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Retro: Hartford November 15-16, 1958 - WTIC switch to CBS

M

MCarney

Source: TV Guide – New York City Metro edition
This edition did not carry listings for WHCT, the former CBS affiliate

Saturday November 15, 1958 – last day as an independent
10:30a Kingdom of the Sea “Speed, Spray and Spills”
11:00a Hi-Time – Wells
11:30a Genius – education
12:00p Farm Report – Frank Atwood; guest: Jean Colbert, radio commentator, discusses her recent trip to Africa
12:30p The Cisco Kid
01:00p This is UConn “Stretching the Food Dollar” – guest: Mildred Smith, consumer marketing specialist
01:30p Flash Gordon “The Breath of Death”
02:00p Movie – to be announced
03:00p Movie “My Friend Flicka” 1943
04:30p Movie “North of the Rio Grande” (Hopalong Cassidy movie)
05:30p Steve Donovan “Decision at Noon”
06:00p O. Henry Playhouse “Girl”
06:30p Capt. David Grief “The Gun Runners”
07:00p News – Ed Anderson
07:15p Weather
07:20p Sports – Bob Steele
07:30p Movie “Down to Earth”
09:25p Weather
09:30p Official Detective “The Blind Man”
10:00p Championship Bowling
11:00p Movie “Bride of Frankenstein” 1935
12:15a Laugh Theater
12:35a News and Weather
12:40a Moment of Meditation

Sunday November 16, 1957 – 1st day as a CBS affiliate
07:55a Morning Prayer – religion
08:00a Genius – education
08:30a Sunrise Semester – a discussion of novelists from Stendhal to Hemmingway
09:00a Zero 1960 – religion “Communism-Giant in the East”
09:30a Look and Learn – education
10:00a Lamp Unto My Feet “Religion and Science”
10:30a Look Up and Live
11:00a UN in Action – interview
11:30a Camera Three – James Macandrew interviews French film director Rene Clair
11:55a News – Harry Reasoner
12:00a American Legend
12:30a We Believe – Rabbi Abraham J. Feldman discusses “Jewish Symbolism”
01:00p Tuesday’s Child (special) – The Hartford Association for Retarded Children presents this 15-minute documentary film
01:15p Sports Page – Jim McKay; the history of the Cleveland Browns is traced
01:30p Pro Football – New York Giants vs. Pittsburgh Steelers from Pittsburgh; Chris Schenkel and Johnny Lujack report
04:15p To Be Annouced
04:30p Shirley Temple Film Festival “Wee Willie Winkle” 1937
06:00p Gray Ghost “The Humanitarian”
06:30p Twentieth Century “The Russo-Finnish War”
07:00p 26 Men “The Last Rebellion” (CBS ran “Lassie”)
07:30p Jack Benny – guest: George Burns (tape)
08:00p Ed Sullivan – guests: France Nuyen and William Shatner from the Broadway show “The World of Suzie Wong”; Roberta Peters; Wayne and Shuster; Lou Costello; Arnold Stang; Dody Goodman; the Impero Brothers, novelty balancing act; and the Joe Noble Trio, dancing and fire eating act (tape)
09:00p G.E. Theater “The Falling Angel” starring Louis Jourdan and Edie Adams (film)
09:30p Alfred Hitchcock “Man With a Problem” (film)
10:00p Keep Talking
10:30p What’s My Line?
11:00p News – Walter Cronkite
11:15p Movie “A Millionaire for Christy” 1951
12:45a News and Weather
12:50a Moment of Meditation
 
I have seen old TV listings for Connecticut indicating that "Lassie" aired on WNHC-8 (now WTNH), normally an ABC affiliate, during most of the time that WHCT-18 was a CBS-owned station, and that WNHC continued to air "Lassie" well into the 1960's.

Additionally, "I Love Lucy" and "The $64,000 Question" were broadcast on WNHC during the time WHCT was owned by CBS.

It's interesting that while CBS owned a UHF station in Hartford that for the 1955-58 period, three of the network's most popular shows (if not the three most popular shows on the network) would air on a VHF station normally carrying another network's programming.
 
WNHC kept a secondary affiliation because WHCT couldn't reach the western part of the state. I can't blame CBS for that arrangement.
 
Frankly, I couldn't even receive analog channel 18 up to when it was forced off the air in the spring of 1991. I live in southern Hartford County, with Avon Mountain to my north-northwest. It wasn't distance that killed their signal. It was due to reflections with terrain and me being at the bottom of New Britain's Walnut Hill.

Signal problems also used to plague the old channel 30 of New Britain/Hartford. Until their signal was increased in 1978, they needed WATR-TV channel 20 of Waterbury to bring NBC in clean to much of the Naugatuck River Valley and New Haven.
 
It's interesting that in it's early years (up to around 1959), TV Guide would list what shows were on film and later tape.

But starting in 1959, with most shows either filmed or taped in advance, TV Guide changed it's indication on the recorded status of programs, and instead of indicating which shows were on film or tape, they indicated which shows were live.
 
KML-224 said:
Frankly, I couldn't even receive analog channel 18 up to when it was forced off the air in the spring of 1991. I live in southern Hartford County, with Avon Mountain to my north-northwest. It wasn't distance that killed their signal. It was due to reflections with terrain and me being at the bottom of New Britain's Walnut Hill.

Signal problems also used to plague the old channel 30 of New Britain/Hartford. Until their signal was increased in 1978, they needed WATR-TV channel 20 of Waterbury to bring NBC in clean to much of the Naugatuck River Valley and New Haven.
Click to expand...

There was some investigation, even after WTIC came on the air, into making Hartford an all-UHF market. The Springfield stations, along with the existing UHF stations in the area, didn't want the competition. One plan had channel 3 moving to Providence (and move WNHC back to channel 6 in order to free up another VHF elsewhere) and another was to make channel 3 the educational TV allocation. In hindsight it's obvious that all-UHF would never work.
 
I thought WNHC was moved from Channel 6 to Channel 8 because of interference with WFIL (now WPVI) in Philadelphia.

Had it been moved back to Channel 6, it might have have to have been re-allocated to Hartford, and the New Bedford Channel 6 allocation would have had to go away.

Perhaps the FCC could have ended up moving Chanel 3 to Providence (which might have become the home of WTEV/WLNE), make Channel 8 noncommercial, allocated to a town between Hartford and New Haven, and force both WTIC/WFSB and WNHC/WTNH to UHF.

Had that occurred, Hartford's WEDH, on VHF, might have been the "most-watched" NET/PBS member station for the simple reason that it would have had the clearest reception on most sets in the area.
 
Here are some stories from Broadcasting-Telecasting about possible channel moves and deintermixture:

Moving WNHC back to channel 6:
http://www.americanradiohistory.com...1957-03-25-BC-OCR-Page-0048.pdf#search="wnhc"

Protest by UHF stations requesting deletion of channel 3 from Hartford:
http://www.americanradiohistory.com...8-BC-OCR-Page-0081.pdf#search="deintermixture hartford%22

A New England deintermixture plan:
http://www.americanradiohistory.com...1-BC-OCR-Page-0068.pdf#search="deintermixture hartford%22
 
I noticed "Sunrise Semester" on Sunday morning; at the
time it wasn't on CBS but aired on WCBS at 6:30 AM
weekdays. The first course, in 1957, covered Stendhal's
"The Red and the Black," and the bookstores in New York
couldn't keep it in stock. I wonder if WCBS was repeating
it (or doing one similar) and WTIC was picking it up.

The discussion concerning the what-ifs of channel allocation
swaps says that WEDH might have become the most-watched
PBS station. I wonder which one is; my gut says either WGBH
or KQED.
 
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