., which later became Hughes Sports Network.
> >
> > 10:15 pm - ABC Movie “Kissin’ Cousins” delayed 1 hour, 15
> > minutes
> > (After 15 minutes local news at 10:00 - pre-empted NBC
> > “Andy Williams Show”)
>
> I remember WSVA (now WHSV)/3 Harrisonburg, VA, doing
> something
> similar at the time. Now ABC only, in 1967 this station
> carried
> ABC, CBS, and NBC. After carrying Bonanza (NBC) at 9 PM on
> Sundays, it carried the ABC Sunday Night Movie on a one-hour
>
> delay at 10.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> -------------------->
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
> >
> >

As late as the early '90's, WLUC TV6 in Marquette, Michigan was juggling ABC, NBC and Fox affiliations, sometimes causing time-shifts of first run network programs until the wee hrs. of the morning.
 
> Boy, you did your research! That was great!
> Though they carried all those shows on tape delay,
> it doesn't mean they did it well. Think of
> all the network promos they'd have to cover,
> when they came up in the middle of of shows,
> or at the end before the net outcue, or as
> voice-overs during credits.

I second that emotion on a great thread. Do you
(Stanislav) know if all the delayed shows on WKTV
were indeed on tape or were there some 16mm film
prints in the mix? These reduction prints were
prevalent in the Mountain time zone--most were
for delayed airings a week (or more) later but
there were instances of a "zero-DB" on film.

BTW, for dated "audio over credits" the RCA TR-22
(and TR-70 I believe) had a "spot erase" button
for the audio track which worked wonders for
silencing said promos when airing a show same
night out of pattern or a few days or a week later.
 
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