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Retro: Spokane, WA - Tuesday, July 7, 1987

A

AKA

2—KREM (CBS)
5:30—Tom and Jerry
6:30—KREM 2 News
7:00—CBS Morning News
7:30—CBS Morning Program
9:00—The $25,000 Pyramid
9:30—Card Sharks
10:00—The Price Is Right
11:00—Quincy, M.E.
12:00—KREM 2 News
12:30—The Bold and the Beautiful
1:00—As the World Turns
2:00—Guiding Light
3:00—The Young and the Restless
4:00—The Oprah Winfrey Show
5:00—KREM 2 News
6:00—CBS Evening News with Dan Rather
6:30—Entertainment Tonight
7:00—The New Newlywed Game
7:30—Hollywood Squares
8:00—The Wizard
Master criminals send a kleptomaniacal chimpanzee into Simon’s home to steal a rare coin the wizard isn’t even aware he has. (Repeat)
9:00—MOVIE: “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”
One of the best films in the recent rash of teen comedies, this 1982 outing boasts a fine music soundtrack (including Jackson Browne’s “Somebody’s Baby”) and several very good performances. Sean Penn, Judge Reinhold and Jennifer Jason Leigh star.
11:00—KREM 2 News
11:30—T.J. Hooker
12:40—MOVIE: “Nakia”
(1974) Robert Forster, Linda Evans.
2:00—CBS News Nightwatch

4—KXLY (ABC)
5:00—Eight Is Enough
6:00—Here’s Lucy
6:30—World News This Morning
7:00—Good Morning America
9:00—Donahue
10:00—Who’s the Boss?
10:30—Bargain Hunters
11:00—Ryan’s Hope
11:30—One Day at a Time
12:00—All My Children
1:00—One Life to Live
2:00—General Hospital
3:00—The Jetsons
3:30—Gilligan’s Island
4:00—The People’s Court
4:30—Superior Court
5:00—News 4
6:00—World News Tonight with Peter Jennings
6:30—All in the Family
7:00—Taxi
7:30—WKRP in Cincinnati
8:00—Who’s the Boss?
Tony and Jonathan hope that Geoffrey will not propose to Angela. But Angela is convinced a marriage proposal is in the offing when Geoffrey keeps saying he has something important to tell her. (Repat)
8:30—Growing Pains
Carol (Tracey Gold) wins the jackpot in a radio contest and wants to use the money to pay for a nose job. (Repeat)
9:00—Moonlighting
Maddie and David encounter a psychic and a series of unusual events while tracking down an industrial spy. (Repeat)
10:00—The Jennings/Koppel Report
“Questions of Policy, Questions of War”
11:00—News 4
11:30—Nightline
12:00—Soap
12:30—News 4
1:30—Off the Air

6—KHQ (NBC)
5:00—Laverne & Shirley
5:30—Morning Stretch
6:00—Before Hours
6:30—NBC News at Sunrise—(Deborah Norville)
7:00—Today
9:00—Sale of the Century
9:30—Classic Concentration
10:00—Wheel of Fortune
10:30—Scrabble
11:00—Super Password
11:30—Wordplay
12:00—Days of Our Lives
1:00—Another World
2:00—Santa Barbara
3:00—Dynasty
4:00—Hour Magazine
5:00—Q-6 News
6:00—NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw
6:30—Wheel of Fortune
7:00—Jeopardy!
7:30—PM Magazine
A look back at Andy Warhol; treasure code.
8:00—Matlock
Ben (Andy Griffith) defends an exotic dancer accused of murdering her ex-husband, who was determined to have her declared an unfit mother. (Repeat)
9:00—MOVIE: “Popeye Doyle”
The character that earned Gene Hackman an Oscar for the 1971 film “The French Connection” is revived in this 1986 TV-movie, the pilot for an unsold series. Ed O’Neill (now in “Married…with Children”) inherits the role of the tough New York police detective. Matthew Laurance.
11:00—Q-6 News
11:30—The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
Actor Paul Reiser (“Aliens”) interviews Joe Garagiola and the music group Cutting Crew.
12:30—Late Night with David Letterman
North Carolina revenue agent Garland Bunting. (Repeat)
1:30—Off the Air

7—KSPS (PBS)
7:00—Reading Rainbow
7:30—Captain Kangaroo
8:00—Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood
8:30—Today’s Special
9:00—Sesame Street
10:00—Reading Rainbow
10:30—Body Pulse
11:00—The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes
11:30—Yan Can Cook
12:00—Masterpiece Theatre
1:00—MOVIE: “Isaac in America: A Journey with Isaac Bashevis Singer”
(1986)
2:00—Flower Shop
2:30—Modern Maturity
3:00—Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood
3:30—Sesame Street
4:30—3-2-1 Contact
5:00—World of Survival
5:30—The MacNeil Lehrer NewsHour
6:30—Nightly Business Report
7:00—Nova
“Stephen J. Gould: This View of Life.” The paleontologist discusses his evolutionary theories and visits the tyrannosaurus rex that first inspired him.
8:00—South American Journey
“Inca Cola.” Journalist Jack Pizzey travels through the Andes to study 20th-century Inca society. He interviews Inca farmers who, in the 1960s, were given the right to own land in Peru. Pizzey also reviews Inca history. (Part two of eight)
9:00—Soldiers
“The Face of Battle.” History is traced at the geographical site of the Battle of Waterloo to show war through the ages.
10:00—War: A Commentary
“The Profession of Arms”
11:00—Monty Python’s Flying Circus
11:30—Off the Air

22—KSKN (Independent)
7:00—Defenders of the Earth
7:30— Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors
8:00—Heathcliff
8:30—New Zoo Revue
9:00—The PTL Club
10:00—Consumer Discount Network
2:00—Consumer Discount Network
3:00— She-Ra: Princess of Power
3:30—The Centurions: Power X Treme
4:00—Ghostbusters
4:30—Rambo: The Force of Freedom
5:00—Hit Video USA
6:00—I Dream of Jeannie
6:30—Crosswits
7:00—USA Tonight
7:30—Crook & Chase
8:00—MOVIE: “The Family Jewels”
(1965) Jerry Lewis, Donna Butterworth. An orphaned millionaires must choose one of her six uncles to become her new guardian.
10:00—USA Tonight
10:30—Tales of the Unexpected
11:00—Consumer Discount Network
1:00—Off the Air

28—KAYU—(Independent)
6:00—The Pastor Study
7:00—He-Man and the Masters of the Universe
7:30—Smurfs Adventures
8:00—Dennis the Menace
8:30—My Little Pony
9:00—The 700 Club
10:00—Jimmy Swaggart
10:30—Richard Roberts
11:30—Bewitched
12:00—Perry Mason
1:00—The Odd Couple
1:30—The Dick Van Dyke Show
2:00—I Love Lucy
2:30—The Brady Bunch
3:00—The Flintstones
3:30—Challenge of the GoBots
4:00— Voltron: Defender of the Universe
4:30—The Transformers
5:00—The Monkees
5:30—Leave It to Beaver
6:00—Knight Rider
7:00—Star Trek
“Return to Tomorrow.” Kirk, Spock and a scientist (Diana Muldaur) agree to temporarily allow a trio of aliens to inhabit their bodies.
8:00—MOVIE: “The Hustler”
(1961) Paul Newman, Jackie Gleason. A professional gambler stakes pool shark “Fast Eddie” Felson in a smoke-filled marathon match against the legendary Minnesota Fats. Directed by Robert Rossen.
11:00—The Late Show
Louie Anderson hosts.
12:00—MOVIE: “Blue Skies”
(1946) Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby.
2:00—Off the Air
 
Thanks...

It's sad to see the way KSKN is pretty much falling apart by this point in time. I was also surprised to see that "Star Trek" had moved over to KAYU, since it had been on KREM as long as I could remember from when I lived in Pullman a few years earlier.
 
KSKN actually went dark about a week before this listing, on June 27, 1987. The paper must not have had adequate time to remove the station from their daily and weekly guides.

It really is sad what happened to the station, though. About sixteen months earlier, second owner Gene Adelstein, who had brought in respectable programming and somewhat decent ratings, suddenly died of a heart attack at 45. His wife and son took over the station after his passing, and their leadership had a negative effect on staff morale and programming choices according to old Spokesman-Review articles.

Ten years later, KREM resurrected KSKN as a UPN affiliate. It's still going strong today... well, as strong as a CW affiliate can be, anyway.

It's funny you mention KREM airing Star Trek. The rights to both the original series and The Next Generation went to KXLY a year or two after this. I came of age in the '90s, so I remember both series being mainstays on Channel 4 for several years. It's also odd to see The Flintstones on KAYU: KXLY held the rights to the show for many years -- before and after 1987 -- and aired it in the same slot (weekdays at 3 pm) as KAYU. I think Channel 28 only had the show for a season before it moved back to 4.
 
AKA said:
KSKN actually went dark about a week before this listing, on June 27, 1987. The paper must not have had adequate time to remove the station from their daily and weekly guides.

It really is sad what happened to the station, though. About sixteen months earlier, second owner Gene Adelstein, who had brought in respectable programming and somewhat decent ratings, suddenly died of a heart attack at 45. His wife and son took over the station after his passing, and their leadership had a negative effect on staff morale and programming choices according to old Spokesman-Review articles.

Ten years later, KREM resurrected KSKN as a UPN affiliate. It's still going strong today... well, as strong as a CW affiliate can be, anyway.
Click to expand...

If I recall correctly, Mr. Adelstein came from Tucson, where he owned (what was then) the only independent station there, KZAZ (now FOX KMSB). Right when he sold KZAZ, two UHF independents took the air in Tucson - only one survived--and even that station had to hook up with stronger competition to keep going. From the listings I've seen on this board, KAYU really didn't have the strongest programming either, so if they had the right ownership, KSKN could have stayed on the air and might have overtaken KAYU. This schedule for KSKN looks like it was all barter and paid religious shows/shopping.

These listings were also around the time of the fall of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker and the PTL Club, which was one of the programs on KSKN's schedule. I wonder if the loss of that revenue had a negative impact on the station's revenue and reasoning for going dark?
 
From the time Adelstein took over (September, 1985) until his death (March, 1986), KSKN began to add programming and movies that were at least comparable to that of KAYU, if not better in some cases. It was obvious that Adelstein had a better idea of how to run an independent TV station in a market Spokane's size than did Lee Schulman, the station's founder, who had to file Chapter 11 a year and a half into its run.

After Adelstein died, the station quickly began to sink again. I suspect the final nail in the coffin was KAYU being given the Fox affiliation, but that's just my opinion.
 
AKA said:
From the time Adelstein took over (September, 1985) until his death (March, 1986), KSKN began to add programming and movies that were at least comparable to that of KAYU, if not better in some cases. It was obvious that Adelstein had a better idea of how to run an independent TV station in a market Spokane's size than did Lee Schulman, the station's founder, who had to file Chapter 11 a year and a half into its run.

After Adelstein died, the station quickly began to sink again. I suspect the final nail in the coffin was KAYU being given the Fox affiliation, but that's just my opinion.
Click to expand...

Was the Lee Schulman who founded KSKN, one and the same as had run WMAQ-TV in Chicago into the ground during the 1970's?
 
Here are some more KSKN articles, tracing its demise and subsequent relaunch a decade later:

Continuing money woes trim station's schedule - The Spokesman-Review; February 14, 1987

KAYU vs. KSKN: And the winner is... - The Spokesman-Review; April 5, 1987

Independent Spokane TV station off the air - The Spokesman-Review/Associated Press; June 29, 1987

A marriage between KREM and KSKN - The Spokesman-Review; July 14, 1996

UPN Gets A Foothold in Spokane - The Spokesman-Review; September 14, 1997

KREM-TV's parent agrees to buy KSKN - Spokane Journal of Business - July 26, 2001
 
I suppose by 1987 most TV sets were equipped for UHF reception and there was one healthy UHF station on the air in Spokane. But I suppose with only two UHFs in the entire market (PBS was on VHF) that made it tough. And Spokane is only around market #100... not a lot of advertising dollars floating around in those days outside the three network affiliates and the one healthy indy.

I also notice only Channel 2 stayed on the air overnight. You'd think by this point there'd be something else on the air after 2am other than CBS Newswatch. Hadn't ABC and NBC also introduced overnight news by 1987? There was also CNN Headline News which many network affiliates also ran overnight. Or were the Spokane ABC and NBC affiliates too cheap to keep their transmitters on overnight?

And you'd think the healthy indy station would also stay on the air overnight running movies or old sitcoms. I notice KSKN runs an overnight shopping show at 11pm, then signs off at 1am. Aren't overnight shopping shows supposed to run all night? (Geez, they even ran that shopping channel from 10am - 2pm in the daytime!)

Other oddities...

--The CBS station runs Young and Restless at 3pm? I thought it was always run before noon on the West Coast.

--All three network affiliates do an hour of news at 5pm, network news at 6pm, then it's game shows and off-network sitcoms till 8pm. Didn't anyone care to break up that pattern? The ABC affilate could have run Jennings at 5:30 or even 5... ABC gave its Western stations that flexibility in those days. Nobody bothered to come back with more local news at 6:30, even though prime time in Spokane doesn't start till 8pm?

--Where are the daytime talk shows? I see Oprah and Donahue. But weren't there others doing syndicated daytime talk programs? No Joan Rivers, Toni Tennille, Merv Griffin, John Davidson? Some indy stations ran Merv at prime time rather than a black-and-white movie. Or was Merv not syndicated anymore by 1987?

--The indy stations also seemed to skip a lot of syndicated programs that was available. I see one indy runs Crosswits in the early evening. But in larger markets, indy stations had plenty to choose from, other than 20 year old sitcoms and black and white movies. I guess the Spokane indy stations didn't want to pay for new syndicated material?


Gregg
[email protected]
 
Gregg said:
I also notice only Channel 2 stayed on the air overnight. You'd think by this point there'd be something else on the air after 2am other than CBS Newswatch. Hadn't ABC and NBC also introduced overnight news by 1987? There was also CNN Headline News which many network affiliates also ran overnight. Or were the Spokane ABC and NBC affiliates too cheap to keep their transmitters on overnight?
Click to expand...

NBC and ABC didn't provide its affiliates overnight news shows until 1991-92, when NBC Nightside and ABC World News Now premiered, respectively.

Gregg said:
--Where are the daytime talk shows? I see Oprah and Donahue. But weren't there others doing syndicated daytime talk programs? No Joan Rivers, Toni Tennille, Merv Griffin, John Davidson? Some indy stations ran Merv at prime time rather than a black-and-white movie. Or was Merv not syndicated anymore by 1987?
Click to expand...

Merv's show left the air the year before. John Davidson and the others were out of syndication years earlier.

Gregg said:
--The indy stations also seemed to skip a lot of syndicated programs that was available. I see one indy runs Crosswits in the early evening. But in larger markets, indy stations had plenty to choose from, other than 20 year old sitcoms and black and white movies. I guess the Spokane indy stations didn't want to pay for new syndicated material?
Click to expand...

Crosswits '86, IIRC, was a barter or a very low-cost program. The show cleared on weaker stations than other game shows. It appears KAYU was taking the Ted Turner approach of purchasing older shows that still had legs, instead of buying the latest shows for the station. That may have been one of the reasons why it survived when KSKN didn't.
 
Gregg said:
--Where are the daytime talk shows? I see Oprah and Donahue. But weren't there others doing syndicated daytime talk programs? No Joan Rivers, Toni Tennille, Merv Griffin, John Davidson? Some indy stations ran Merv at prime time rather than a black-and-white movie. Or was Merv not syndicated anymore by 1987?
Click to expand...

At the time, it was only Oprah and Donahue -- Joan Rivers was recently fired from Fox's "Late Show" at the time, and it wouldn't be until 1989 when her daytime show started. Merv's talk show ended in 1986. John Davidson was already doing (or about to do) the "Hollywood Squares". And while Toni Tennile had a talk show, it was several years before the time.
 
Eric Stein said:
Gregg said:
--Where are the daytime talk shows? I see Oprah and Donahue. But weren't there others doing syndicated daytime talk programs? No Joan Rivers, Toni Tennille, Merv Griffin, John Davidson? Some indy stations ran Merv at prime time rather than a black-and-white movie. Or was Merv not syndicated anymore by 1987?
Click to expand...

Merv's show left the air the year before. John Davidson and the others were out of syndication years earlier.
Click to expand...

As for Joan Rivers -- by this time, she was fired from Fox's "Late Show", and it would not be until 1989 when she would return to daytime TV with her syndicated "Joan Rivers Show". And at the time, John Davidson was already hosting Hollywood Squares, which was on KREM.

(By the way, don't mind my post above -- apparently, Radio-Info had a brief issue and I thought my original post was never posted.)

Eric Stein said:
Gregg said:
--The indy stations also seemed to skip a lot of syndicated programs that was available. I see one indy runs Crosswits in the early evening. But in larger markets, indy stations had plenty to choose from, other than 20 year old sitcoms and black and white movies. I guess the Spokane indy stations didn't want to pay for new syndicated material?
Click to expand...

Crosswits '86, IIRC, was a barter or a very low-cost program. The show cleared on weaker stations than other game shows. It appears KAYU was taking the Ted Turner approach of purchasing older shows that still had legs, instead of buying the latest shows for the station. That may have been one of the reasons why it survived when KSKN didn't.
Click to expand...

In some markets, Crosswits 86 was seen on major stations, but often either in the morning or late-night hours. In Tampa Bay, WXFL (WFLA) carried the new Crosswits weekday mornings, I think pre-empting one of NBC's game shows.
 
Eric Stein said:
If I recall correctly, Mr. Adelstein came from Tucson, where he owned (what was then) the only independent station there, KZAZ (now FOX KMSB).
Click to expand...

Yes, he did.

And he had had a long-standing interest in entering the Pacific Northwest. His Tucson Company, Roadrunner Broadcasting, was the original bidder to take then public TV KCPQ channel 13 in Seattle back to commercial operation in late 1978. He was ultimately outbid for that station by Sacramento's Kelly Broadcasting.

I could be wrong about this, but I'm thinking that Adelstein's Roadrunner Broadcasting was also one of the unsuccessful applicants for channel 28 in Spokane a couple years later.
 
AKA said:
It's funny you mention KREM airing Star Trek. The rights to both the original series and The Next Generation went to KXLY a year or two after this. I came of age in the '90s, so I remember both series being mainstays on Channel 4 for several years. It's also odd to see The Flintstones on KAYU: KXLY held the rights to the show for many years -- before and after 1987 -- and aired it in the same slot (weekdays at 3 pm) as KAYU. I think Channel 28 only had the show for a season before it moved back to 4.
Click to expand...

And, in fact, "The Flinstones" did run at 3 PM on KXLY-TV during the 4 years that I lived in the area (1980 to 1984).
 
AKA said:
You're right, but Adelstein's original application was for Channel 22. Here are articles from 1979 and 1980.
Click to expand...

Interesting. From the date on that first article, Adelstein must have filed for channel 22 in Spokane shortly after losing the bidding for buying channel 13 in Tacoma (which happened in January of 1979).
 
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