Retro: Kentucky Monday, May 4, 1981

[bpatrick]

From TV Guide, Kentucky Edition:

WAVE Ch. 3 Louisville (NBC)

6 AM Today In WAVE Country
7 AM Today (Jim Dale, Broadway's "Barnum", and his
three-week replacement, Tony Orlando)
9 AM Texas (delay from 3 PM)
10 AM Las Vegas Gambit
10:30 Blockbusters
11 AM Wheel Of Fortune
11:30 Password Plus (Patty Duke Astin, Jon Bauman,
Robert Donner, Anne Francine--not to be confused
with Anne Francis; Tom Kennedy hosts)
12 N Midday
12:30 Mike Douglas (co-hostess Susan Anton; Anne Murray,
David Copperfield, singer Fred Knoblock--IIRC, he and
Susan Anton made a recording called "Killin' Time")
1:30 Days Of Our Lives (Ch. 3 took the alternate feed, which went
mostly to the Central time zone; the recommended time in the
East was 1 PM)
2:30 Another World (likewise, the second feed; NBC preferred its Eastern
stations carry it at 2 PM)
3:30 Movie: "Hostage Heart"
5 PM What's Happening!!
5:30 Carter Country
6 PM News
7 PM NBC News (John Chancellor)
7:30 Face The Music (songs are clues to celebrities' identities;
Ron ("Tarzan") Ely hosts)
8 PM Little House On The Prairie
9 PM NBC Movie: "Murder In Texas" (conclusion)
11 PM News
11:30 Tonight Show
12:30 Tomorrow Coast-To-Coast (Muhammad Ali, Tony Bennett,
Lee Marvin)
2 AM News

WLWT Ch. 5 Cincinnati (NBC)

5:50 Good Morning
6 AM Jim Bakker
7 AM Today
9 AM Donahue (women's reactions to exotic male dancers)
10 AM Days Of Our Lives (delay from 1 or 1:30 PM)
11 AM The Doctors (delay from 12:30 PM)
11:30 Midday
12 N Bob Braun (makeup consultant George Masters)
1:30 Bullseye (Barry and Enright game distinguished from "Joker's
Wild" and "Tic Tac Dough" by the difficulty of the questions--
Jim Lange hosts)
2 PM Another World
3 PM Texas
4 PM Big Valley
5 PM Good Times
5:30 Sanford And Son
6 PM News
6:30 NBC News
7 PM Donahue (Ralph Nader)
8 PM Little House On The Prairie
9 PM NBC Movie: "Murder In Texas" (conclusion)
11 PM News
11:30 Tonight Show
12:30 Tomorrow Coast-To-Coast

WCPO Ch. 9 Cincinnati (CBS)

5:40 Praying The Rosary
5:55 Farm News
6 AM Sunrise Semester: "Women And Men In A
Changing Society"
6:30 Richard Simmons
7 AM Morning With Charles Kuralt
8 AM Captain Kangaroo
9 AM Uncle Al
10 AM The Jeffersons
10:30 Alice
11 AM Price Is Right
12 N Noon Report
1 PM Young And The Restless
2 PM As The World Turns
3 PM Guiding Light
4 PM Hour Magazine (the mothers of Farrah Fawcett and
Sally Struthers, remedies for arthritis pain, a method
of water therapy for handicapped children, Gallaudet
College for the deaf in Washington, DC)
5 PM John Davidson (Angie Dickinson, actor Brian Kerwin ("Lobo"),
Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers Band)
6 PM News
6:30 CBS News (Dan Rather)
7 PM 7 O'Clock Report
7:30 Joker's Wild
8 PM Bugs Bunny, All American Hero
8:30 M*A*S*H
9 PM M*A*S*H
9:30 House Calls
10 PM Lou Grant
11 PM News
11:30 Quincy
12:40 Harry O
1:50 This Is The Life
2:20 News

WHAS Ch. 11 Louisville (CBS)

6 AM Ed Allen Time
6:30 Preview Of The Louisville Children's Crusade
(rerun from Sun 6:30 PM)
7 AM Morning With Charles Kuralt
8 AM Captain Kangaroo
9 AM Young And The Restless
10 AM John Davidson (Charlie Callas, John Forsythe,
Nancy Dussault, taped performances by Paul
McCartney, Robert Plant, Peter Townshend)
11 AM Price Is Right
12 N News
12:30 Hour Magazine (same as Ch. 9)
1:30 Search For Tomorrow (delay from 12:30)
2 PM As The World Turns
3 PM Guiding Light
4 PM Bonanza
5 PM Andy Griffith
5:30 M*A*S*H
6 PM News
6:30 CBS News
7 PM Louisville Tonight
7:30 PM Magazine (Ed McMahon, an English castle
open to tourists--Ch. 11 was one of the few stations
in the country to have back-to-back magazine shows
from 7-8 at the time)
8 PM Bugs Bunny, All American Hero
8:30 M*A*S*H
9 PM M*A*S*H
9:30 House Calls
10 PM Lou Grant
11 PM News
11:30 Quincy
12:40 Harry O
1:50 News

WKRC Ch. 12 Cincinnati (ABC)

5:30 Health Field
6 AM Better Way
6:30 Study In The Word With Jimmy Swaggart (debut)
7 AM Good Morning America (Shelley Winters is a guest)
9 AM Edge Of Night (delay from 4 PM)
9:30 Family Feud (delay from noon)
10 AM Mike Douglas (co-host Tony Danza; Dr. Hook,
Burgess Meredith)
11 AM Love Boat (passengers: James Gregory, Jayne Meadows
Allen, Shelley Hack, Ronnie Scribner, Tony Ramirez)
12 N Extra! (local)
12:30 Ryan's Hope
1 PM All My Children
2 PM One Life To Live
3 PM General Hospital
4 PM Movie: "You'll Like My Mother"
5:30 News
6:30 ABC World News Tonight
7 PM Tic Tac Dough
7:30 PM Magazine (same as Ch. 11)
8 PM That's Incredible! (lasers that fight crime by detecting
fingerprints, painless dentistry via hypnosis, a small man
who lifts big weights, people who claim ghosts have called
them on the telephone, a throat device that eliminates stuttering,
Haitian zombies)
9 PM Sixty Years Of Seduction (Angie Dickinson, James Garner, Victoria
Principal, and Robert Urich look at Hollywood's glamour girls and macho
men from the '20s to the '70s; among them: Jean Harlow, Cary Grant,
Rita Hayworth, Rudolph Valentino, Burt Lancaster, Marilyn Monroe,
Lauren Bacall, Elizabeth Taylor, Clint Eastwood, Jane Fonda, John Wayne,
Sean Connery, John Travolta, Marlene Dietrich)
11 PM News
11:30 Movie: "House Of Strangers"

WKPC Ch. 15 Louisville (PBS)

7:15 A.M. Weather
7:30 Sesame Street
8:30 Electric Company
9 AM Sesame Street
10 AM Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
10:30 Electric Company
11 AM Paddington Bear
11:30 Rebop
12 N Sesame Street
1 PM Science South: Focus Energy
1:30 Over Easy (Morey Amsterdam talks about
weight loss)
2 PM Kup's Show (Cloris Leachman, diet-book authors
Judy Mazel and Jane Brody)
3 PM Kathy's Kitchen
3:30 Lilias, Yoga And You
4 PM Sesame Street
5 PM Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
5:30 Electric Company
6 PM Paddington Bear
6:30 Over Easy (how the elderly can deal with government
red tape)
7 PM MacNeil/Lehrer Report
7:30 Dick Cavett (first of two with equestrians Harry DeLeyer and
Fanny Gardiner Collins)
8 PM Great Performances (the Eliot Feld Ballet)
9 PM Chopin: A Voyage With Byron Janis (he's a pianist)
10 PM Sacred Service: Avodath Hakodesh (a musical Sabbath service)
11 PM Dick Cavett (rerun of the 7:30 show)
11:30 Captioned ABC News
sign off 12 M

WLEX Ch. 18 Lexington (NBC)

6 AM Jim Bakker
7 AM Today
9 AM Donahue (same as Ch. 5)
10 AM Days Of Our Lives
11 AM Wheel Of Fortune
11:30 Password Plus
12 N News
12:30 Bob Braun (Carla Fine, author of "Married To
Medicine," day behind Ch. 5)
1:30 The Doctors
2 PM Another World
3 PM Texas
4 PM Addams Family
4:30 Gilligan's Island
5 PM Beverly Hillbillies
5:30 News
6:30 NBC News
7 PM Family Feud
7:30 Joker's Wild
8 PM Little House On The Prairie
9 PM NBC Movie: "Murder In Texas" (conclusion)
11 PM News
11:30 Tonight Show
12:30 Tomorrow Coast-To-Coast

WXIX Ch. 19 Cincinnati (Ind.)

6:15 Perspective
7 AM Romper Room
7:30 Great Space Coaster
8 AM Popeye
8:30 Groovie Goolies
9 AM Tom And Jerry
9:30 Spider Man
10 AM Merv Griffin (Charles Nelson Reilly, Morgan
Fairchild, Edie McClurg)
11 AM Brady Bunch
11:30 My Three Sons
12 N Love, American Style
12:30 Love, American Style
1 PM Movie: "F. Scott Fitzgerald And 'The Last Of
The Belles'"
3 PM Popeye
3:30 Flintstones And Friends (I don't know if this is
"The Flintstones" or "Fred Flintstone And Friends")
4 PM Tom And Jerry
4:30 Gilligan's Island
5 PM Wonder Woman
6 PM Happy Days Again
6:30 Carol Burnett And Friends (guest: Sammy Davis Jr.)
7 PM M*A*S*H
7:30 All In The Family
8 PM Movie: "Brannigan" (John Wayne)
10 PM Gunsmoke
11 PM M*A*S*H
11:30 Rockford Files
12:30 Mission: Impossible

WKYT Ch. 27 Lexington (CBS)

6:30 Town And Country
7 AM Morning With Charles Kuralt
8 AM Captain Kangaroo
9 AM Hour Magazine (guest: Bob Keeshan, how to
deal with anxieties children face)
10 AM The Jeffersons
10:30 Alice
11 AM Price Is Right
12 N Match Game
12:30 Search For Tomorrow
1 PM Young And The Restless
2 PM As The World Turns
3 PM Guiding Light
4 PM John Davidson (Gil Gerard, Tom Wopat, Karen
Valentine, how to overcome acrophobia)
5 PM M*A*S*H
5:30 News
6 PM News
6:30 CBS News
7 PM PM Magazine (Ed McMahon, Clydesdale horses)
7:30 M*A*S*H
8 PM Bugs Bunny, All American Hero
8:30 M*A*S*H
9 PM M*A*S*H
9:30 House Calls
10 PM Lou Grant
11 PM News
11:30 Quincy
12:40 Harry O

WLKY 32 Alive Louisville (ABC)

6 AM Romper Room
6:30 Study In The Word With Jimmy Swaggart (debut)
7 AM Good Morning America
9 AM Donahue (Jesse Helms is guest from Valley Forge)
10 AM World Of People (a celebrity auto race prior to the
Long Beach Grand Prix, Mrs. Anwar Sadat)
10:30 Edge Of Night
11 AM Love Boat
12 N Family Feud
12:30 Ryan's Hope
1 PM All My Children
2 PM One Life To Live
3 PM General Hospital
4 PM Wonder Woman
5 PM Happy Days Again
5:30 News
6 PM ABC News
6:30 Tic Tac Dough
7 PM Joker's Wild
7:30 Family Feud
8 PM That's Incredible!
9 PM Sixty Years Of Seduction
11 PM News
11:30 Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Watson ("Dave Allen
At Large" airs here the rest of the week)
12 M Nightline (delay from 11:30 PM)
12:30 Fantasy Island (guests: Laraine Stephens,
Ben Murphy, delay from 12 M)

WTVQ Ch. 36 Lexington (ABC)

5:30 700 Club
7 AM Good Morning America
9 AM Mary Tyler Moore
9:30 Happy Days Again
10 AM Richard Simmons
10:30 Family Feud
11 AM Love Boat
12 N News
12:30 Ryan's Hope
1 PM All My Children
2 PM One Life To Live
3 PM General Hospital
4 PM Tom And Jerry And Friends
4:25 News For Young People
4:30 Good Times
5 PM My Three Sons
5:30 News
6:30 ABC News
7 PM All In The Family
7:30 Face The Music
8 PM That's Incredible!
9 PM Sixty Years Of Seduction
11 PM News
11:30 Nightline
12 M Fantasy Island

WDRB Ch. 41 Louisville (Ind.)

7:15 News
7:30 Great Space Coaster
8 AM Jim Bakker
9 AM News/Introspect
9:30 Health Field
10 AM 700 Club
11:30 Life In The Spirit
12 N Movie: "Kung Fu" (the 1972 pilot)
1:30 Richard Simmons
2 PM Bob Braun (two-day delay: self-proclaimed
"modern-day mountaineer" Roger Dillard shows
how to throw a tomahawk--I can only hope he
had better luck than Ed Ames did)
3 PM Bullwinkle
3:30 Fred Flintstone And Friends
4 PM Woody Woodpecker And Friends
4:30 Gilligan's Island
5 PM Little Rascals
5:30 Popeye
6 PM Good Times
6:30 Sanford And Son
7 PM Rockford Files
8 PM Movie: "Psycho"
10 PM Independent Network News
10:30 Benny Hill
11 PM Twilight Zone
11:30 Prisoner: Cell Block H
12 M Movie: "The Carnation Killer"

KET Kentucky Educational Television (WKZT/23 Elizabethtown,
WKSO/29 Somerset, WKMR/38 Morehead, WKLE/46 Lexington,
WKON/52 Owenton, WCVN/54 Covington, WKMJ/68 Louisville) (PBS)

In-school programs until

3:30 Over Easy (Morey Amsterdam talks about weight loss)
4 PM Sesame Street
5 PM Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
5:30 Electric Company
6 PM Bywords (Jo Westpheling, editor of the Hickman Courier;
Jack Paxton, editor of the Paducah Sun; Tom Butler, news
director at WPSD-TV)
6:30 Great Decisions '81 (Selig Harrison, Carnegie Endowment For
International Peace associate; L. Dean Brown, Middle East
Institute president)
7 PM MacNeil/Lehrer Report
7:30 Kentucky Journal: News
8 PM Firing Line (first of two on the government's role in the television
industry; guests: Sen. Larry Pressler (Republican, South Dakota);
Pat Robertson; Frank Shakespeare, head of RKO General)
9 PM Great Performances (the Eliot Feld Ballet)
10 PM Chopin: A Voyage With Byron Janis
sign off 11 PM

 

[Wright County Guy]

WLWT Ch. 5 Cincinnati (NBC)

7 PM Donahue (Ralph Nader)

Phil at 7? Was this a special or just an unorthodox programming stance?

 

[wbhist]

B.T.W., at this point Mike Douglas' show (as on WAVE and WKRC) was distributed by Syndicast; his previous employer, Group W, had infamously and controversially dumped him the prior year for John Davidson (as seen on WCPO, WHAS and WKYT).

 

[bpatrick]

WLWT Ch. 5 Cincinnati (NBC)

7 PM Donahue (Ralph Nader)

Phil at 7? Was this a special or just an unorthodox programming stance?

WLWT actually did carry Phil at 7 five nights a week, but something makes no
sense: these nighttime shows were not reruns of that morning's show nor did
they air again the following morning. I wonder if the station branded these shows
as "The Best Of Donahue" or some similar title.

And to wbhist: you're correct about Syndicast being Mike's distributor at the time;
I think Group W had dumped him because they were looking for a host who might
skew younger, and Davidson was a hot property at the time thanks to "That's Incredible!".
Some stations stuck with Mike, but I remember in Atlanta (my favorite example) that WAGA
simply replaced him with Davidson at 4:30, and Mike moved to WSB at 10 AM. For a few
weeks, Mike pre-empted David Letterman's morning show on NBC, which WXIA picked up
before the switch; after Sept. 1, 1980, Mike pre-empted nothing since ABC was down from
9-11 AM (Eastern) and WSB was now the ABC affiliate.

 

[wbhist]

And to wbhist: you're correct about Syndicast being Mike's distributor at the time; I think Group W had dumped him because they were looking for a host who might skew younger, and Davidson was a hot property at the time thanks to "That's Incredible!". Some stations stuck with Mike, but I remember in Atlanta (my favorite example) that WAGA simply replaced him with Davidson at 4:30, and Mike moved to WSB at 10 AM. For a few weeks, Mike pre-empted David Letterman's morning show on NBC, which WXIA picked up before the switch; after Sept. 1, 1980, Mike pre-empted nothing since ABC was down from 9-11 AM (Eastern) and WSB was now the ABC affiliate.

I know that WCBS-TV in New York kept Douglas after he moved his show to another syndicator; only he now aired in either the mornings or early afternoons while Group W's replacement for him, Davidson, aired in his old afternoon time slot before the evening news on Channel 2 (in other words, they had both, initially).

And incidentally, Group W's firing of Douglas came on the heels (no pun intended, certainly not) of the Miss America Pageant firing Bert Parks because - surprise, surprise - they too were seeking a host who'd "skew younger."

 

[radiorob2.0]

I had thought that WLEX aired Bob Braun live. If I remember correctly, the show did back time to 12:30 for other affiliates to join the program seamlessly. Besides, WLEX had a microwave link to WLWT for Reds games along with an antenna on their tower for an off air back up feed.

 

[mleach]

B.T.W., at this point Mike Douglas' show (as on WAVE and WKRC) was distributed by Syndicast; his previous employer, Group W, had infamously and controversially dumped him the prior year for John Davidson (as seen on WCPO, WHAS and WKYT).

and according to his own bio which was published a few years before his death, Mike Douglas was still quite bitter with Group W's decision and NO he shared no love with John Davidson either even though John's show didn't last very long.

 

[azumanga]

B.T.W., at this point Mike Douglas' show (as on WAVE and WKRC) was distributed by Syndicast; his previous employer, Group W, had infamously and controversially dumped him the prior year for John Davidson (as seen on WCPO, WHAS and WKYT).

and according to his own bio which was published a few years before his death, Mike Douglas was still quite bitter with Group W's decision and NO he shared no love with John Davidson either even though John's show didn't last very long.

Though Mike's Syndicast show didn't last very long, either -- both Mike and John were off the air by 1982.

Of course, the hatred of The John Davidson Show reminded me of an episode of "WKRP in Cincinnati", where a terrorist group bombed a "Channel 73" in Dayton, because they showed John Davidson; the group would later bomb WKRP's transmitter. (By the way, who really showed John Davidson in Dayton?)

I know that WCBS-TV in New York kept Douglas after he moved his show to another syndicator; only he now aired in either the mornings or early afternoons while Group W's replacement for him, Davidson, aired in his old afternoon time slot before the evening news on Channel 2 (in other words, they had both, initially).

In Tampa Bay, WTVT showed John Davidson in Mike's longtime 9AM time slot, with WTOG carrying Mike's Syndicast program -- I think either in the morning or early afternoon. After John was cancelled, WTVT replaced his show with Merv Griffin, which was on WTOG for a couple of years after it left WFLA.

 

[bpatrick]

I had thought that WLEX aired Bob Braun live. If I remember correctly, the show did back time to 12:30 for other affiliates to join the program seamlessly. Besides, WLEX had a microwave link to WLWT for Reds games along with an antenna on their tower for an off air back up feed.

I had thought the same thing (I remember back in '68 when Dick Cavett was doing a morning show on ABC from 10:30 AM-12 N,
some affiliates wouldn't join until 11 AM and there was a separate opening for them), but I can only go by what's listed in TV Guide; remember, too, that WDRB was running Bob Braun two days behind. (Braun had a short run in Raleigh/Durham in the early '90s but I don't recall ever watching him.)