Retro:WHIZ-TV Channel 18 Zanesville, Ohio Friday, December 1, 1967

[Tim L]

7AM Today (c)
(News-7:25/8:25)
9AM Fugitive
10AM Snap Judgment(c)
10:25 NBC News (c)
10:30 Concentration(c)
11AM Personality(c)
11:30 Hollywood Squares(c)
Noon Everybody's Talking
12:30 Donna Reed
1PM Dream Girl
1:25 Doctors Housecall
1:30 Let's Make A Deal(c)
2PM Days Of Our Lives(c)
2:30 Doctors(c)
3PM Another World(c)
3:30 You Don't Say(c)
4PM Match Game(c)
4:25 NBC News(c)
4:30 George Of The Jungle
5PM Santa Claus
5:30 Dating Game
6PM WHIZ-TV Reports
6:30 Huntley-Brinkley(c)
7PM Rifleman
7:30 Tarzan(c)
8:30 Star Trek(c)
9:30 Accidental Family(c)
10PM Same Men, Same Blood-NBC News Special
11PM Late News
11:10 Weather Ahead
11:15 Sports Final
11:25 Doctors Housecall
11:30 Tonight(c)

Source:Zanesville Times-Recorder..While Zanesville could receive Columbus or Huntington/Charleston TV Over the air at this point, WHIZ appears to be the only station carried in the Zanesville paper..
It said here that WHIZ carried NBC/ABC/CBS, though Ive never seen a CBS program in their listings..Anything NBC was in color, while anything ABC or local was in Black and White..

"(c)Indicates program broadcast in Living Color! You haven't
really seen Television until you've seen Color TV"

Blurb at the bottom of the ad for WHIZ

 

[azumanga]

While Zanesville could receive Columbus or Huntington/Charleston TV Over the air at this point, WHIZ appears to be the only station carried in the Zanesville paper..

I think Zanesville most likely would've gotten stations from Wheeling / Steubenville, which is closer than Charleston or Huntington.

 

[Tim L]

While Zanesville could receive Columbus or Huntington/Charleston TV Over the air at this point, WHIZ appears to be the only station carried in the Zanesville paper..

I think Zanesville most likely would've gotten stations from Wheeling / Steubenville, which is closer than Charleston or Huntington.

You may well be right on that. At that time (late 1960's) I had relatives that lived in Southern Ohio in both Zanesville and the Athens area..As I recall, Athens did receive Huntington/Charleston stations. I may have gotten the two communities confused..

 

[FreddyE1977]

While Zanesville could receive Columbus or Huntington/Charleston TV Over the air at this point, WHIZ appears to be the only station carried in the Zanesville paper..

I think Zanesville most likely would've gotten stations from Wheeling / Steubenville, which is closer than Charleston or Huntington.

You may well be right on that. At that time (late 1960's) I had relatives that lived in Southern Ohio in both Zanesville and the Athens area..As I recall, Athens did receive Huntington/Charleston stations. I may have gotten the two communities confused..

I recall reading someplace that WHIZ TV and Radio and the local newspaper had common ownership.
Probably why they were the only station listed. For sure they could get Wheeling/Steubenville and
perhaps even a Columbus station or two.

 

[bpatrick]

Zanesville is 55 miles from Columbus, 58 from
Athens, 70 from Wheeling, and 205 from Huntington;
I don't recall WHIZ's being listed in any TV Guide edition
except Columbus, and I don't think it's likely that Charleston/
Huntington came in there. However, I think you'd have no
trouble picking up at least 4 and 6 from Columbus (10 I'm
not so sure about), and 7 from Wheeling. As for Athens,
Ch. 3 from Huntington should have come in pretty clearly
(about 85-90 miles, about the distance WBTV's analog
signal traveled into the North Carolina mountains and it, too,
is on Ch. 3); Ch. 13 might if its transmitter is high enough
above ground (again, WLOS's transmitter put its OTA signal
into six states, and it too was on analog 13); Ch. 8, being in
Charleston, I don't know about.

 

[Hal Erickson]

Shortly after my family moved from Cincinnati in 1961, the Southern Ohio edition of TV GUIDE began listing WHIZ and also the station in Lima, Ohio. Previously this edition listed only Cincinnati, Dayton and Columbus.
I don't know how long this was in effect. I do know that when I visited Cincinnati again in 1974, TV GUIDE's listings included only Cincinnati and Dayton.

 

[Mr. Mike]

Shortly after my family moved from Cincinnati in 1961, the Southern Ohio edition of TV GUIDE began listing WHIZ and also the station in Lima, Ohio. Previously this edition listed only Cincinnati, Dayton and Columbus.
I don't know how long this was in effect. I do know that when I visited Cincinnati again in 1974, TV GUIDE's listings included only Cincinnati and Dayton.

It would have probably lasted until sometime between 1970 and 1973, because by 1974 the Columbus area had its own edition of TV Guide. The Columbus edition, unless I'm mistaken, would've likely included listings for Zanesville's WHIZ-TV. So in a matter of speaking, bpatrick was right with regard to WHIZ being listed only in the Columbus edition.

 

[bpatrick]

Right. Columbus carried only Columbus and (I believe)
Zanesville; Cincinnati had Cincinnati and Dayton listings;
Dayton had all three, plus (IIRC) WLIO/35 Lima at one time.
The Athens PBS station, WOUB/20, was listed in the West
Virginia edition.

 

[azumanga]

Dayton had all three, plus (IIRC) WLIO/35 Lima at one time.

In 1982, WLIO would move from Dayton to the new Toledo-Lima edition, which featured the Toledo stations that was split off from the Detroit edition.

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

I wonder when WHIZ got local color, as the news was listed without (c) next to it here.

I would suspect distance alone would make Columbus the area's source for other TV, particularly when cable took hold.

 

[classictvfan]

What are other notable small televison markets
caught between larger television markets?

 

[fortmill]

What are other notable small televison markets
caught between larger television markets?

Right down the road from Zanesville is Parkersburg WV/Marietta OH, a similar sized market with 1 UHF (WTAP/15) NBC station, however WTAP has added FOX and CW subchannels. WHIZ seems to be about the only one station market not to have added a subchannel or two.

 

[azumanga]

WHIZ seems to be about the only one station market not to have added a subchannel or two.

Though they originally operated cable-only WB and CW outlets in Zanesville and Parkersburg -- this ended in 2008 when they were replaced by CW stations in Columbus or Portsmouth.

 

[classictvfan]

WHIZ seems to be about the only one station market not to have added a subchannel or two.

Though they originally operated cable-only WB and CW outlets in Zanesville and Parkersburg -- this ended in 2008 when they were replaced by CW stations in Columbus or Portsmouth.

The CW affiliate in Portsmouth actually serves the Huntington-Charleston market

 

[wrsg915fm]

Can anyone comment on the overall quality of WHIZ? For many years, WTAP was not considered on the cutting edge of technology. However, for a small-market station, they seem to be doing fairly well. I've missed viewing them since this past February, when our cable system pulled up stakes. We get several locals via Dish, but 'TAP isn't one of them.

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

Can anyone comment on the overall quality of WHIZ? For many years, WTAP was not considered on the cutting edge of technology. However, for a small-market station, they seem to be doing fairly well. I've missed viewing them since this past February, when our cable system pulled up stakes. We get several locals via Dish, but 'TAP isn't one of them.

I haven't seen WHIZ for a long time, but I imagine it looks about the same as your standard micro market TV newscast. (Top story: Burger King Renovations! No, I'm not making that up: http://www.whiznews.com/content/news/local/2010/12/04/burger-king-renovations)

(OK, so I have no idea if it's their top story )

'TAP got a major tech upgrade when Gray came in. I remember the station when I was visiting the region with my then-girlfriend in the mid-1980s...a single anchor at a table, no set, who had to move the camera himself, and did so on the air!

 

[azumanga]

'TAP got a major tech upgrade when Gray came in. I remember the station when I was visiting the region with my then-girlfriend in the mid-1980s...a single anchor at a table, no set, who had to move the camera himself, and did so on the air!

I saw an episode of "Real People" around 1979-1980, which featured KYUS in Miles City, Montana having a similar setup -- an anchor doing an entire news plus cameraman work, all by himself. (KYUS has since become a satellite of KULR in Billings.)

 

[mleach]

'TAP got a major tech upgrade when Gray came in. I remember the station when I was visiting the region with my then-girlfriend in the mid-1980s...a single anchor at a table, no set, who had to move the camera himself, and did so on the air!

I saw an episode of "Real People" around 1979-1980, which featured KYUS in Miles City, Montana having a similar setup -- an anchor doing an entire news plus cameraman work, all by himself. (KYUS has since become a satellite of KULR in Billings.)

Around the same time as that episode of "Real People", TV Guide did a story on the debut of KCWY-TV 14 in Casper, Wyoming which was similar only in their case they did have a weatherman.

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

The anchor/cameraman thing was probably common among tiny stations in that era, but I'll never forget the guy actually GETTING UP FROM THE DESK on the air, and moving the camera while the show was still going on!

 

[Ultimajock]

'TAP got a major tech upgrade when Gray came in. I remember the station when I was visiting the region with my then-girlfriend in the mid-1980s...a single anchor at a table, no set, who had to move the camera himself, and did so on the air!

I saw an episode of "Real People" around 1979-1980, which featured KYUS in Miles City, Montana having a similar setup -- an anchor doing an entire news plus cameraman work, all by himself. (KYUS has since become a satellite of KULR in Billings.)

Around the same time as that episode of "Real People", TV Guide did a story on the debut of KCWY-TV 14 in Casper, Wyoming which was similar only in their case they did have a weatherman.

...there had even been a syndicated sitcom in the late '70s, Please Stand By, in which a family tried to run a UHF station in rural New Mexico all by themselves. Most of the storylines sounded like these outfits...