RETRO: New York City TV - Monday, Sept. 28, 1970 (other VHF's)

[wbhist]

[SOURCE: TV Guide, New York-Metropolitan edition, Sept. 26-Oct. 2, 1970;
additional movie show title info extrapolated from The New York Times]

WNEW-TV 5 (Independent; owned by Metromedia Television)
7:30 The Cisco Kid - (Someone has stolen a large sum of money from a friend of the Cisco Kid)
8:00 Marine Boy
8:30 Casper the Friendly Ghost
9:00 Beany and Cecil
9:30 Huckleberry Hound
10:00 Movie: "The Smallest Show on Earth" (1957) - Bill Travers, Peter Sellers
11:30 My Little Margie - "Too Many Ghosts" [original airdate 2/9/55]

12:00 Pay Cards!
12:30 You Don't Say!
1:00 Movie: "While the City Sleeps" (1956) - Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming (TV Guide misprinted the film's release year as 1756!)
3:00 Bugs Bunny
3:30 Super Heroes
4:00 The Rifleman - "The Trade" [original airdate 3/10/59]
4:30 The Flintstones
5:00 Lost in Space - "The Colonists" [original airdate 3/15/67]

6:00 The Flying Nun - "The Flying Nun" [original airdate 9/7/67]
6:30 Petticoat Junction - "Bobbie Jo's Sorority" [original airdate 10/26/65]
7:00 I Love Lucy - "The Saxophone" [original airdate 9/22/52]
7:30 Truth or Consequences (hosted by Bob Barker)
8:00 To Tell the Truth (the 1969-78 version hosted by Garry Moore as of this point)
8:30 The David Frost Show (scheduled: Jackie Cooper; actor Jack Weston; country singer Bill Anderson; and tool redesigner Erwin Tichauer)
10:00 The 10 O'Clock News with Bill Jorgensen
11:00 Peyton Place - (Rodney and Sandy find themselves drawn to each other)
11:30 11:30 Movie: "Across the Wide Missouri" (1951) - Clark Gable, Ricardo Montalban
1:05 Reel Camp
1:35 Call to Prayer / sign-off

WOR-TV 9 (Independent; owned by RKO General)
7:30 News and Weather
8:00 Cartoons
9:00 Movie: "Beware, My Lovely" (1952) - Ida Lupino, Robert Ryan
10:30 Journey to Adventure (Exploring the Galapagos Islands)
11:00 Romper Room

12:00 The Joe Franklin Show
1:00 Movie: "Vigil in the Night" (1940) - Carole Lombard, Brian Aherne
2:55 News
3:00 The Virginia Graham Show (guests: Morey Amsterdam, Carolyn Jones, Lynn Kellogg, Army Archerd)
4:00 The Movie Game (guests: Gail Fisher, Henry Mancini, Jan Murray, Cesar Romero, Mickey Rooney, Claire Trevor)
4:30 Candid Camera (includes parking lot pranks and unhelpful Boy Scouts; from the 1961-66 period)
5:00 Gilligan's Island - "Gilligan's Mother-in-Law" [original airdate 9/16/65]
5:30 Flipper - "My Brother Flipper" [original airdate 11/21/64]

6:00 Get Smart - "Shipment to Beirut" [original airdate 4/23/66]
6:30 The Dick Van Dyke Show - "Buddy Sorrell, Man and Boy" [original airdate 3/2/66]
7:00 What's My Line? (panelists: Gene Rayburn, Gail Sheldon, Bert Convy, Arlene Francis - taped either 2/25/69 or 5/14/70)
7:30 Divorce Court (the original 1957-69 series which was the first syndicated series to be shot on videotape; in this installment, a husband accuses his wife of shoplifting; with Lawrence Bame and Ellen Tucker)
8:00 Baseball: Chicago Cubs at New York Mets (Mets beat Cubs, 6-3)
11:00 The Late Movie: "Edge of Eternity" (1959) - Cornel Wilde, Victoria Shaw
1:15 The Joe Franklin Show
2:15 News and Weather
2:45 sign-off

WPIX-TV 11 (Independent; licensor WPIX, Inc., owned by New York Daily News)
7:15 News - Paul Bloom
7:30 Popeye
9:30 Fashions in Sewing with Lucille Rivers
10:00 Tell Me, Dr. Brothers
10:30 Gourmet with David Wade
11:00 Suburban Closeup
11:30 Gumby

12:00 Bozo the Clown
12:30 Underdog
1:00 The Steve Allen Show (1968-71 talk show; guests: Buddy Hackett; former NJ governor Richard Hughes [not to be confused with longtime WPIX editorialist]; Jane Howard, author of "Please Touch"; and singer Jennifer [Warnes?])
2:00 Catholic Window - "Special Services and Parochial Schools"
2:30 The Patty Duke Show - "A Slight Case of Disaster" [original airdate 4/1/64]
3:00 Popeye
3:30 Felix the Cat (the 1960 TV cartoons from Trans-Lux)
4:00 Adventures of Superman - "Perry White's Scoop" [original airdate 1/23/54]
4:30 Batman - "Catwoman Goes to College" [original airdate 2/22/67]
5:00 The Munsters - "Herman, Coach of the Year" [original airdate 10/14/65]
5:30 F Troop - "Yellow Bird" [original airdate 10/20/66]

6:00 Land of the Giants - "The Lost Ones" [original airdate 1/5/69]
7:00 Beat the Clock (1969-74 syndicated version hosted at this point by Jack Narz; guest: Bert Convy)
7:30 Star Trek - "The Mark of Gideon" [original airdate 1/17/69]
8:30 Dragnet (the 1967-70 version with Jack Webb and Harry Morgan) - "The Bullet" [original airdate 5/11/67]
9:00 Perry Mason - "The Case of Paul Drake's Dilemma" [original airdate 11/14/59]
10:00 News at Ten with Lee Nelson
11:00 Can You Top This? (guests: Milton Berle, Morey Amsterdam, Henny Youngman)
11:30 Channel 11 Film Festival - "D.O.A." (1949) - Edmond O'Brien, Pamela Britton
1:00 News - Roy Whitfield
1:30 sign-off

WNDT 13 (NET) [NOTE: This was a few days prior to the call letter change to WNET]
8:30 German (education lesson)
9:00 Sesame Street - No. 31 (letters G, L, Y; numbers 2, 3; films: baking, flowers, walls)
10:00 Classroom (to 3 P.M.; from School Television Service; classes include social studies, science, language arts, fiction, black studies, arts)

3:00 Sex Education
3:30 Classroom
4:00 Sesame Street (repeat of 9 A.M.)
5:00 Misterogers' Neighborhood
5:30 Hodgepodge Lodge

6:00 What's New - "The Emperor's New Clothes"
6:30 Course of Our Times (policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in early years of World War II)
7:00 On Film (interview with Wally Samson and David Golden, production managers of "The Molly Maguires")
7:30 Chicago Festival (singer/songwriter Grant Robbins performs; last show of the series)
8:00 World Press
9:00 NET Black Journal (topics include coverage of the Sept. 3-7, 1970 Congress of the African People in Atlanta; study of a New York karate class; filmmakers Ossie Davis, Melvin Van Peebles and William Greaves discuss discrimination in film and TV; a report from Ethiopia; and an interview with Howard University president James Cheek)
10:00 Newsfront with Mitchell Krauss (who later became a longtime CBS News correspondent)
followed by sign-off

 

[bpatrick]

Wink Martindale was host of "Can You Top This";
I believe Dick Gautier read the jokes sent in by
viewers that the panel had to "top" (get a bigger
laugh as measured by the audience's response on
a "laugh meter"...something like the "applause meter"
on "Queen For A Day"). The Winker was also hosting
"Words And Music," one of many, many shows to occupy
the 1:30 PM slot on NBC between the loss of "Let's Make
A Deal" in 1968 and the expansion of "Days Of Our Lives"
to an hour in 1975.

On the o&o thread, it's mentioned that Gautier was hosting
"It's Your Bet." When did Lyle Waggoner take over as host
of that show? (I remember the mom of one of my female
friends watching that show at 1 PM on WAGA, sandwiched
between her two favorite soaps, "Search For Tomorrow"
and "As The World Turns.")

 

[wbhist]

Wink Martindale was host of "Can You Top This"; I believe Dick Gautier read the jokes sent in by viewers that the panel had to "top" (get a bigger laugh as measured by the audience's response on a "laugh meter"...something like the "applause meter" on "Queen For A Day"). The Winker was also hosting "Words And Music," one of many, many shows to occupy the 1:30 PM slot on NBC between the loss of "Let's Make A Deal" in 1968 and the expansion of "Days Of Our Lives" to an hour in 1975.

On the o&o thread, it's mentioned that Gautier was hosting "It's Your Bet." When did Lyle Waggoner take over as host of that show? (I remember the mom of one of my female friends watching that show at 1 PM on WAGA, sandwiched between her two favorite soaps, "Search For Tomorrow" and "As The World Turns.")

Re Mr. Martindale: I saw his picture, now that you mention it, in an ad for Can You Top This? on WPIX in that issue.

As for It's Your Bet, it appears this show had one host per season, on average. The first, in 1969, was Hal March (prior to his death in January 1970), followed by Mr. Gautier, then Tom Kennedy (in 1971) and, finally, Mr. Waggoner (in 1972).

Also, after Lee Nelson's run with WPIX ended in 1971, he went for a few years to Boston's WNAC-TV (then sister to New York's WOR), where at one point he was paired with a certain Charles "Chuck" Scarborough (who later went to a loooong run with WNBC) - and during which time a theme music called "Move Closer to Your World," written by Al Ham, was used as that station's news theme. After the news director of said station moved in 1972 to WPVI-TV in Philadelphia, that's when this music became the theme for that station's Action News (ironically, from 1977 to 1983, it was also the opening and closing theme of WPIX's Action News; one of the anchors in that 1977-83 period at WPIX was Pat Harper, who left in 1985 for WNBC where she was paired on the 6 o'clock News 4 New York with . . . Chuck Scarborough).

 

[Markd]

WOR-TV seems very promising back then with Gilligan's Island, Get Smart, Dick Van Dyke, Lucy Show, and others. The three stations WNEW-TV, WOR-TV, and WPIX seem very similar in scope. Not all that strong stations by today's standards, but no one station stood out as especially dominant back in 1970. By 1975, though Channel 5 WNEW-TV came out as the clear leader of independent stations. WPIX was somewhat behind, while WOR-TV sort of got out of the competition and opted for alternative programming, not competing against 5 or 11 directly. WOR-TV even refused to renew Beverly Hillbillies and noone else wanted it causing to to never air locally in New York City again. Gilligan and Get Smart would fall off WOR-tv and be picked up by WPIX by 1974 only to both fall off WPIX's schedule as well and move to WNEW-TV in 1978. Still, imagine Channel 9 had it chose to compete agressively.

 

[wbhist]

WOR-TV seems very promising back then with Gilligan's Island, Get Smart, Dick Van Dyke, Lucy Show, and others. The three stations WNEW-TV, WOR-TV, and WPIX seem very similar in scope. Not all that strong stations by today's standards, but no one station stood out as especially dominant back in 1970. By 1975, though Channel 5 WNEW-TV came out as the clear leader of independent stations. WPIX was somewhat behind, while WOR-TV sort of got out of the competition and opted for alternative programming, not competing against 5 or 11 directly. WOR-TV even refused to renew Beverly Hillbillies and noone else wanted it causing to to never air locally in New York City again. Gilligan and Get Smart would fall off WOR-tv and be picked up by WPIX by 1974 only to both fall off WPIX's schedule as well and move to WNEW-TV in 1978. Still, imagine Channel 9 had it chose to compete agressively.

Yeah, imagine. But the fact is, that an August 1969 article in The New York Times mentioned that in terms of ratings among the indies, WNEW-TV was clearly on top, while WPIX was second and WOR was a distant third - apart from the Mets games in this season which saw them win the World Championship, WOR's ratings were otherwise actually lower than they'd been five years prior to that point. Between 1964 and 1970, WOR went through three different logos. By contrast, WPIX and WNEW each had two different logos in the same period.

In terms of live studio camera picture quality, meanwhile, the edge went to WNEW - which since 1966 had had Norelco PC-70 color cameras. By contrast, both WPIX and WOR were using General Electric PE-250's. As for filmed stuff, WPIX had a policy of (mostly) airing 35mm prints of old TV shows and movies, as opposed to the other stations (even the network O&O's) that aired TV reruns and old movies via lower-quality 16mm prints. Channel 11 was the station, after all, that in that very year of 1970 filmed a West Coast fireplace in 35mm to use for their Yule Log, after the original 16mm film shot at Gracie Mansion got too worn out to ever use again - and the station was persona non grata at the Mayor's residence due to a mishap which led to a rug catching fire. From what I could tell, WPIX as of 1970 had RCA TK-27 color film chain cameras, while WOR utilized GE PE-24's (dating back to 1964); which of the film chains did WNEW have in those days? From what I've seen so far, seems like it could be the RCA's . . .

 

[John Murphy]

12:00 Bozo the Clown

This would have been the syndicated "Bozo's Big Top" (originally seen on WOR, I believe), not the Bill Britten show from the '60s.

6:00 Land of the Giants - "The Lost Ones" [original airdate 1/5/69]

If memory serves me, it had moved to either Saturday or Sunday nights the following year and not for that long.

11:30 Channel 11 Film Festival - "D.O.A." (1949) - Edmond O'Brien, Pamela Britton

So this originally aired late night, moved to early afternoons and then moved back to late nights? Interesting.

Now if I could only figure out which programs on Channel 13 were WNDT-only at this time...

Thanks for posting this!