Silliest TV Station Slogan

[rwells2265]

> > if the snout is the nose, where would the viewfinder be?

> Since broadcast ENG cameras are designed to be carried on
> the shouldr, I would guess the viewfinder would stick out
> the left ear!

It wasn't a portable unit ... it was a modified studio camera mounted on a tripod. This according to a college classmate who interned at the station, and more than once had the honor of jockeying "Hog Eye 4." He told me the uprising among the field masses led to its demise (although I imagine channel 7's ridicule was also a factor).

 

[ntropolis]

> In Norfolk WTKR channel 3, I saw some old TV Guides from the
> 80s where they used the slogan "from the land of the 3" or
> something like it. I assume they used this on air.

I have a tape from 1989 with this... it was actually "Discover the Land of the 3". Their logo was a 3 with 3 stripes behind it... one red, one white, and one blue. How patriotic, WTKR. There are a couple promos on there and at the end of them it's "Discover Donahue, Weekdays at 4 on TV-3!"

WTKR's current slogan is "Your NewsChannel 3". Their legal ID's voiceover says "We're working hard to be Your NewsChannel 3!" Yeah, but not hard enough.

 

[DrBear]

One I forgot from Indy

Circa 1981 - WTHR, trying to bring up its reputation, came up with
"Newscenter 13 - the new tradition of excellence."

Hello oxymoron, Channel 13 loves you.

 

[bpatrick]

WTHR had my favorite promo for a networkaffiliation switch. When it lost ABC to WRTV,it ran ads in TV Guide saying, "We've graduated.We've mastered our ABCs. Now we're graduatingto NBC." Given NBC's sorry state at the time (1979),there wasn't much to "graduate" to, but as NBC'sratings and reputation improved in the '80s, thatad sounded even better to me in retrospect. Ithink you guys in Indy have said that WTHR is areal factor in that market even now.

 

[ixnay]

In Norfolk WTKR channel 3, I saw some old TV Guides from the 80s where they used the slogan "from the land of the 3" or something like it. I assume they used this on air.

WTKR did use that slogan to introduce their news when I vacationed in VA Beach in 1988.

Oh does anybody remember when local stations took the 1983 Taco tune "Puttin on the Ritz" and turned that into promos saying "puttin On The Hits". I believe Phuladelphia's WPHL-TV 17 did just that.

WPHL did, almost as soon as the Taco song became a hit. It was an apparent secondary slogan to WPHL's main slogan, which came with a jingle: "Seven-teen, Seven-teen, the Great Entertainerrrrrr." I was attending Kutztown University at the time and Kutztown's cable franchise carried the Philly stations plus WPIX-11 New York (itself an "11 Alive" at the time, which I may have already mentioned on this thread) and WOR-9 which moved its COL from NYC to Secaucus, NJ around that time (I may have already mentioned that too).ixnay

 

[ixnay]

How long did "e11even" last? Apparently, they wanted to be like the few channel 8s who were "ei8ht".

One of those "ei8ht"s was in Cleveland, apparently, back in 1970. One day that year my mother brought home the new TV Guide and my 9 year old mind couldn't figure out the unusual channel listings - until I noticed the list of channels. It was the Cleveland edition, which also included listings for Youngstown and Erie. And we lived in the Philadelphia suburbs. Apparently there had been a distribution snafu and I imagine some store in the Cleveland market wound up with a bundle of Philadelphia edition TV Guides.Gotta admit, though, I liked the "ei8ht" logo. Kinda cool. ixnay

 

[ixnay]

Ntropolis, I just read your post that WTKR used "Discover the Land of the 3". You're right, it was that. Thanks for jogging my memory. I actually liked that slogan. Wonder how it went over with navy guys, though. Not slogan related but WTKR related: While watching WTKR one night while in VA Beach, I saw a promo congratulating some WTKR personality, perhaps an anchorman, I didn't catch his name, on his 20 years with the station. They showed a pan across 20 years worth of WTKR memorabilia accompanied by a montage of hit songs spanning the era, beginning with Cream's "White Room" and ending with Bruce Hornsby's "The Way It Is".Back on topic... speaking of stations on channel 3, in around 1978, during my high school days, KYW-3 Phila. (then NBC, now CBS) branded itself "3 for All". Whether that qualifies as a silly slogan, is up to you. ixnay

 

[azumanga]

speaking of stations on channel 3, in around 1978, during my high school days, KYW-3 Phila. branded itself "3 for All". Whether that qualifies as a silly slogan, is up to you.

Tampa Bay PBS station WEDU ch.3 also had such a slogan in the early-1980s: "We're 3 For All".(Of course, being a PBS station, that's not entirely so (hint, hint).)

 

[toby]

WCBS' recent/current "CBS 2 is always on wcbstv.com".

 

[OldNumber7]

When I lived in Johnstown, Pa. in 1985, the really low-budget UHF indy WFAT-TV had an ID slide that said "We're FAT." To my knowledge, this was never explained.

 

[DoctorBear]

WCBS' recent/current "CBS 2 is always on wcbstv.com".

CBS News and all of the CBS-owned stations are using that - they've made upgrades in their Web sites, with the smaller stations getting full-time Web people to constantly update news instead of just putting the nightly headlines on the site.

 

[FreddyE1977]

When I lived in Johnstown, Pa. in 1985, the really low-budget UHF indy WFAT-TV had an ID slide that said "We're FAT." To my knowledge, this was never explained.

And before WFAT it was WJNL.....for "J and L Steel". I presume?I remember watching this station in the mid-80's, when they used the slogan "We're Fattening Up our Programming for You!"(their programming at the time consisted largely of 60's era reruns...Beverly Hillbillies, Hawaii Five-O, etc. Suited me fine, butnot sure what was "FAT" about it!) This station has since had it's City of License shifted to Jeanette, PA, where it servesthe Pittsburgh market as "UPN Pittsburgh"....but the transmitter is still up in Johnstown, so off the air it does not come in anybetter than when it was WFAT.

 

[desertv]

Seems that back in the 70s and 80s, a lot of stations liked to attach adjectives to their channel numbers. There's, of course, "11 Alive", which is still used to this day on WXIA/Atlanta. I've always thought, "If you're not 11 Alive, then are you 11 Dead?" Its sister station in Phoenix - KTAR (now KPNX) was called "12 Alive" before the Gannett merger (Both were owned by Combined Comm.)

 

[JPKirby]

WCSH in Portland ME used to be "6 Alive". I kept on thinking of some 80-year-old saying "gracious sakes alive!"

 

[Charles1]

WIAT-42 in Birmingham: "It's About Time". Time for what---to change channels to either WBRC or WCFT/WJSU/WBMA? To go to the bathroom?

 

[rwells2265]

WIAT-42 in Birmingham: "It's About Time". Time for what---to change channels to either WBRC or WCFT/WJSU/WBMA? To go to the bathroom?

What is WVTM? Chopped lettuce?? (Speaking of WVTM "NBC-13", their slogan -- "We've Got You Covered" -- flirts with silliness)But I have the answer here, straight from the mountaintop (Double Oak Mountain): IT'S ABOUT TIME ... TO BRING BACK LIVE, IN-STUDIO WRESTLING! -S. BREWERI'd say Sgt. Jack and Tommy Charles would agree, don't you? ;D--Russell

 

[sdwulfdawg]

One slogan I really liked was when i still lived in Portland, OR twenty years ago and the ABC-TV affiliate (KATU Channel 2) used "K-2...Your Station On The Move!" KUSI-TV Channel 9/51 (San Diego) still uses "More Local News Station."I was disappointed when the local San Diego CBS Affiliate dropped, "Right Here Right Now" about a year or two ago. Their jingles were pretty neat.KGTV-TV Channel 10 still uses "Your Local News Leader" when they really aren't.

 

[FreddyE1977]

I noticed just last evening that UPN Pittsburgh is still using "Your Only TRULY Local Newscast" to promote their 10PM News.When Viacom acquired that station, KDKA-TV2 started producing a 10PM newscast for them. WPGH-TV53 had been running the "News Central" 10PM newscast, of which more than half was produced in Maryland. I presume that is when UPN started running the promo. But earlier this year they pulled the plug on News Central, and 53 outsourced it's 10PM News to WPXI-TV11, which is "Truly Local". Despite that Viacom continues to run the promo.

 

[disney fanatic]

There's, of course, "11 Alive", which is still used to this day on WXIA/Atlanta.

I remember WPIX-TV used to have the "11 Alive" name as a symbol of a New York City station from 1976 until 1986. I remember WOR-TV used to have the slogan "9 On the Move". I also remember WPIX-TV used to have the slogan for movie packages as "New York's Movie Station". I remember that slogan ran for channel 11 for years before the fledgling WB kicked off in 1995.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

> >
> Seems that back in the 70s and 80s, a lot of stations liked
> to attach adjectives to their channel numbers. There's, of
> course, "11 Alive", which is still used to this day on
> WXIA/Atlanta. I've always thought, "If you're not 11 Alive,
> then are you 11 Dead?" I also remember hearing ones like
> "Solid 6" (WDBO/Orlando, now WKMG), "Active 8" (WQAD/Quad
> Cities), etc.

For a time in the late '70s, WMBD-31 Peoria (CBS) went by the moniker "31 Alive."

The Moline/Quad Cities ABC affiliate, WQAD's, use of Active 8 as their nickname (starting as early as 1978) lasted well into the '90s (according to the station history section of WQAD's website, it was 1995 when Active 8 changed to "NewsChannel 8"). But I had thought that name was discontinued a few years before then.