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RETRO: WGN & WTBS, THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 1982

gregg75

gregg75

from TV Guide Eastern Time

So which was best back then WTBS or WGN?
Are these retro schedules better than what we/they have today?

THURSDAY April 29, 1982
5:20 17 Rat Patrol
5:50 17 World At Large -travel
6:00 9 Flash Gordon
17 News
6:30 9 Faith 20 -religion AG-USA
7:00 9 Top 'O The Morning
7:05 17 Fun Time -children
7:30 9 Bullwinkle
8:00 9 Bozo Show
8:05 17 I Dream Of Jeannie
8:35 17 My Three Sons
9:05 17 Movie (b&w)-drama
"Sylvia Scarlett" (1935) Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant
9:30 9 Bewitched
10:00 9 Movie (b&w)-comedy
"The Courtship Of Andy Hardy" (1942) Mickey Rooney
11:05 17 Movie (b&w)-drama
"That Brendan Girl" (1946)
12:00 9 Big Valley
1:00 9 Prisoner In Cell Block H -serial
1:05 17 Movie -drama
"The Challenge" (1970) Darren McGavin
1:30 9 INN News
2:00 9 Dick Van Dyke (b&w)
2:30 9 Andy Griffith (b&w)
3:00 9 I Dream Of Jeannie (b&w)
3:05 17 Fun Time -children
3:30 9 Gilligan's Island (b&w)
3:35 17 Flintstones
4:00 9 Scooby Doo
4:05 17 Munsters (b&w)
4:30 9 Popeye
4:35 17 Leave It To Beaver (b&w)
5:00 9 Incredible Hulk
5:05 17 Brady Bunch
5:35 17 Beverly Hillbillies
6:00 9 Mupet Show
6:05 17 Andy Griffith
6:30 9 Welcome Back Kotter
6:35 17 Gomer Pyle USMA
7:00 9 Barney Miller
7:05 17 Carol Burnett And Friends
7:30 9 Baseball
Cubs at Atlanta (live)
7:35 17 Sanford And Son
8:05 17 Movie -comedy
"Breakfast At Tiffany's" (1961) Audrey Heburn
10:30 9 INN News
11:00 9 News
11:30 9 Saturday Night
mid. 17 Movie -western
"Red Tomahawk" (1957)
12:30 9 Movie (b&w) -drama
"A Fever In Blood" (1961)
1:45 17 Movie -adventure
"Manfish" (1956)
3:00 9 News
3:30 9 Movie (b&w) -mystery
"The Third Secret" (1964)
3:42 17 Movie (b&w) -thriller
"Sherlock Holmes And The Voice Of Terror" (1942)
4:55 17 Mission Impossible
5:30 9 Zane Grey (b&w)-western
 
WTBS (now known of course as just "TBS: Very Funny") was worth having on those old master antenna systems.

WGN (long before someone split it between Chicago and WGN-America signals and the Chicago station became an affiliate of what now is The CW) was a pleasant curiosity, if you could get it in the Eastern US.

The viewer in the Tri-State area around Pittsburgh had WTBS and usually WOR-New York rather than WGN. There also was HBO (anyone remember its entertaining late night sign-off?) and ESPN.
 
Tim L said:
classictvfan said:
What edition of TV Guide?
Click to expand...

What does it matter? It's all the same schedule for WGN and WTBS
Click to expand...

I was asking gregg75, not you. I wanted to know
what local edition it was so maybe I could request
a schedule for broadcast stations in that area.
 
I believe both stations were great in their own right, but I would have gone with WGN over WTBS because they presented more local programming than WTBS. Not to mention, on and off through the years, they featured some of the same programming (Leave it to Beaver, Carol Burnett, Andy Griffith, Scooby-Doo, etc.). The Syndex laws never really affected TBS, but it certainly did to WGN (and WWOR), and from that point on, watching local programming (ads, news especially) were never the same.
 
Surprised WTBS didn't carry a Braves game; I thought they carried all 162 up until ESPN got involved in 1990?
Was there some agreement when the Braves and Cubs played that since both channels were 'superstations', they couldn't air those games simultaneously? This certainly changed by the '90s, when both superstations AND ESPN frequently aired the same Braves-Cubs contests!
 
KeyTimes950 said:
The viewer in the Tri-State area around Pittsburgh had WTBS and usually WOR-New York rather than WGN. There also was HBO (anyone remember its entertaining late night sign-off?) and ESPN.
Click to expand...

Very true. I remember the steady diet of Braves and Mets games, despite being within spitting distance of Three Rivers Stadium.
WOR had just moved to Secaucus and was running a lot of New Jersey oriented programming to try and get their local bona-fides. They were pulled in favor of WGN sometime after I moved out of state.

In the late 70's before our particular neighborhood was wired for cable, the local systems used a central ground station to receive these channels and then transmitted the signal around to local offices via microwave. I remember having neighbors who bought some type of black-market microwave receivers and dishes. They pointed them at a local radio tower that was being used to relay the signal to get "free" HBO.
 
Tim L said:
classictvfan said:
What edition of TV Guide?
Click to expand...

What does it matter? It's all the same schedule for WGN and WTBS...
Click to expand...

I believe what prompted this question was how the original poster, instead of listing the stations as "WGN" and "WTBS," labeled them "9" and "17" - and I doubt that there's any physical area between Illinois and Georgia that would guarantee any OTA reception of both in the same area whatsoever, to warrant having both listed by their respective channel numbers in their home markets.
 
DToTheJ said:
I believe what prompted this question was how the original poster, instead of listing the stations as "WGN" and "WTBS," labeled them "9" and "17" - and I doubt that there's any physical area between Illinois and Georgia that would guarantee any OTA reception of both in the same area whatsoever, to warrant having both listed by their respective channel numbers in their home markets.
Click to expand...

Of course, up until the early-1980s, many TVG editions, as well as other news listings, used "9" for WGN and "17" for WTBS, regardless of aerial availability or a different local station broadcasting on that channel.
 
azumanga said:
Of course, up until the early-1980s, many TVG editions, as well as other news listings, used "9" for WGN and "17" for WTBS, regardless of aerial availability or a different local station broadcasting on that channel.
Click to expand...

It was pretty much seen in TVG as (WGN) and (TBS) but early on they were (9C) and (17A).
 
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