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Retro: Green Bay, WI Wednesday, March 19, 1980

From TV Guide. Featuring some infamous primetime clunkers (any remember "Hello, Larry"?)

WBAY/Channel 2 (CBS)

5:30am SUNRISE SEMESTER
6:00 PTL CLUB
7:00 WEDNESDAY MORNING-Bob Schieffer
8:00 CAPAIN KANGAROO
9:00 THE JEFFERSONS
9:30 WHEW!-Game
10:00 THE PRICE IS RIGHT
11:00 THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS
12:00pm NOON SHOW
1:00 AS THE WORLD TURNS
2:00 GUIDING LIGHT
3:00 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW
3:30 JOKER'S WILD
4:00 TOM & JERRY
4:30 GILLIGAN'S ISLAND
5:00 SANFORD & SON
5:30 CBS NEWS-Walter Cronkite
6:00 ACTION NEWS 6PM
6:30 HAPPY DAYS AGAIN
7:00 BEYOND WESTWORLD-Science Fiction
8:00 MOVIE-"Jimmy B. & Andre" (1980)
10:00 ACTION NEWS 10PM
10:30 M*A*S*H
11:00 GUNSMOKE
12:00am ACTION NEWS UPDATE

WFRV/Channel 5 (NBC)

6:30am THE FLINTSTONES
7:00 TODAY-Tom Brokaw
9:00 CARD SHARKS
9:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES
10:00 HIGH ROLLERS
10:30 WHEEL OF FORTUNE
11:00 CHAIN REACTION
11:30 PASSWORD PLUS
12:00 MIDDAY
12:30 DAYS OF OUR LIVES
1:30 THE DOCTORS
2:00 ANOTHER WORLD
3:30 MOVIE-"Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" (1961)
5:00 THE NEWLYWED GAME
5:30 NBC NEWS-Chancellor/Brinkley
6:00 NEWS*
6:30 FAMILY FEUD
7:00 REAL PEOPLE
8:00 DIFF'RENT STROKES
8:30 HELLO, LARRY
9:00 FROM HERE TO ETERNITY-Drama
10:00 NEWS
10:30 TONIGHT SHOW
12:00am TOMORROW-Tom Snyder
1:00 NEWS

*May have been "Eyewitness News" at this point.

WLUK/Channel 11 (ABC)

6:00am VALLEY OF THE DINOSAURS-Children
6:30 COUNTRY DAY
7:00 GOOD MORNING AMERICA-David Hartmann
9:00 PHIL DONAHUE
10:00 LAVERNE & SHIRLEY
10:30 FAMILY FEUD (Network version)
11:00 RYAN'S HOPE
11:30 TAKE A BREAK-Talk
11:55 NEWS
12:00pm ALL MY CHILDREN
1:00 ONE LIFE TO LIVE
2:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL
3:00 THE EDGE OF NIGHT
3:30 ABC AFTERSCHOOL SPECIAL-"What Are Friends For?"*
4:30 KROFFT SUPERSTARS
5:00 ABC NEWS-Frank Reynolds
5:30 HOGAN'S HEROES
6:00 NEWS**
6:30 ALL IN THE FAMILY
7:00 EIGHT IS ENOUGH
8:00 VEGA$
10:00 NEWS
10:30 BOB NEWHART
11:00 ABC NEWS SPECIAL-Ted Koppel***
11:15 MARCUS WELBY, MD
12:15am MOVIE-"One Deadly Owner" (1973)

*WLUK regularly ran the cartoons "Battle of the Planets" and "Woody Woodpecker" at 3:30 and 4pm, respectively.

**Possibly still "News 11" at this point, eventually became "NewsCenter 11".

***Of course this became "Nightline" that same year.

WPNE/Channel 38 (PBS)
7:45am AM WEATHER
8:00 LIFE AROUND US
9:00 THINKABOUT
10:00 THE ELECTRIC COMPANY
10:30 3-2-1 CONTACT*
11:30 SESAME STREET
12:30 MR. ROGERS' NEIGHBORHOOD
1:00 INSTRUCTIONAL PROGRAMMING
3:00 3-2-1 CONTACT
4:00 SESAME STREET
5:00 3-2-1 CONTACT
5:30 OVER-EASY
6:30 MACNEIL/LEHRER REPORT
7:00 SHAKESPEARE PLAYS-"Richard II"
10:00 DICK CAVETT
10:30 ABC CAPTIONED NEWS
11:00 KUPP'S SHOW

*Either 3-2-1 Contact was running for an hour, or Wisconsin Public Television was airing a half-hour of instructional programming at 11am and 3:30pm. The 5pm airing, which was listed as being closed-captioned, only ran a half-hour. In any rate, it got plenty of airtime in 1980.

I also swear that "Over Easy" was only a half-hour in length, but there was no 6pm listing.
 
> WPNE/Channel 38 (PBS)
> 9:00 THINKABOUT
> 10:00 THE ELECTRIC COMPANY

"Thinkabout" was actually a 15-minute ITV program -- either they had 4 episodes in a row, or they had other ITV programs following it that were not listed.

> 10:30 3-2-1 CONTACT*
> 11:30 SESAME STREET
> 12:30 MR. ROGERS' NEIGHBORHOOD
> 1:00 INSTRUCTIONAL PROGRAMMING
> 3:00 3-2-1 CONTACT
> 4:00 SESAME STREET
> 5:00 3-2-1 CONTACT
> 5:30 OVER-EASY
> 6:30 MACNEIL/LEHRER REPORT
>
> *Either 3-2-1 Contact was running for an hour, or Wisconsin
> Public Television was airing a half-hour of instructional
> programming at 11am and 3:30pm. The 5pm airing, which was
> listed as being closed-captioned, only ran a half-hour. In
> any rate, it got plenty of airtime in 1980.
>

321 was indeed a half-hour show. Theiy either had double episodes, or 321 was followed by unlisted ITV programming.

> I also swear that "Over Easy" was only a half-hour in
> length, but there was no 6pm listing.
>

It was, though I have no idea what followed, as ITV was likely over for the day at that point.<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by rugrats1 on 09/11/05 10:26 PM.</FONT></P>
 
From TV Guide. Featuring some infamous primetime clunkers(any remember "Hello, Larry"?)


At least Hello Larry did better in the nielsens during 79-80 than The Facts Of
Life.
 
> WFRV/Channel 5 (NBC)
>
> 6:00 NEWS*
> 10:00 NEWS
> 1:00 NEWS
>
> *May have been "Eyewitness News" at this point.

...WFRV-TV/5 and satellite WJMN-TV/3 Escanaba had been using the "Eyewitness News" title since around 1973. Prior to that, they had used the somewhat cumbersome "Report to Wisconsin & Upper Michigan"...<P ID="signature">______________
King Daevid MacKenzie
WLSU Wisconsin Public Radio, La Crosse
heard weekly on http://whiterosesociety.org
"Kill Ugly Radio." FRANK ZAPPA</P>
 
> 7:00 WEDNESDAY MORNING-Bob Schieffer

In his book, Schieffer says anchoring the morning show at that point was a disaster.

> 12:00pm NOON SHOW
Hadn't become a half-hour newscast at that point; a lot of interviews with community types, farm reports and even visiting schoolkids

> 6:30 HAPPY DAYS AGAIN
The name for reruns until the original HD went off the network
>
> WFRV/Channel 5 (NBC)
> It changed to ABC the following year

> 12:00 MIDDAY
Again, not branded as a news show

> 3:30 MOVIE-"Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" (1961)
FRV ran an "Early Show" for years from 3:30-5; this must have been near the end of the run. In case of long movies, it ran over two days. And "Dialing for Dollars" was included

> 6:00 NEWS*
As noted elsewhere, it was Eyewitness News, although this is too late for the time when it used the closing riff from "Shaft" as the theme.


> 10:30 TONIGHT SHOW
> 12:00am TOMORROW-Tom Snyder
Johnny was still doing 90 minutes.

>
> WLUK/Channel 11 (ABC)

> 9:00 PHIL DONAHUE
11 had carried Donahue from his days in Dayton.


> 11:30 TAKE A BREAK-Talk
11 had tried to get a noon show going; it hired Chicago DJ Larry The Legend Johnson, then a local girl, Peggy Wandtke; this might have been near the end of the attempt.
> 11:55 NEWS


> 5:00 ABC NEWS-Frank Reynolds
Ch. 11 always carried the early feed of ABC News

> 6:00 NEWS**
In that year, 11 was just "11 News" and was calling itself "The News Station." It had opened bureaus in Appleton and Madison, although it closed the Madtown bureau fairly quickly. It didn't change to News Center 11 until the switch to NBC.


> 10:00 NEWS
> 10:30 BOB NEWHART
> 11:00 ABC NEWS SPECIAL-Ted Koppel***
Also noteable that they delayed (the future) Nightline for a half-hour. Green Bay stations always have. With one exception - when ABC started the 20-minute Nightlne, 11 did a half-hour of news at 10, Koppel at 10:30 and came back with a 10 minute wrapup (mostly biz news and late sports scores) at 10:50.
 
> > WFRV/Channel 5 (NBC)
>
> > 3:30 MOVIE-"Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" (1961)
> FRV ran an "Early Show" for years from 3:30-5; this must
> have been near the end of the run. In case of long movies,
> it ran over two days. And "Dialing for Dollars" was included

...I recall that some of the longer movies -- THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY and ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST among them -- were stretched out over three days...

> > 6:00 NEWS*
> As noted elsewhere, it was Eyewitness News, although this is
> too late for the time when it used the closing riff from
> "Shaft" as the theme.

...I think they quit that circa '76...

> > 10:30 TONIGHT SHOW
> > 12:00am TOMORROW-Tom Snyder
> Johnny was still doing 90 minutes.

...as I recall, WFRV was a late comer to the Snyder show; as late as '75, I can recall watching "Rod Serling's Night Gallery" and "Star Trek" after Carson's sign-off on Channel 5. And I don't think they ever carried David Letterman's NBC late night show; it cranked up around the time WFRV was going to trade networks with WLUK again (ABC was on 5 and NBC on 11 when both stations started up in the '50s), and WFRV probably looked at the ratings for Letterman's morning show and said the hell with it, plugging in "Star Trek" reruns again...

> > WLUK/Channel 11 (ABC)
> >
> > 11:30 TAKE A BREAK-Talk
> 11 had tried to get a noon show going; it hired Chicago DJ
> Larry The Legend Johnson, then a local girl, Peggy Wandtke;
> this might have been near the end of the attempt.

...no way; Johnson had quit for WZUU Radio in Milwaukee by the end of '75, and I think Wandtke had quit to raise her kids a couple of years after that...

<P ID="signature">______________
King Daevid MacKenzie
WLSU Wisconsin Public Radio, La Crosse
heard weekly on http://whiterosesociety.org
"Kill Ugly Radio." FRANK ZAPPA</P>
 
> From TV Guide. Featuring some infamous primetime clunkers
> (any remember "Hello, Larry"?)
>
> WBAY/Channel 2 (CBS)
>
> WFRV/Channel 5 (NBC)
>
> WLUK/Channel 11 (ABC)
>
> WPNE/Channel 38 (PBS)


What about WLRE-TV, ch. 26??? I believe they were already on the air at that time.

-John L.
 
> What about WLRE-TV, ch. 26??? I believe they were already
> on the air at that time.
>
On air Dec. 31, 1980.
 
WFRV-5 & WLUK-11 switched in the Spring of 1983. Both were preempting quite a bit of network stuff during the two years prior. Ch. 5 ran a movie each week in place of SNL and passed on Late Night. Plus FRV didn't clear 2-3 hours worth of daytime shows, but they were picked up by WLRE-26. In fact if 26 hadn't carried SNL during '82-'83, northeastern WI would have missed the entire Eddie Murphy-Joe Piscopo era when it was funny. (They would have needed a good antenna to pull in WTMJ in Milwaukee because, unfortunately for them, LRE passed on Letterman as well.) I can also recall LUK preempting Fridays & AB, but 26 snapped up neither. When 5 became ABC they cleared Bandstand, and as NBC 11 ran SNL but not Letterman right away. As if living in Green Bay back then wasn't sucky enough because of the lowly Packers. Oh, and the weather.
 
tantric38 said:
Ch. 5 ran a movie each week in place of SNL and passed on Late Night. Plus FRV didn't clear 2-3 hours worth of daytime shows, but they were picked up by WLRE-26. In fact if 26 hadn't carried SNL during '82-'83, northeastern WI would have missed the entire Eddie Murphy-Joe Piscopo era when it was funny. (They would have needed a good antenna to pull in WTMJ in Milwaukee because, unfortunately for them, LRE passed on Letterman as well.)

This especially goes double for the Central UP, which was served by WJMN channel 3; when WFRV / WJMN was an NBC affiliate in that same era, it meant no SNL OR Letterman -- and it's a long way from Marquettte to the other nearest NBC affiliates in Traverse City, Rhinelander and Duluth.
 
I know then-WAEO12 in Rhinelander didn't clear Letterman for the first couple of years. I think that station is run by a hamster in a wheel.
 
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