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Retro: North Carolina prime time Friday, December 6, 1968

B

bpatrick

From TV Guide, North Carolina edition. Schedules run
from 7 PM.

GREENSBORO/WINSTON-SALEM/HIGH POINT

WFMY Ch. 2 (CBS)

7 PM The Good Guys (delay from Wednesday
8:30)
7:30 Perry Mason
8:30 Gomer Pyle, USMC
9 PM CBS Movie: "The Defector" (Montgomery
Clift's last movie, from '61)
11 PM News
11:30 Movie: "The Great Impostor"

WGHP Ch. 8 (ABC)

6 PM Merv Griffin
7:25 Weather
7:30 Movie: "An Affair To Remember"
9:30 Guns Of Will Sonnett
10 PM Judd For The Defense
11 PM News
11:30 Joey Bishop
1 AM News

WSJS (WXII) Ch. 12 (NBC)

7 PM Horse Racing
7:30 Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer
(anyone know when it moved to CBS?)
8:30 Name Of The Game
10 PM The Golden Ladder (local special about
the fight against poverty in the Piedmont)
11 PM News
11:30 Tonight Show

WUBC (WMYV) Ch. 48 (Ind.)

7 PM Public Defender
7:30 Wild Wild West (pre-empted on Ch. 2)
8:30 Steve Allen
10 PM News
10:15 Movie: "The Big Night"

CHARLOTTE

WBTV Ch. 3 (CBS)

7 PM Marshal Dillon
7:30 Wild Wild West
8:30 Gomer Pyle, USMC
9 PM CBS Movie: "The Defector"
11 PM News
11:30 Movie: "Woman In Hiding"

WSOC Ch. 9 (NBC)

7 PM Julia (delay from Tuesday 8:30)
7:30 Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer
8:30 Name Of The Game
10 PM Star Trek
11 PM News
11:30 Tonight Show
1 AM Sugarfoot

WCCB Ch. 18 (ABC)

7 PM NFL Football Highlights (don't know if
this is This Week In The NFL or NFL
Game Of The Week)
7:30 Operation: Entertainment
8:30 Coaches All-America Team (O.J. Simpson
is on this team)
9 PM Don Rickles
9:30 Guns Of Will Sonnett
10 PM Judd For The Defense
11 PM Peter Gunn
11:30 Joey Bishop

WCTU (WCNC) Ch. 36 (Ind.)

7 PM Movie: "Voyage To A Prehistoric Planet"
8:30 Wagon Train
10 PM Les Crane (syndicated followup to his
1964-65 ABC late-night show)
11 PM Movie: "The Texas Rangers"

WTVI Ch. 42 (NET)

7 PM What's New
7:30 Solo
7:45 Con-Tempo
8 PM VD: The Problem And The Solution
8:30 News In Perspective
9:30 NET Playhouse (to 11)

WUNG Ch. 58 (NET/UNC-TV)

7 PM Wildlife
7:30 Misterogers (Mister Rogers' Neighborhood)
8 PM NET Playhouse
sign off 9:30 PM

RALEIGH/DURHAM

WUNC Ch. 4 (NET/UNC-TV)
same schedule as WUNG

WRAL Ch. 5 (ABC)

7 PM Arthur Smith
7:30 Operation: Entertainment
8:30 Coaches All-America Team
9 PM Don Rickles
9:30 Guns Of Will Sonnett
10 PM Judd For The Defense
11 PM News
11:30 Movie: "The Outsider" (the story of
WWII hero Ira Hayes, a Native American)

WTVD Ch. 11 (CBS/NBC)

7 PM Blondie (delay from Thursday 7:30)
7:30 Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer
8:30 Gomer Pyle, USMC
9 PM CBS Movie: "The Defector"
11 PM News
11:30 Tonight Show

WRDU (WRDC) Ch. 28 had signed on but was not
yet listed in TV Guide.

GREENVILLE/NEW BERN/WASHINGTON

WUND Ch. 2 (NET/UNC-TV)
Same as WUNG.

WITN Ch. 7 (NBC)

7 PM Hazel
7:30 Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer
8:30 Name Of The Game
10 PM Star Trek
11 PM News
11:30 Tonight Show

WNCT Ch. 9 (CBS)

7 PM Truth Or Consequences
7:30 Wild Wild West
8:30 Gomer Pyle, USMC
9 PM CBS Movie: "The Defector"
11 PM News
11:30 Movie: "House Of Dracula"

WNBE (WCTI) Ch. 12 (ABC)

7 PM Bill Pollard (local country-music show)
7:30 Operation: Entertainment
8:30 Coaches All-America Team
9 PM Don Rickles
9:30 Guns Of Will Sonnett
10 PM Judd For The Defense
11 PM News
11:15 Bob Poole (gospel music)
11:30 Joey Bishop

WILMINGTON

WWAY Ch. 3 (ABC)

7 PM Movie: "The Proud Ones"
9 PM Don Rickles
9:30 Guns Of Will Sonnett
10 PM Judd For The Defense
11 PM News
11:30 Joey Bishop

WECT Ch. 6 (NBC)

7 PM Marshal Dillon
7:30 Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer
8:30 Name Of The Game
10 PM Star Trek
11 PM News
11:30 Tonight Show

COLUMBIA, SC

WIS Ch. 10 (NBC)

7 PM News
7:30 Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer
8:30 Name Of The Game
10 PM Star Trek
11 PM News
11:30 Tonight Show

FLORENCE, SC

WBTW Ch. 13 (CBS)

7 PM Southeast Almanac
7:30 Wild Wild West
8:30 Gomer Pyle, USMC
9 PM CBS Movie: "The Defector"
11 PM News
11:30 Movie: "The Black Shield Of
Falworth"
 
WUBC-TV and WMYV-TV (both Greensboro) are not related. WUBC was a short lived station of 3 years during the late 60's on channel 48. WMYV signed on in 1981 as WGGT and happened to be assigned channel 48.
 
True. My practice, however, is to post the call letters
then and now, so that people who weren't around at the
time will know where they are in the market's channel makeup.
Some stations change owners, sometimes several times, others
(like WUBC) go dark and a different station signs on on the same
channel years later.

If it's too confusing, I'll be glad to post just the call letters
on the date of the listings. Everyone let me know.
 
Continuing my look at the WTVD/WRDU situation, it becomes all but obvious CBS was the default network of WTVD, only going with NBC if its shows were in the top 20 or so. This is somewhat different from Birmingham, where VHF outlet WAPI had a rough split between CBS and NBC in prime-time (and, of all things, did not take The Tonight Show), leaving UHF WBMG the scraps.

Now that I think about it, I wonder about something else ... why did it often take TV Guide so long to being carrying a new station's listings? Was it in this case because TV Guide didn't have enough lead time to reset their databases (whatever the term back then was, I don't know) and presses? Or was there something of an unwritten understanding that a station would have to clear an audience level hurdle before getting listed? As one recalls, WKYH (now WMYT) in the remote mountains of southeastern Kentucky began operations in 1969, but it was 1980 before that station was ever listed in an edition! Does anybody know anything about that?
 
TV Guide had a rule that a station must cover at
least 15% of an edition's coverage area before it
could be included. When these schedules appeared,
Channel 28 was new and it was probably uncertain how
much of the edition's coverage area it was reaching.
WKYH (WYMT), being on Channel 57 and in mountainous
terrain, probably took years to reach the requisite 15%,
a process no doubt helped by cable, since I hear the station
does quite well in the portions of Kentucky, Tennessee, West
Virginia (and even a county or two in Virginia, IIRC) where it's
on cable.

I think we've rehashed this, but let's review a little history.
WNAO/28, the Triangle's original CBS affiliate, went dark around
1958. At the time, WRAL was NBC and WTVD, ABC. CBS made
a deal with TVD, making it the primary network and ABC the secondary.
When WRAL went to ABC in 1962, it kept very few NBC programs, and
yes, the most popular ("Bonanza," Disney, "The Virginian," "Dr. Kildare,"
"Daniel Boone, " etc.) were seen on TVD. When WRDU (WRDC) came
on the air in '68, it quickly discovered that people in the western end
of the market (Durham, Chapel Hill, Chatham County, etc.) were watching
those CBS programs pre-empted on TVD on WFMY Greensboro, and those
to the east (Johnston, Wayne, Wilson, Edgecombe, etc.) were watching
them on WNCT Greenville/New Bern/Washington. That led to 28's complaint
to the FCC about TVD's ability to cherry-pick the best of the two networks
and leave 28 with the less-popular shows. Since CBS tended to outrate
NBC in the Triangle, WTVD (when forced) chose CBS.

In Birmingham, WAPI had a long relationship with NBC (although I have
some old Birmingham radio schedules from the '40s that show WAPI as
a CBS affiliate), but an owner who disliked Bill Paley. True, 13 had a
pretty even CBS/NBC split, but there was some personal politics involved
when it selected NBC as its only network. I can't explain 13's resistance
to Carson, except that movies made more money, but I think I can explain
its resistance to Sullivan; he received a number of complaints from affiliates
in the Deep South about his use of African-American performers (I'm not
sure viewers had the same problem, since Sullivan always did well all over
the South). In Raleigh/Durham, WTVD had no reservations about Sullivan;
he was there Sundays at 8. Also, Carson was the only late-night talk
show in the Triangle until 1971, when WRAL picked up Dick Cavett, WTVD
had Merv Griffin (a fixture on the station for years afterward when he went
back into syndication), and WRDU had Carson. In Birmingham, Merv was
the only one running in pattern (10:30 PM CT); Carson eventually aired
at 11:30 CT, and Cavett could show up anytime after 11:30. (WBMG/WIAT
did carry Carson before it became a fulltime CBS affillate).

Actually, for years CBS tended to do better in the upper South (such as
North Carolina and Virginia), while NBC was stronger in the Deep South
(Birmingham excepted; it was an ABC-dominated market when WBRC had
the ABC affiliation). All of the affiliation switching since the '70s has
rendered this almost moot: WSOC (ABC) runs even with and even beats WBTV
(CBS) in Charlotte in many time slots, including local news; WSB's
move to ABC took Atlanta from one of ABC's weakest to one of its
strongest markets.
 
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