Retro: Heart of Dixie, Saturday, March 15, 1969 (evening)

[Mike Stroud]

Now, part two with the nighttime shows on March 15, 1969:


TV Guide, Northern Alabama edition--cover, Buddy Foster, Ken Berry ("Mayberry R.F.D.")

NOTE: Channels in parentheses were originally designated by black bullets; those in brackets by white.

Birmingham, Alabama:
[6] WBRC (ABC; now FOX affiliate on digital 50; PSIP 6)
[10] WBIQ (NET)--translator of Alabama Educational (Public) Television (now PBS affiliate on digital 10; PSIP same)
[13] WAPI ("cherry-picked" both CBS and NBC; now WVTM, sole NBC affiliate, on digital 13; PSIP same)
[42] WBMG (took WAPI rejects; now WIAT, sole CBS affiliate, on digital 30; PSIP 42)

Cheaha State Park, Alabama:
[7] WCIQ (NET)--translator of Alabama Educational (Public) Television (now PBS affiliate on digital 7; PSIP same)

Florence, Alabama:
(15) WOWL (NBC primary, CBS secondary; now WHDF, CW affiliate serving entire Huntsville-Decatur-Florence market, on digital 14; PSIP 15)

Russellville, Alabama:
(36) WFIQ (NET)--translator of Alabama Educational (Public) Television (now licensed to Florence as PBS affiliate on digital 22; PSIP 36)

Tuscaloosa, Alabama:
[33] WCFT (same network programming as WBMG above; now ABC affiliate on digital 33; PSIP same)

Huntsville, Alabama:
(19) WHNT (CBS; now digital 19; PSIP same)
(25) WHIQ (NET)--translator of Alabama Educational (Public) Television (now PBS affiliate on digital 24; PSIP 25)
(31) WAAY (NBC; now ABC affiliate on digital 32; PSIP 31)
(48) WMSL (ABC; now WAFF, NBC affiliate, on digital 48; PSIP same)

Nashville, Tennessee:
(4) WSM (NBC; now WSMV on digital 10; PSIP 4)
(5) WLAC (CBS; now WTVF on digital 25; PSIP 5)
(8) WSIX (ABC; now WKRN on digital 27; PSIP 2)

Columbus, Mississippi:
[4] WCBI (CBS primary, ABC secondary; now sole CBS affiliate on digital 35; PSIP 4)


EVENING
6:00 p.m.
[4] WCBI News (b&w)
(4) Flatt and Scruggs--legendary bluegrass music duo, known mostly to mainstream America for their theme for "The Beverly Hillbillies," appeared in this entry, yet another one from Music City, U.S.A. (Flatt and Scruggs, however, broke up later that year)
(5) WLAC News (color)
[6] Death Valley Days--probably then-current episode, with Robert Taylor as host
[13] Beverly Hillbillies--CBS tape-delay from previous week (see other posts about Birmingham stations' practices; no need to explain it all again here)
(15) (31) Huntley-Brinkley Report
(19) Skippy
[33] [42] CBS Evening News
(48) WMSL News (color)

6:30
[4] (5) (19) Jackie Gleason--"The Great One" held court in Miami Beach with Sid Caesar and George Jessel, among others
(4) (15) (31) [33] [42] Adam-12--first season for durable Jack Webb police drama and Martin Milner's second show where he spent most of his time behind the wheel ("Route 66")
[6] Festival of Arts--WBRC special about annual Birmingham celebration
(8) (48) Dating Game--primetime version of daytime hit; celebrities were featured often if not exclusively
[13] Green Acres

7:00
(4) (15) (31) [33] [42] Get Smart--Don Adams to Edward Platt: "Well, sorry, about that, Chief." (personal note: my family used that phrase for years when I was little, and I never knew its source until I learned about it in Adams' obituary in 2005--I never saw the show in afternoon reruns in the Seventies, since not one station in three different markets carried it--that is the God's honest truth)
[6] (8) (48) Newlywed Game--Chuck Barris rolling in the primetime dough with this and "Dating" above (the gravy train came to an end, though, with PTAR in 1971--both shows wound up with several syndie versions for decades afterward, certainly something the FCC did not intend when it formulated that infamous rule)
[13] Family Affair

7:30
[4] (5) (19) [33] [42] My Three Sons--RIP Don Grady (1944-2012)
(4) [13] (15) (31) Ghost and Mrs. Muir--Hope Lange in this hybrid sitcom/horror show; NBC cancelled this not long afterward and it wound up on ABC for another year
[6] (8) (48) Lawrence Welk--"A one, and a two ..."

8:00
[4] (5) (19) [33] [42] Hogan's Heroes--Vito Scotti in this episode as an Italian defector who wanders onto Stalag 13
(4) (15) (31) Movie--"The Vikings," 1958 (Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis)
[13] NBA Basketball--Atlanta Hawks vs. Philadelphia 76ers (the team's first season in the ATL, with Skip Caray, years before his stint with the baseball Braves behind the mike--probably WSB origination. Also, Caray came with the team from its original home in St. Louis, where papa Harry was still calling Cardinals baseball)

8:30
[4] Fun at the Races--probably a prototype of the later franchised grocery-store promotion "Let's Go to the Races" that was a staple in some places in the Seventies
(5) (19) [33] [42] Petticoat Junction--June Lockhart (as Janet) taking over for the late Bea Benaderet's Kate Bradley character this season
[6] (8) (48) Hollywood Palace--straight-ahead variety show; Sammy Davis, Jr. was tonight's host (no fixed one from week to week), with the following on the bill: James Brown (doing a medley of his classics), Peggy Lipton of "The Mod Squad," Charo, and Nipsey Russell (this lineup would have been a winner in my book)

9:00
[4] (19) Mannix--For the second season, producer Bruce Geller dropped the techno themes from 1967-68 and had Mike Connors' title character go into business for himself
(5) Death Valley Days
[33] Bill Anderson
[42] Wrestling--again, the Gulas promotion, this time hosted by WBMG sports anchor Sterling Brewer

9:30
(5) WLAC News (color)
[6] Movie--"It's Always Fair Weather," 1955
(8) Nashville Country Jamboree--live, in-studio WSIX production, featuring country performers who, in the main, were not scheduled to appear on that night's Grand Ole Opry show (still at the Ryman Auditorium in downtown Nashville then)
[33] Movie--"The Big Beat," 1958 (musical montage of then-popular standards, jazz, R&B, and big-band acts--with no rock and roll!)
(48) The Answer--Southern Baptist-produced religious drama, recorded back in the late 1950s (long shelf life, apparently)

10:00
[4] Jonathan Winters--famed comic had two-season CBS variety show (tape-delayed from previous week)
(5) Mannix--strange: WLAC tape-delayed the show from the CBS feed just the hour before (why?)
[13] Jackie Gleason--CBS tape-delay from 6:30 p.m.
(19) Movie--"The Green-Eyed Blonde," 1957
(48) ABC News--anchor not given

10:15
(48) Movie--no title given

10:30
(4) WSM News (color)
(15) Tonight Show--NBC Saturday rerun of Carson
(31) Movie--"Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women," 1966 (no, it was straight sci-fi, not a comedy as it seems)
[42] Movie--"Project Moonbase," 1953

10:45
(4) Movie--"Western Union," 1941 (Randolph Scott Western flick)

11:00
[4] Big Picture
(5) World of Sports--probably local
[13] Tonight Show--same as WOWL at 10:30 p.m. (but here's where things get interesting: WCFT and WBMG cleared the WEEKNIGHT first-run episodes, while WAPI ran NBC and CBS reruns at 10 p.m. Monday-Friday and movies after the 11 p.m. news--again, ask bpatrick or others why, because I wasn't around then)

11:05
(5) Movie--"Timberjack," 1955

11:15
[6] ABC News
(48) Championship Bowling

11:30
[6] News in Review--unsure if syndicated or local (and boy, what a weird timeslot for it, too ... also aired the next morning at 11:30 a.m.)

11:50
(31) Movie--"Safari," 1956

12:00 a.m.
[6] Movie--"Nero and the Burning of Rome," Italian; 1955 (natch!)
[13] Movie--"Blackwell's Island," 1939
(19) The Beat!!!--syndicated soul and R&B-music show hosted by legendary Nashville disc jockey Bill "Hoss" Allen (but the show itself was recorded in Dallas back in the mid-Sixties, since none of the Nashville stations, or those in nearby markets, had color cameras and VTR equipment then)
[42] WBMG Salute--too bad VCRs were not around in 1969; this would have been a gas to check out (!!)

12:30
(8) ABC News

 

[Charles1]

Funny, isn't it, that neither 6 or 13 had weekend news in those days, while stations in Columbus and Huntsville did.

If you get the chance, could you post listings from one of the days during that week? I know it's a pain to transcribe.

 

[Mike Stroud]

Funny, isn't it, that neither 6 or 13 had weekend news in those days, while stations in Columbus and Huntsville did.

If you get the chance, could you post listings from one of the days during that week? I know it's a pain to transcribe.

Charles, tain't no pain a-tall. I was going to get around to it anyway (regardless of requests) in the next coupla days or so. Time and my snarky comments are what slows down things sometimes. In fact, I'm probably gonna do both a weekday and Sunday. Just stay tuned, as they used to say.

And, yeah, you would expect larger markets like Birmingham to have more of an audience for weekend news, but we've got to remember that, by and large, people thought of news as a workday occurrence back then; newspapers were enough for most people on the weekends. Stations didn't really feel the need to have extra staff for newscasts that wouldn't draw more than, say, a 15 to 20 share--tops. I am scratching my head just as you are trying to figure out why WCBI and WMSL thought news at 6 on Saturday night was a good idea to start with--I cannot imagine the broadcasts being much more than "rip and read" one-anchor, one-camera deals.

In WMSL's case, it had just moved to its new channel and new studios in Huntsville from its former home on channel 23 and location in Decatur, 30 miles to Huntsville's west, two months before. Channel 48 was therefore probably in the midst of a publicity campaign, particularly in parts of northern Alabama that had never seen WMSL before, to create a "buzz" for the station, and likely did not intend for the Saturday newscast to be permanent. By the time I first remember things circa 1973-74, 48 did not air local weekend news at all.

In any case, WMSL pretty much stayed in third place in the market well into the days of the 1977 affiliation flip with WAAY (reversing the 1968 swap) and the studio's destruction by fire in '82. It wasn't until Aflac took over and re-christened it WAFF and NBC underwent a resurgence from the Seventies doldrums that channel 48 became competitive and left behind its "carpet-bagger" and "also-ran" low-budget images of the past.

Also, shame that we can't compare WCBI's newscast against what WTWV (channel 9, NBC primary, now WTVA) in Tupelo was airing against it, since the Northern Alabama TVG didn't start including WTWV's listings until 1971-72 or so.

 

[Charles1]

And I had totally forgotten that at one time Channel 42's Live Studio Wrestling started at 9:00 p.m. I always remembered it starting at 10. Ahh, for the days of Tojo Yamamoto!

True story: one of the regular rasslers on Channel 42 had an interesting moonlighting job, as if his gig on Channel 42 wasn't enough: he was the head basketball coach at Minor Christian School, whom my beloved high school took great pleasure in beating the daylights out of every year!

 

[rwells2265]

9:30
[6] Movie--"It's Always Fair Weather," 1955

[cue Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini" ....]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zR0UX4CCGE

11:30
[6] News in Review--unsure if syndicated or local (and boy, what a weird timeslot for it, too ... also aired the next morning at 11:30 a.m.)

Taking a guess, I'd say this was local. Probably the booth announcer on duty reading wire copy while a slide appeared on-screen.

Also, shame that we can't compare WCBI's newscast against what WTWV (channel 9, NBC primary, now WTVA) in Tupelo was airing against it, since the Northern Alabama TVG didn't start including WTWV's listings until 1971-72 or so.

Given what I know about Channel 9, it's quite probable they had some form of weekend newscast by 1969. The markets themselves (Columbus and Tupelo) wouldn't combine until some time in the 1970s -- both stations had limited coverage.

As for an overall comparison, it's no contest: Back then, WTWV had a better on-air look than WCBI.

"9's the way Mississippi sees it!"

--Russell

 

[bpatrick]

WTWV (WTVA) was added to the Northern Alabama edition in
1973, just a few weeks, in fact, before I moved from Birmingham
to Tampa. Also, "News In Review" was local but I never watched
it so I can't comment on the format.

And if anybody's wondering where Anniston's Ch. 40 is, it didn't
sign on until October 1969; like WCFT it basically duplicated Birmingham's
Ch. 42. Over time (meaning after all three became fulltime CBS affiliates)
the three stations established separate identities; just jump ahead five years
or so. Today, however, with ABC33/40, those two stations are again duplicating
each other and--more accurately, I suppose--WBMA-LP/58 in Birmingham.

 

[Joseph_Gallant]

The Atlanta/Philadelphia NBA game seen that night on WAPI-13 Birmingham (and originated by WSB-2 Atlanta) was played in Philadelphia, with the 76eres (who would go on to the playoffs, but would lose to Boston) narrowly wining a high-scoring affair, 122-120.

In those days, WSB also carried Braves' baseball (about 20mn regular-season away games a year) and Falcons' preseason road games; I suspect the station packaged them to other stations in the Southeast, so if (for example) you wanted to carry the Braves, you also had to carry the Falcons and Hawks, etc., etc.

 

[bpatrick]

I remember that at the time Ch. 13 carried Braves and
Hawks games but I don't remember any preseason Falcons
games. Likewise, WFBC (WYFF) Greenville, SC carried WSB's
Braves coverage but not the other two teams. So I don't
think there was any obligation to run all three teams.

 

[Charles1]

IIRC, the Braves package carried on Channel 13 was also carried by Channel 4 in Nashville, 15 and 48. Fast forward a few years later when WTCG won the Braves contract away from WSB. Every affiliate of the Braves network in this region changed as well. The new affiliates were Channel 2 in Nashville, 31 in Huntsville, and 33, 40 and 42.

 

[briancraig]

Here is the schedule for WTWV channel 9 in Tupelo for the evening of March 15, 1969 according to the Memphis TV Guide:

6--Dragnet
6:30--Adam-12
7--Fun At The Races
7:30--Ghost And Mrs. Muir
8--Movie (The Vikings)
10:30--Movie-To Be Announced