Rochester, NY (February 2, 1975)

[Bluenoser]

from The Democrat & Chronicle via Newspapers.com

1 Pay TV
2 WGR-NBC Buffalo
3 (East only) WSYR-NBC Syracuse
4 WBEN-CBS Buffalo
5/6 Wild Card
7 WKBW-ABC Buffalo
8 WROC-CBS Rochester
9 WOR New York
10 WHEC-NBC Rochester
11 WPIX New York
12 Local Origination
13 WOKR-ABC Rochester
15 UPI & AP News
16 Channel Guide
18 Government Access
19 Public Access
20 Educational Access
21 WXXI-PBS Rochester
23 Sports Scoreboard
24 Sports Details
26 Recreational Weather
27 Regional Weather
30 Financial News

 

[itsTheRolyPoly]

15 UPI & AP News
16 Channel Guide
18 Government Access
19 Public Access
20 Educational Access
23 Sports Scoreboard
24 Sports Details
26 Recreational Weather
27 Regional Weather
30 Financial News

Look at all those channels you could've had in 1975 on cable. Wow. Information was certainly at their fingertips.

 

[KML0224]

Only one channel from Syracuse then? No channel 5 or 9? See nothing from Canada either.

 

[fybush]

from The Democrat & Chronicle via Newspapers.com

1 Pay TV
2 WGR-NBC Buffalo
3 (East only) WSYR-NBC Syracuse
4 WBEN-CBS Buffalo
5/6 Wild Card
7 WKBW-ABC Buffalo
8 WROC-CBS Rochester
9 WOR New York
10 WHEC-NBC Rochester
11 WPIX New York
12 Local Origination
13 WOKR-ABC Rochester
15 UPI & AP News
16 Channel Guide
18 Government Access
19 Public Access
20 Educational Access
21 WXXI-PBS Rochester
23 Sports Scoreboard
24 Sports Details
26 Recreational Weather
27 Regional Weather
30 Financial News

WROC was NBC and WHEC was CBS.

WIth a few minor changes (HBO on 14, ESPN on 20), this was essentially the lineup of People's Cable when it finally came down my suburban street in 1980. WTVH 5 from Syracuse had been added, and for a while we got CJOH-6 from Deseronto, Ontario and CBLFT 25 from Toronto. We never had CBC English here.

 

[KML0224]

Now I wonder how coverage was for WBNG-TV (CBS) channel 12 Binghamton? I think they were listed in the Syracuse Edition of TV Guide. I remember getting faint audio of theirs on an old Sony AM/FM/Weather/TV Walkman while on a day trip to Scranton, PA in June 2004.

 

[fybush]

Over the air, the WBNG analog coverage was about 60 miles, give or take terrain issues. It was the default CBS for the Elmira/Corning market until WENY added CBS as DT2, but you needed cable to see it in the valleys over there. It had plenty of overlap to the south with the Scranton stations and had cable carriage to the east well into the mountains. Oneonta still gets it on cable last I checked. Going down 17, the cutoff between Binghamton and NYC stations for cable and satellite is the Delaware/Sullivan county line.

 

[Bluenoser]

WROC was NBC and WHEC was CBS.

WIth a few minor changes (HBO on 14, ESPN on 20), this was essentially the lineup of People's Cable when it finally came down my suburban street in 1980. WTVH 5 from Syracuse had been added, and for a while we got CJOH-6 from Deseronto, Ontario and CBLFT 25 from Toronto. We never had CBC English here.

The earliest listing I could find was from 1982- the non network affiliate offering was:

5 WNEW New York
6 CJOH-CTV Ottawa
9 WOR New York
11 WPIX New York
14 HBO
17 WTBS Atlanta
22 USA Network
23 CNN
24 ESPN
26 Nickelodeon/ARTS
28 WSBK Boston

The paper also listed a TV6, using a white circle for its listings (Rochester stations used black bullets, with Buffalo/Syracuse Big 3 stations using a white bullet)...was that the American Cablevision local origination channel?

 

[fybush]

"TV6" wasn't cable at all! It was a one-channel subscription microwave service that installed an antenna on your house and a converter that made it show up on 6. They had their own schedule of movies. The office was downstairs from where my dentist at the time was located.

And until 1984, we had three cable providers in town. American had the city franchise, which was only activated in 1980, along with the town of Webster. People's Cable had the rest of the suburbs except for the Brockport area, which was Group W.

 

[Bluenoser]

Thanks for the info on TV6...that probably explains the D&C using a circle instead of a bullet...

 

[Prescott Joe]

Not much has changed with Rochester, NY ota stations except for WUHF, 31.
Surprised that WUTV, 29 Buffalo's independent at the time wasn't available......

 

[fybush]

Not much has changed with Rochester, NY ota stations except for WUHF, 31.
Surprised that WUTV, 29 Buffalo's independent at the time wasn't available......

It's weird, isn't it? WUTV was on the air in 1970 and was the only independent station in the state outside NYC until WUHF came on in 1980.

So why didn't it become a superstation?

My theory is that it was in the wrong place - the microwave system that brought in programming for upstate systems ran north and west from NYC (carrying WOR and WPIX) and wasn't set up to go in the other direction. The over the air signal wasn't great into Rochester even if our very limited cable system had wanted to pick it up that way, as it did for 2/4/7 from Buffalo.

There wasn't much sports on WUTV in comparison to WOR and WPIX, either. The Sabres didn't have the same appeal as Yankees and Mets games, and the Braves were on channel 4, which did have cable coverage into Rochester.

And WUTV didn't have much in the way of syndicated shows or movies that WOR and WPIX couldn't do better.

 

[crainbebo]

"Wild Card"? Were these selected programs from another market when a game show or soap opera was preempted for local programming?

 

[Bluenoser]

That would be my best guess, but maybe someone from the Kodak City may know more on that.

 

[IM42A]

"Wild Card"? Were these selected programs from another market when a game show or soap opera was preempted for local programming?

Evidently, yes. It was fairly common back in those days, to have a spare cable channel or channels, that would carry network programs blacked out in a given market. Cable companies would frequently pick network signals from adjacent markets to accomplish this.

I'm pretty sure they did this in Columbus, Ohio with WAKR from Akron for ABC and WTRF from Wheeling (don't recall which network they were affiliated with at the time, NBC or CBS). I think they did likewise with WJW from Cleveland, but my recall is less than 100% on that one. The Crosley/Avco stations (WLWC et al) were notorious for pre-emptions. The networks began to have more and more of an issue with pre-emptions, and nowadays it's comparatively uncommon in prime time. Fox has near-zero tolerance for it.