Retro: Knoxville/Asheville, N.C., Sunday, May 5, 1957

[DM601]

From Middlesboro (Ky.) Daily News, which didn’t carry listings for Channel 26 in Knoxville.

WATE-TV 6 (NBC)
AM
9 Through The TV Camera
9:45 Man To Man
10 Church In The Home
10:30 The Christophers
11 Church Service
PM
12 Cartoon Carnival
12:30 Frontiers ol Faith
1 This Is The Life
1:30 Meet Mr. Wizard
2 His Word
2:30 Zoo Parade
3 Call To Freedom
4 Topper
4:30 Dr. Hudson’s Secret Journal
5 Meet The Press
5:30 Roy Rogers
6:00 77th Bengal Lancers
6:30 Circus Boy
7 Steve Allen Show
8 Chevy Show
9 Loretta Young Show
9:30 Waterfront
10 News
10:05 Movie Time (title not given)
11:30 Sign Off

WBIR-TV 10 (CBS)
AM
8:30 Television Pulpit
9 Lamp Unto My Feet
9:30 Look Up and Llvo
10 U.N. In Action
10:30 Camera Three
11 Faith for Today
11:30 Sacred Heart
11:45 What's Your Trouble?
PM
12 Heckle and Jeckle
12:30 Cartoon Theatre
1 Talking It Over
1:30 Sermons In Science
2:00 Sunday Singing Spectacular
2:30 Face The Nation
3 Roundtable
4 See It Now
5 Range Rider
5:30 Air Power
6 Lassie
6:30 Jack Benny
7 Ed Sullivan Show
8 GE Theatre
8:30 Alfred Hitchcock Presents
9 Esso Golden Playhouse
9:30 What's My Line?
10 Sunday News Special
10:15 Sunday Theatre
12:30A Sign Off

WLOS 13 (ABC)
AM
11:30 Heavenbound Train
PM
12:30 Variety Review
1 Oral Roberts
1:30 Rev. Harris
1:45 Industry On Parade
2 Human Relations In Action
2:30 A. A. Allen
3 This Is The Answer
3:30 Medical Horizons
4: Variety Review
4:30 Skvway Theatre
6 Industry On Parade
6:15 Statesmen Quartet
6:30 Hollywood Film Theatre
8 Amateur Hour
9 Mike Wallace Interviews
9:30 Public Defender
10 NTA Theatre
11:30 News & Sign Off

 

[bpatrick]

IIRC, Lexington and points east were on Eastern time (that includes
Asheville and Knoxville), while Louisville was still on Central time and
would remain so until 1961. So my guess is that this is before the
networks figured out a way, in 1958, to put those parts of the South
that remained on Eastern Standard Time on a clock-time schedule (with
a few exceptions, such as for sports programming), so that the following
year Chs. 6, 10, and 13 would be observing a 7:30-11 PM primetime, except
7-11 on Sundays.

It's also highly unlikely that WTVK put a signal into Middlesboro, and even if
it did, sets were not required to receive UHF at the time, so WLOS was the
de facto ABC affiliate. Even in the late 1960s WLOS was carried on a translator
in Middlesboro; I remember in 1968 and 1969 that Bob Caldwell, "The Money Man"
and Ch. 13's weathercaster, would occasionally place calls to Middlesboro and ask
the lucky people to tell him how much was in the jackpot and name the show/star
of the day. I suppose that when WATE went to ABC in 1979 that the need for WLOS
was eliminated.

 

[Mike Stroud]

It's also highly unlikely that WTVK put a signal into Middlesboro, and even if
it did, sets were not required to receive UHF at the time, so WLOS was the
de facto ABC affiliate. Even in the late 1960s WLOS was carried on a translator
in Middlesboro; I remember in 1968 and 1969 that Bob Caldwell, "The Money Man"
and Ch. 13's weathercaster, would occasionally place calls to Middlesboro and ask
the lucky people to tell him how much was in the jackpot and name the show/star
of the day. I suppose that when WATE went to ABC in 1979 that the need for WLOS
was eliminated.

So, when WTVK went NBC in 1979, where did the southeastern corner of Kentucky get NBC from? My guess would be WCYB in Bristol, Virginia. As for WLOS, that station must have sure had a super-strong signal to reach Kentucky, as it was well over 100 miles from Asheville. Of course, at that sky-scraping elevation, that might not have been difficult--and there might have been relays to boot.

 

[gregg75]

Yes, WCYB was the only choice.

Now, I have a Kentucky road map from 1957 which shows time zones......and most of KY is in the
central zone. The Eastern Time Zone starts just east of Hazard. These are not the same zones in
use today.

 

[bpatrick]

It's also highly unlikely that WTVK put a signal into Middlesboro, and even if
it did, sets were not required to receive UHF at the time, so WLOS was the
de facto ABC affiliate. Even in the late 1960s WLOS was carried on a translator
in Middlesboro; I remember in 1968 and 1969 that Bob Caldwell, "The Money Man"
and Ch. 13's weathercaster, would occasionally place calls to Middlesboro and ask
the lucky people to tell him how much was in the jackpot and name the show/star
of the day. I suppose that when WATE went to ABC in 1979 that the need for WLOS
was eliminated.
[/quote

So, when WTVK went NBC in 1979, where did the southeastern corner of Kentucky get NBC from? My guess would be WCYB in Bristol, Virginia. As for WLOS, that station must have sure had a super-strong signal to reach Kentucky, as it was well over 100 miles from Asheville. Of course, at that sky-scraping elevation, that might not have been difficult--and there might have been relays to boot.

With its transmitter on a high mountain, and a system of translators (and later, cable, since we had WLOS on cable in Athens, GA in the '70s, great to have if they were carrying an ABC program WXIA wasn't, which wasn't often), WLOS reached six states:
North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Georgia. As has probably been mentioned it was, for years, the de facto ABC affiliate for the Tri-Cities (before WKPT signed on in 1969), and Knoxville viewers preferred it to WTVK (didn't need UHF capability to receive WLOS).