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Retro: US Virgin Islands, June 5th, 1980

C

crainbebo

Source: The Virgin Islands Daily News

Channels listed in this VERY interesting listing include WSVI 8 (ABC), WBNB 10 (CBS, off in '89 from Hurricane Hugo) and 12 WTJX (PBS). I don't see any NBC, not even NYC listed.

WSVI 8

9:30: Readalong II
9:45: Vegetable Soup
10:20: Readalong I (seemed to follow an educational schedule in the midday)
4:30: Cartoon Theater (must have been off between about 10:30 and 4:30)
4:55: Highlights
5:00: General Hospital
5:55: Making Ends Meet (maybe local)
6:00: All My Children (tapes of soap operas probably flown in, and shown at odd times)
7:00: Soupy Sales
7:30: Barney Miller
8:00: 20/20
9:00: Semi-Tough
9:30: Mrs. America Pageant
11:30: ABC World News (also odd time)
12:00: Mike Douglas

WBNB 10 (didn't sign on until after 4 in the afternoon!)

4:20: The Price is Right
5:20: Bulletin Board
5:25: Spotlight
5:30: Search For Tomorrow
6:00: The Young and The Restless (no Guiding Light or As The World Turns on WBNB, odd)
7:00: Channel 10 News
7:30: Palmerstown, USA
8:30: Barnaby Jones
9:30: Ladies & Gentleman: Bob Newhart
10:30: CBS Late Movie (looks like Uncammy or Uncanny)
12:30: Sign off

12 WTJX (PBS, early start time here)
8:15: Macneil/Lehrer Report
8:45: A.M. Weather
9:00: Sesame Street
10:00: Electric Company
10:30: Math Patrol
10:50: Readalong 2
11:00: Mister Roger's Neighborhood
No programming until 4pm, then

4:00: Sesame Street
5:00: Electric Company
5:30: Zoom
6:00: News 12 (one of only a few PBS stations to have news)
6:30: Over Easy-Dick Smothers
7:00: MacNeil/Lehrer Report
7:30: Midweek
8:00: Bill Moyer's Journal
9:00: Masterpiece Theater: Diarsell (sp?) Part 1
10:00: St. Croix Festival
11:00: The Dick Cavett Show (author Joseph Wambaugh)
11:30: Captioned ABC News

-crainbebo
 
crainbebo said:
Source: The Virgin Islands Daily News

Channels listed in this VERY interesting listing include WSVI 8 (ABC), WBNB 10 (CBS, off in '89 from Hurricane Hugo) and 12 WTJX (PBS). I don't see any NBC, not even NYC listed.
Click to expand...

At the time, the networks, other than PBS, were not using satellite for transmission, yet.

Was cable TV available in the Virgin Islands yet? If so, what did they have to offer. No doubt channels like HBO and WTBS would have been available by then.

crainbebo said:
WSVI 8
11:30: ABC World News (also odd time)

12 WTJX (PBS, early start time here)
11:30: Captioned ABC News
Click to expand...

No doubt both were the same program -- channel 8's was the regular "World News Tonight" on tape, flown in from Miami (I think), while channel 12's was the captioned version, off the bird from PBS.
 
HBO and WTBS were available, as well as a channel on cable 5 called ZBTV. One of the listings was the "Million Dollar Movie" so likely WOR 9 NYC off the bird...

-crainbebo
 
ZBTV did exist OTA on 5 as well, as it was based in the British VI. When it went dark, I do not know.

WBNB 10 never did rebuild. USVI signed on a UHF station WVXF (ch 17 I think) early in the 2000s.

I was in the USVI in 2004....I even bought an outdoor antenna at their Radio Shack to try for DX.....ch 5 had 2 translators---if I recall, one for WTJX, I forget the other. Some PR stations could be received well OTA---all this was "BDTV" of course.

cd
 
The other TV5 is likely WFIG-LP, I think a relayer for WSVI.

-crainbebo
 
cd637299 said:
ZBTV did exist OTA on 5 as well, as it was based in the British VI. When it went dark, I do not know.

WBNB 10 never did rebuild. USVI signed on a UHF station WVXF (ch 17 I think) early in the 2000s.

I was in the USVI in 2004....I even bought an outdoor antenna at their Radio Shack to try for DX.....ch 5 had 2 translators---if I recall, one for WTJX, I forget the other. Some PR stations could be received well OTA---all this was "BDTV" of course.

cd
Click to expand...

For the record, were channels 8, 10 and 12 the only channels assigned to the US Virgin Islands? Were there others?
 
Mr. Mike said:
cd637299 said:
ZBTV did exist OTA on 5 as well, as it was based in the British VI. When it went dark, I do not know.

WBNB 10 never did rebuild. USVI signed on a UHF station WVXF (ch 17 I think) early in the 2000s.

I was in the USVI in 2004....I even bought an outdoor antenna at their Radio Shack to try for DX.....ch 5 had 2 translators---if I recall, one for WTJX, I forget the other. Some PR stations could be received well OTA---all this was "BDTV" of course.

cd
Click to expand...

For the record, were channels 8, 10 and 12 the only channels assigned to the US Virgin Islands? Were there others?
Click to expand...

Anyone with a "Broadcasting Yearbook" up to the year 2003 or so would give the info....but ISTR that there were allocations for 3 (with some conditional proviso that I forget; remember that there was a 3 in Mayaguez PR) & 15. 17 was a recent addition, and IIRC, the signal was weak....they depended on cable coverage.

cd
 
It would figure that channels 8, 10, 12 would be the only VHF channels available for broadcasting on the USVI since all other VHF channels were allocated and in use in nearby PR. WCVI-TV did debut on UHF in USVI in the late 1990's/early 2000's on USVI as a UPN (now CW) affiliate on channel 27, later moved to 39, and now DT23. Didn't ABC8 and CBS10 once function as de facto network affils for at least part of PR? I think all stations in the USVI really struggle now---there are only about 110,000 permanent residents and NYC affils are available on cable.
 
17 WAS WVXF. They were CBS, now it's This TV with some syndi programs and a local show called "Fashion Today".

WCVI signed on in 2000 as UPN. Surprised no one's mentioned the Peacock on WVGN TV14. It signed on 6 years ago, before then WNBC was NBC for USVI. They simulcast some News 4 New York programming as well.

-crainbebo
 
crainbebo said:
17 WAS WVXF. They were CBS, now it's This TV with some syndi programs and a local show called "Fashion Today".

WCVI signed on in 2000 as UPN. Surprised no one's mentioned the Peacock on WVGN TV14. It signed on 6 years ago, before then WNBC was NBC for USVI. They simulcast some News 4 New York programming as well.

-crainbebo
Click to expand...

I forgot about WVGN....and what's really bizarre is, WVGN-FM is an NPR station!

cd
 
crainbebo said:
WSVI 8
9:45: Vegetable Soup
7:00: Soupy Sales
Click to expand...

I truly think that this is the only television station in broadcasting history to offer the most soup on their schedule. ::)
 
cd637299 said:
I forgot about WVGN....and what's really bizarre is, WVGN-FM is an NPR station!
Click to expand...
...although such was not without precedent -- WOI-AM-FM in Ames, Iowa, was NPR in 1980, while co-owned (by Iowa State University) WOI-TV/5 was the Des Moines market ABC affiliate for decades by then...
 
Ultimajock said:
cd637299 said:
I forgot about WVGN....and what's really bizarre is, WVGN-FM is an NPR station!
Click to expand...
...although such was not without precedent -- WOI-AM-FM in Ames, Iowa, was NPR in 1980, while co-owned (by Iowa State University) WOI-TV/5 was the Des Moines market ABC affiliate for decades by then...
Click to expand...

Ahhhh, right u r

cd
 
Ultimajock said:
cd637299 said:
I forgot about WVGN....and what's really bizarre is, WVGN-FM is an NPR station!
Click to expand...
...although such was not without precedent -- WOI-AM-FM in Ames, Iowa, was NPR in 1980, while co-owned (by Iowa State University) WOI-TV/5 was the Des Moines market ABC affiliate for decades by then...
Click to expand...

The main difference, though, is that WOI radio and TV were owned by a university, whereas WVGN radio and TV are owned by a commercial entity (though WVGN radio has no ads and asks for donations from its listeners, just like any other NPR station).

While we're on this subject, we should not forget the University of Missouri in Columbia, which owns NBC/CW affiliate KOMU-TV and NPR station KBIA; and KCOU, if you want to count student radio.
 
And Loyola University were the longtime owners of WWL-TV until they sold it to the station's employees in the late '80s (under an employee-investor group called Rampart Broadcasting); Belo would acquire them in 1994.
 
johnnya2k6 said:
And Loyola University were the longtime owners of WWL-TV until they sold it to the station's employees in the late '80s (under an employee-investor group called Rampart Broadcasting); Belo would acquire them in 1994.
Click to expand...
...but at no point were WWL-AM-FM/WLMG ever non-commercial under Loyola cross-ownership with WWL-TV/4, which was the point of this part of the discussion...
 
azumanga said:
crainbebo said:
WSVI 8
11:30: ABC World News (also odd time)

12 WTJX (PBS, early start time here)
11:30: Captioned ABC News
Click to expand...

No doubt both were the same program -- channel 8's was the regular "World News Tonight" on tape, flown in from Miami (I think), while channel 12's was the captioned version, off the bird from PBS.
Click to expand...
As for Walter Cronkite? WBNB could've aired him on a one-day delay like KTVF here in Fairbanks did in the '70s.
 
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