Retro - North Mississippi (Tupelo) and Memphis: April 2-8, 1983 (Weekend)

[Tim-In-Houston]

From the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal (Tupelo, MS):

**Note: The Daily Journal ran a combined Saturday/Sunday edition in 1983, so their TV insert runs from Saturday 4/2 to Friday 4/8**

Stations Listed:
WREG-3-CBS/Memphis (now WREC)
WMC-5-NBC/Memphis
WHBQ-13-ABC/Memphis
WTVA-9-NBC/Tupelo
WCBI-4-CBS/Columbus, MS
Miss. ETV (statewide network, the listing states "Channel 2," which would be WMAB-Starkville)

SATURDAY 4/2

WREG
6:00 - Captain Kangaroo
7:00 - Popeye
7:30 - Pandamon
8:00 - Kid's World
8:30 - Bugs Bunny
9:30 - The Dukes
10:00 - Bugs Bunny
11:00 - Gilligan
11:30 - Fat Albert
12:00 - The Munsters
12:30 - Superman (cartoon or the original Adventures of Superman?)
1:00 - Movie: Justice Of The West
2:30 - NCAA Basketball National Champion (elite 8 playoffs?)
5:00 - NCAA Basketball National Champion
7:00 - Bugs Bunny
7:30 - CBS Movie: Rocky
10:00 - News
10:30 - Movie: Five Card Stud
12:30 - Movie (no listing given)

WMC
6:00 - no listing given (off air?)
6:30 - Cartoons
7:00 - Flintstones
7:30 - Shirt Tales
8:00 - Smurfs
9:30 - Gary Coleman
10:00 - Incredible Hulk
10:30 - Spider-man
11:00 - Wrestling (Championship Wrestling, a mainstay of Memphis and mid-west television for years)
12:30 - Lone Ranger
1:00 - Laredo
2:00 - Conway Twitty
3:00 - On The Mississippi
4:00 - Nashville Music
4:30 - Pop! Country
5:00 - Glen Campbell
5:30 - News (NBC News?)
6:00 - Minority Report
6:30 - Face To Face
7:00 - Diff'rent Strokes
7:30 - Silver Spoons
8:00 - Mama's Family
8:30 - Teachers Only
9:00 - Monitor
10:00 - News
10:30 - Saturday Night Live
12:00 - David Letterman

WHBQ
6:00 - No listing given
6:30 - Dialogue
7:00 - Superfriends
7:30 - Pac-Man
8:00 - Little Rascals (cartoon)
8:30 - Pac-Man
9:00 - Scooby-Doo and Scrappy Too
10:00 - Mork and Mindy (cartoon)
10:30 - Laverne & Shirley (cartoon)
11:00 - Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew Mysteries (Pre-empting American Bandstand, I assume)
12:00 - Kung Fu
1:00 - Lorne Greene
1:30 - R. Martin (anyone know what this is?)
2:00 - Sportsbeat
2:30 - Pro-Bowlers Assocation Bowling
4:00 - Wide World Of Sports
5:30 - In Search Of
6:00 - Other Side
6:30 - Press Conference (local public service show?)
7:00 - TJ Hooker
8:00 - Love Boat
9:00 - Fantasy Island
10:00 - News
10:30 - Sanford & Son
11:00 - Soul Train
12:00 - Movie (no listing given)

WTVA
6:00 - Movie (cont, no listing given)
6:30 - Jonny Quest
7:00 - Flintstones
7:30 - Shirt Tales
8:00 - Smurfs
9:30 - Gary Coleman
10:00 - Incredible Hulk
10:30 - Spider-man
11:00 - The Jetsons
11:30 - Flash Gordon
12:00 - Wrestling (don't know if its the same as on WMC, this airing is only 1-hour)
1:00 - I Love Lucy
1:30 - Baseball Spring (Spring-training preview program?)
2:30 - Ringside (more wrestling or perhaps boxing?)
3:30 - Nashville
4:00 - Nashville Music
4:30 - Austin City Limits (syndicated?)
5:00 - Focus (likely a local community affairs talk show)
5:30 - NBC News
6:00 - Hee Haw
7:00 - Diff'rent Strokes
7:30 - Silver Spoons
8:00 - Mama's Family
8:30 - Teachers Only
9:00 - Monitor
10:00 - news
10:30 - Saturday Night Live
12:00 - Movie: Free Soul

WCBI
6:00 - CNN News (CNN Headline News?)
7:00 - Popeye
7:30 - Pandamon
8:00 - Meatballs
8:30 - Bugs Bunny
9:30 - The Dukes
10:00 - Bugs Bunny
11:00 - Gilligan
11:30 - Fat Albert
12:00 - CNN News
12:30 - R. Martin
1:00 - Pop! Country
1:30 - Auto Racing
2:30 - NCAA Basketball National Championship
5:00 - NCAA Basketball National Championship
7:00 - Bugs Bunny
7:30 - CBS Movie: Rocky
10:00 - Solid Gold
11:00 - Jim Bakker
12:00 - CNN News

Miss ETV
No listings until 12:00pm
12:00 - Mister Rogers
12:30 - Electric Co.
1:00 - Making It Count
2:00 - Focus On Society
3:00 - America: Second Century
4:00 - GED
5:00 - Firing Line
6:00 - This Old House
6:30 - Painting (Joy Of Painting, perhaps?)
7:00 - Move: That Night In Rio
9:00 - Austin City Limits
10:00 - Austin City Limits
no listings after 11:00pm

SUNDAY 4/3

WREG
6:00 - Black Forum
6:30 - Praise
7:00 - Your Faith
7:30 - Presbyterian Church
8:00 - CBS News Sunday Morning
9:30 - Perty Mason
10:30 - Face The Nation
11:00 - Baptist Church
12:00 - NCAA Basketball Special
1:00 - Women's Basketball NCAA Division 1 (joined in progress)
3:30 - Sports Sunda
5:00 - Dateline
5:30 - News (CBS News?)
6:00 - 60 Minutes
7:00 - Beantown
7:30 - Gloria
8:00 - Jeffersons
8:30 - Newhart
9:00 - Trapper John, MD
10:00 - News
10:30 - On The Mississippi
11:30 - Rockford Files

WMC
6:30 - Game & Fish
7:00 - Face to Face
7:30 - Florida Boys
8:00 - Oris Mays
8:30 - Jim Houston
9:00 - Magicland
10:00 - Easter Worship
11:00 - Passover
11:30 - Meet The Press
12:00 - Bill Dance Outdoors
1:00 - Tourism
1:30 - SportsWorld
3:00 - LPGA Golf: Dinah Shore Classic
5:00 - Young People
5:30 - News (NBC News?)
6:00 - The Muppets (2 eps)
7:00 - NBC Movie: Love Is Forever
10:00 - News
10:30 - Rawhide
11:30 - Dead Or Alive
12:00 - News

WHBQ
6:00 - Press Conference
6:30 - Mystery
7:00 - J. Robison Church
8:00 - Baptist Church
8:30 - Christ Is
9:00 - Herald Truth
9:30 - This Week with David Brinkley
10:30 - Sacred Heart
11:00 - Baptist Church
12:00 - Oral Roberts
12:30 - USFL: Washington Federals at Philadelphia Stars
4:00 - Wide World Of Sports
5:00 - Road To Los Angeles (Olympics special?)
6:00 - The Pope and His Vatican
7:00 - Matt Houston
8:00 - ABC Movie: The Sting
11:00 - News
11:30 - Hawaii 5-0
12:30 - Kung Fu

WTVA
6:30 - Jonny Quest
7:00 - Methodist Hour
7:30 - Campus Rep.
8:00 - Oral Roberts
8:30 - The Crisis
9:00 - Robert Schuller
10:00 - Jerry Falwell
11:00 - Baptist Church
12:00 - Jubilee
12:30 - College Basketball
1:30 - SportsWorld
3:00 - LPGA Golf: Dinah Shore Classic
5:00 - Wild Kingdom
5:30 - NBC News
6:00 - Grandpa Will You Run?
7:00 - NBC Movie: Love Is Forever
10:00 - News
10:30 - Games People Play

WCBI
6:00 - CNN News
7:00 - Spiritual Hour
8:00 - Church
8:30 - EJ Daniels
9:00 - Jimmy Swaggart
10:00 - Day of Discovery
10:30 - Rex Humbard
11:00 - Baptist Church
12:00 - NCAA Special
1:00 - Women's Basketball NCAA Division 1 (joined in progress)
3:30 - Sports Sunday
5:00 - Bill Dance
5:30 - CBS News
6:00 - 60 Minutes
7:00 - Beantown
7:30 - Gloria
8:00 - Jeffersons
8:30 - Newhart
9:00 - Trapper John, MD
10:00 - CNN News
10:30 - Larry King Show (syndicated? this was before he was on CNN)
12:00 - CNN News

Miss. ETV
No listings until 12:00pm
12:00 - Access
12:30 - J.S. Bach's St. Matthew's Passion
4:00 - Wall $treet Week
4:30 - Enterprise
5:00 - Make It Count (2 eps)
6:00 - Tony Brown
6:30 - printing error covers up listing
7:00 - Life On Earth
8:00 - All Creatures Great And Small
9:00 - Masterpiece Theatre
10:00 - Nova: Sixty Minutes

Weekday listings are forthcoming.

 

[Braves2005]

WMC-5/NBC--Memphis

Saturday:

2:00 PM Conway Twitty
3:00 PM On The Mississippi

About this time,Conway Twitty had a special called Conway Twitty On The Mississippi where he sang on a cruise ship and one of his guests was Loretta Lynn and if I recall this was a 2 hour special,however on Sunday WREG at 10:30 PM showed this as On The Mississippi and this was a hour special.

R. Martin is Roland Martin who was a hunter/outdoorsman in the same category of Bill Dance in that Bill was a fisherman.

 

[bpatrick]

IIRC, WMC did its local news at 5:30 on weekends
and pre-empted NBC News. I know that for years,
it carried the weeknight editions of NBC News at 6.
(Kind of off-topic, but KXAS/5 Dallas/Ft. Worth used
to pre-empt NBC's Saturday news and ran its local
news at 5:30 because Hee Haw came on at 6.)

Press Conference (Saturday 6:30, WHBQ) was local.

I'm not sure what Channel 13's wrestling show was,
but it couldn't have been the same as Channel 5's
(maybe Bill Watts' show from Shreveport, that covered
Arkansas?).

 

[bhayes1016]

12:00 - Wrestling (don't know if its the same as on WMC, this airing is only 1-hour)

The Memphis wrestling show was edited down to one hour for markets outside Memphis.

 

[only1moore]

I'm not sure what Channel 13's wrestling show was,
but it couldn't have been the same as Channel 5's
(maybe Bill Watts' show from Shreveport, that covered
Arkansas?).

They were one in the same. WHBQ and WMC had the same hosts throughout its entire run (BTW they just titled the show "Wrestling" complete with the same fonts and a shot of a bronze statue of two wrestlers locked in hand to hand combat while the theme from "2001:A Space Oddessy" is played in the background).

As for "American Bandstand" being pre-empted at WHBQ, that would end by 1984 when they resumed carrying the show.

The "Superman" version that WREG was carrying was the 1950s George Reeve TV version.

 

[bpatrick]

The current call letters of Channel 3 in Memphis are WREG,
unless they've changed back and I haven't heard about it.
The call letters were changed from WREC when the FCC
was enforcing the crossownership rules, since there's a
WREC radio station (same thing happened in Nashville,
where WSM-TV became WSMV and WLAC-TV became
WTVF).

Re the wrestling show on WHBQ: I wonder why they
didn't do what Jim Crockett Promotions did here in the
Carolinas. They had two shows, "Mid-Atlantic Championship
Wrestling" and "World Wide Wrestling," both taped in Raleigh
and with the same wrestlers, but with different announcers
(Bob Caudle and David Crockett on "Mid-Atlantic," Rich
Landrum and Johnny Weaver on "World Wide") and a different
station lineup for each; for example, in Greensboro "Mid-Atlantic"
aired on WXII/12, while "Wide World" aired on WGHP/8.

 

[azumanga]

The current call letters of Channel 3 in Memphis are WREG,
unless they've changed back and I haven't heard about it.

The calls are still WREG, per the FCC:

http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?call=WREG

 

[rwells2265]

They were one in the same. WHBQ and WMC had the same hosts throughout its entire run (BTW they just titled the show "Wrestling" complete with the same fonts and a shot of a bronze statue of two wrestlers locked in hand to hand combat while the theme from "2001:A Space Oddessy" is played in the background).

Not sure when WHBQ would've changed its opening to the "2001" theme, but as late as 1975, the opening was very simple: a closeup shot of the ropes, with "WRESTLING" super'ed ... and a jingle playing: "You'll see America's faaaavorite spoooorts.... on W-H-B-Q, TEL-UH-VIH-SHUN.....", fading out and cutting to Lance Russell and Dave Brown.

The show moved to WMC-TV 5, I believe, early in 1977. Living in Tupelo at the time (and WHBQ being our only ABC station available), and suffering "Bandstand" withdrawal, I was anxious with anticipation when Lance Russell (WHBQ's arch-conservative PD) crossed the street to channel 5. The TV GUIDE's listing for Channel 13 at 11:00 read: "TO BE ANNOUNCED"

With bated breath, I was in front of the telly at 11:00 Saturday morning. Nope, no "Bandstand." Channel 13 replaced wrestling with their "Million Dollar Movie". @#$%!!!!!!!!!

The "Superman" version that WREG was carrying was the 1950s George Reeve TV version.

If I'm not mistaken, WREG had prints of every ep of the '50s series in their (massive) film library. They used to run "Superman" off and on throughout the '70s, as well.

--Russell

 

[briancraig]

Wrestling moving from channel 13 to channel 5 was one of the biggest tv stories of the 1970s in Memphis. Wrestling was huge in Memphis during those years. The weekly Monday night show at the Mid-South Coliseum drew regular crowds of 10,000 or more.

When the show moved, it had new hosts (Clay Conrad & Bob Young) replacing Lance Russell and Dave Brown. Lance was quoted in the paper as how much he was looking forward to having Saturdays off. But after only a few weeks on Channel 5, both Lance and Dave moved to WMC. Dave Brown became 5's main weatherman a postion he holds to this day.

Memphis has to be the only market where a change in wrestling had such a huge effect on news ratings. Prior to 1977, channel 13's Eyewitness News was #1 in news. As soon as Dave Brown moved, channel 5 became #1 in news. This was true until earlier this year, when channel 3 finally became number 1.

I know several other markets didn't carry American Bandstand in the 1970s. I know New Orleans didn't and I don't think Dallas carried it.

It seems like channel 13 showed a lot of Abbott & Costello, Ma & Pa Kettle and Francis The Talking Mule movies in Bandstand's slot after wrestling left.

 

[bhayes1016]

I know several other markets didn't carry American Bandstand in the 1970s. I know New Orleans didn't and I don't think Dallas carried it.

Neither did Houston.

 

[DToTheJ]

SUNDAY 4/3

WREG
9:30 - Perty Mason

Was this a local evangelist, or a spinoff of "Perry Mason"?

 

[classictvfan]

SUNDAY 4/3

WREG
9:30 - Perty Mason

Was this a local evangelist, or a spinoff of "Perry Mason"?

Since it was an hour, it was obviously the original Perry Mason. You should know that.