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Shortest-Lived TV Stations?

J

Joey1986

What are (were) some TV stations that only existed for a short time? I'm talking maybe one to three years at most, and did not return to the air in any way, shape, or form (such as under different owners, call letters, etc.). And I'm only counting actual licenses, not applications or construction permits. And yes, LPs, CAs, and translators also count, but again, only actual licenses.

As I mentioned in another thread, KKOG channel 16 in Ventura, CA, lasted only nine months. That's the only one in my market that never returned to the air at all. As stated in that same thread, the frequency corresponding to UHF channel 16 is now used for mobile radio in Los Angeles.

How about other posters? What stations win the prize for shortest existence in your respective markets? Discuss!
 
are you talking type of programming or the station itself?? cause here in Boston whub aired a retro type schedule which didn't last long at all!!
 
...WOSH-TV/48 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Lasted only 8 months on the air from July 1953 to March 1954. ABC primary and NBC secondary (news only) affiliation. The equipment was transferred to WMBV/11 Marinette (now WLUK Green Bay) to start that station...
 
...the only network O&O to suffer this fate was KCTY/25 Kansas City -- June 1953 to February 1954. One of DuMont's very few primary affiliates, DuMont itself bought the station in December 1953 to try to keep it afloat, but pulled the plug after only a couple of months. Slightly more successful was the first CBS primary affiliate in Milwaukee, WCAN-TV/25, which operated from September 1953 to February 1955; when CBS bought independent WOKY-TV/19 and pulled the affiliation from WCAN, station owner Lou Poller simply sold CBS the physical plant for WCAN to CBS, which it used to operate the renamed WXIX/19...
 
WROV-TV 27 in Roanoke lasted three months.

- Trip
 
I don't have the exact dates but one of the first UHF station's in the South, WETV went on the air in 1953 in Macon, Ga. Before it went off a year or so later, the calls had changed first to WOKA then WNEX. All three calls are still in use but the station is a fading, distant memory.
 
WKNA, Charleston, West Virginia in the early-mid 1950s. A very interesting backstory on this one. And, yes, it was UHF and very-low-powered in a hilly terrain, which meant it was doomed from the start.
 
WJJY-TV served the Springfield, Ill. market from 1969-71. To my knowledge the channel 14 allotment was never returned to the air.
 
WXPO TV 50, licensed to Lowell, MA and serving Eastern MA and Southern NH, was on the air for only 9 months, from October 1969 to June 1970. Look up WXPO in Wikipedia for more information.
 
This one may not qualify for this thread, because I believe it was sold and continued....but....

I wonder if there's any info about WFCB 45 Miami, before it became WHFT under LeSea/Lester Sumrall, then TBN. I wanna say that Pat Boone had a hand in WFCB, along with KPAZ 21 Phoenix.

The thing was only on air, I'd say, 3 hours a day, 5 days a week, around 1975.

You could add WMLB 35 Miami as well, 1992ish---now ION. Very little programming, mainly I think public domain movies. It changed call letters to WDLP in '92....I'd say its biggest "coup" was WCIX 6's LMA (or whatever you'd call it) of WDLP to serve parts of south Miami that WCIX could not reach, after Hurricane Andrew knocked down the main transmitter.

If these don't count, sorry. Just was curious.

cd
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
WJJY-TV served the Springfield, Ill. market from 1969-71. To my knowledge the channel 14 allotment was never returned to the air.
Click to expand...

Channel 14 did indeed return to the air in 1984 as WJPT (now WSEC), the "flagship" for the regional PBS "Network Knowledge" group of stations (also including WQEC-27 Quincy and WMEC-22 Macomb plus an analog channel 8 tranny in Springfield) serving parts of central and western Illinois. The former WJJY transmitter was toppled in an ice storm on Easter Sunday 1978 (the same storm also toppled the tower of WAND-17 Decatur).
 
The first incarnation of WWAC-TV, Channel 53 in Atlantic City, NJ as a low-budget
independent station. It lasted less than a year in the early 80's.
 
WICA/15 Ashtabula OH.

The one-time sister TV station of what's now WFUN/970 and WREO/97.1 lasted under 3 years in its first run in the 1950s, and a year and a half when it rose from the dead in the 1960s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WICA-TV

It went dark, and never eventually became a non-comm station as apparently envisioned the second time around.
 
trapper12 said:
WLKT channel 62 in Lexington Ky. Lasted less than a year.
Click to expand...

This one is unique among the stations we're discussing here, in that it was deleted (not sold to someone else) -- and in that it went defunct in the (late) 1980s.
 
Here in Denver, that would be ANYTHING on Channels 31 & 50 before KDVR (Fox) & KCEC (Univision) (Respectively) came along as well as anything after that which is no longer on the air

Cheers :D
 
Tim from Springfield said:
PTBoardOp94 said:
WJJY-TV served the Springfield, Ill. market from 1969-71. To my knowledge the channel 14 allotment was never returned to the air.
Click to expand...

Channel 14 did indeed return to the air in 1984 as WJPT (now WSEC)... The former WJJY transmitter was toppled in an ice storm on Easter Sunday 1978 (the same storm also toppled the tower of WAND-17 Decatur).
Click to expand...

And it was because of that that WSEC's sign on was delayed by a few years, as they were counting on using that title for transmission. In stead, they used three lower-powered transmitters and a repeater to cover only a fraction of what WJJY used to cover.
 
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