• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Stations that changed their channel assignments

G

genius

How many stations have changed their channel assignments? I know in Miami WTVJ went from channel 4 to channel 6 and WCIX went from to channel 6 to channel 4 becoming WFOR during the time of all those network switches in 1995. Also in Albuquerque KGSW went from channel 14 to channel 2 in 1992, shortly afterward becoming KASA.

Any others?
 
I don't know all the details but there were major changes in upstate N. Y. in the late 50's & 60's What I do know WHAM -TV in Rochester started out on Ch 6, in the 1940's then dropped down to ch 5 in the 50's and then up to ch. 8 in the 60's- more on that later. WKTV in Utica dropped from ch 13 to ch 2 in the late 50's to make room
for drop in ch 13's in Albany and Rochester. In Albany, ch 35 (WAST)was able to move down to 13, in Rochester it was a new station (WOKR, now WHAM-TV). Then a couple years later WHEN (now WTVH) CH 8, Syracuse and WROC ch 5 in Rochester swapped channels and then Ch. 9 was dropped into Syracuse (WNYS, then WIXT now WSYR-TV). Now because of all this there was additional fall out in neighboring states and in in Canada. ??? ???
 
genius said:
How many stations have changed their channel assignments? I know in Miami WTVJ went from channel 4 to channel 6 and WCIX went from to channel 6 to channel 4 becoming WFOR during the time of all those network switches in 1995. Also in Albuquerque KGSW went from channel 14 to channel 2 in 1992, shortly afterward becoming KASA.

Any others?
Click to expand...

A whole bunch, especially in the '50s and early '60s when a lot of UHFs shifted from upper to lower channels. Some VHFs went to UHF and some UHFs went to VHF

For starters:

WWLP Springfield MA - Ch. 61 to 22
WHYN-TV Springfield MA - Ch. 55 to 40 (Now WGGB)
WMOT-TV Adams MA - Ch. 74 to 19 (Now WCDC)
WFMJ-TV Youngstown OH - Ch. 73 to 21
WLOK-TV Lima OH - Ch. 73 to 35 (Later WIMA-TV, now WLIO)
WHIZ-TV Zanesville OH - Ch. 50 to 18
WFAM-TV Lafayette IN - Ch. 59 to 18
WFIE-TV Evansville IN - Ch. 62 to 14
WEHT Evansville IN - Ch. 50 to 25
WEEK-TV Peoria IL - Ch. 43 to 25
WVEC-TV Norfolk VA - Ch. 15 to 13
KPTV Portland OR - Ch. 27 to 12
WKAR-TV E. Lansing MI - Ch. 60 to 10 (as WMSB) to 23
WTVI St. Louis MO - Ch. 54 to 36 to 2 (now KTVI)
WWTV Cadillac MI - Ch. 13 to 9
WNAM-TV Neenah, WI - Ch. 42 to 5 (now WFRV-TV Green Bay)
WNDU-TV 46 South Bend IN - Ch. 46 to 16
WSBT-TV 34 South Bend IN - Ch. 34 to 22
WSJV Elkhart IN - Ch. 52 to 28
WTTV Bloomington IN - Ch. 10 to 4 (and a couple dozen others that changed channels post-freeze)
WBGU-TV Bowling Green OH - Ch. 70 to 57 to 27
WHYY Philadelphia/Wilmington DE - Ch. 35 to 12
WROW-TV Albany NY - Ch. 41 to 10 (Now WTEN)
WAKR-TV Akron OH - Ch. 49 to 23 (Now WYPX)

And there's probably a whole lot more than that.
 
WMTV Madison, Wisconsin: 33 to 15 (the current 33 allocation is a low-powered TBN affiliate)
WTVO Rockford, Illinois: 39 to 17 (the current 39 allocation is now the current sister to WTVO, WQRF)
WTMJ Milwaukee: 3 to 4 (the 3 allocation was freed up to eventually go to Madison and WISC)
WBBM Chicago: 4 to 2 (4 went to Milwaukee's WTMJ, in relation to interference issues with West Michigan's WKZO [now WWMT] and WTMJ)
 
WMUM (formerly WDCO), Cochran-Macon, Ga., 15 to 29
WKCF, Clermont-Orlando, Fla., 68 to 18
WMYD (formerly WXON), Detroit, Mich., 62 to 20
WTXX (formerly WATR), Waterbury, Conn., 53 to 20
WVTV (formerly WOKY/WXIX), Milwaukee, Wisc., 19 to 18
WHP, Harrisburg, Pa., 55 to 21
KXAN (formerly KHFI/KTVV), Austin, Tex., 42 to 36
WVUE (formerly WJMR), New Orleans, La., 61 to 20 to 12 to 13 back to 12 to 8
KERO, Bakersfield, Cal., 10 to 23
KFSN (formerly KFRE), Fresno, Cal., 12 to 30
 
WVTV/18 Milwaukee (formerly WOKY-TV/WXIX Channel 19)
WPWR/50 Gary, IN/Chicago (formerly WPWR/60 Aurora, IL; there are some clips of WPWR's "60" logo on YouTube)
KQEG/23 La Crescent, MN/La Crosse, WI (formerly KQEG/50)
 
In South Carolina:

In 1961, WNOK-TV, Columbia (now WLTX), moved from 67 to 19

In 1963, WBTW-TV, Florence moved from 8 to 13, to make way for WGHP/8 in Greensboro NC
 
WVLT (formerly WTVK/WKXT), Knoxville, Tenn., 26 to 8
WTVQ (formerly WBLG), Lexington, Ky., 62 to 36
WVAH, Charleston, W. Va., 23 to 11
WEYI (formerly WKNX), Saginaw-Flint, Mich., 57 to 25
WOI, Ames-Des Moines, Ia., 4 to 5
KBTC (formerly KTPS), Tacoma-Seattle, Wash., 62 to 28
KCSM, San Mateo-San Francisco, Cal., 14 to 60
KDTV, San Francisco, Cal., 60 to 14
WICD, Champaign, Ill., 24 to 15
WAFF (formerly WMSL), Huntsville-Decatur, Alab., 23 to 48
KWQC (formerly WOC), Davenport, Ia., 5 to 6
WPCW (formerly WARD/WJNL), Jeanette-Pittsburgh-Johnstown, Pa., 56 to 19
WFIE, Evansville, Ind., 62 to 14
KFTA (formerly KLMN/KPOM), Fort Smith, Ark., ?? to 24
WYTV (formerly WKST), Youngstown, Oh.-New Castle, Pa., 45 to 33
KDLT (formerly KORN/KXON), Sioux Falls, S.D., 5 to 46
 
One could make a distinction among several categories here...

You've got a number of stations that literally changed channels, taking an existing license and relocating it to a different spot on the dial. Most of these were in the fairly distant past - WHAM-TV/WROC-TV here in Rochester going from 6 to 5 to 8 as the allocations in the region were refined, or WLOK-TV/WIMA-TV/WLIO moving from 73 to 35 as the FCC figured out how to make UHF work.

Then you've got channel swaps, where two existing licensees exchanged their licenses. In some cases (WTVJ/WFOR-WCIX), this was made to look as though "WTVJ moved from 4 to 6," but in reality the former WTVJ channel 4 license went to CBS as WFOR-TV, operating from the former WCIX studios, while the former WCIX channel 6 license went to NBC and took the WTVJ calls and the former channel 4 studios. KCSM/KDTV is another example of this.

And then you've got the just plain weird ones. In the case of KDLT in Sioux Falls, what actually happened was this: the former KORN-TV 5 Mitchell SD, 60 miles or so west of Sioux Falls, edged itself into the Sioux Falls market (as KDLT) with a new tower halfway between the two cities and studios in Sioux Falls. But it remained a Mitchell license, and that kept it from getting any closer. So at some point in the early 90s, the owners put a brand-new channel 46 on the air in Sioux Falls, moving the KDLT calls to that license and returning channel 5 to its old site closer to Mitchell, under the calls KDLV.

Someone ought to do a website summarizing all of these changes...just like someone really ought to do a definitive affiliation-changes website. But then what would we talk about here every couple of months when one thread or the other rolls around?
 
Gatorman said:
KBTC (formerly KTPS), Tacoma-Seattle, Wash., 62 to 28
Click to expand...

In the same market, the other Tacoma public TV station also did a channel swap, albeit several years earlier.

Originally, Tacoma two UHF public TV stations, KPEC/56 and KTPS/62. In 1975, the school district that owned KPEC bought the license of a bankrupt commercial TV station (KTVW) on channel 13 in Tacoma, and moved KPEC's programming to that channel. In the process, they changed their call letters to KCPQ.

Several years later, channel 13 returned to commercial service (still under the KCPQ call letters, which it has to this day) -- but the conversion of the station to commercial operation generated major controversy over the potential loss of public TV service to southwest Washington viewers who couldn't receive KCTS/9 in Seattle or the fairly weak KTPS/62 signal. In order to smooth over the controversy, channel 13's new owners offered to pay for an upgrade to KTPS/62. The proposal was to move KTPS to channel 20, but they settled for 28 when the initial proposal got hit by competing applicants at the FCC. Around the same time, KTPS was able to launch a satellite station on channel 15 in Centralia (KCKA).
 
Do LPTV stations count in this discussion? Because in Los Angeles, where I live, the LPTVs moved around the TV dial a lot. For example:

1. KNET-LP started out on Channel 38 (now KPXN-30's digital channel); now it's on Channel 25.

2. KNLA-LP started out on Channel 68 (now KRCA-62's digital channel), then moved down to Channel 67 (now the STA home of KHTV-LP, actually licensed to 48, having been displaced by KOCE-50's digital channel); now KNLA-LP is on Channel 27.

3. KSFV-LP started out on Channel 26 (now KVCR-24's digital channel); now it's on Channel 6.

4. Early this month, the Almavision (a Spanish-language religious network) affiliation moved from Channel 55 (which was translator K55KD) to Channel 57 (whereupon it took on the callsign K57KF), due to the fact that 55 was plagued by transmitter problems.
 
Two changes in Cleveland:

WNBK (now WKYC) from 4 to 3 in 1954.
WXEL (now WJW) from 9 to 8 in 1953.

The WXEL change was made because of a power increase on Channel 8 and WSTV/Steubenville signing on Channel 9. WNBK's change was made to avoid interference with WDIV in Detroit and possibly WCMH in Columbus.


Two changes in Atlanta involving the same channel:

WSB from 8 to 2.
WLWA (now WXIA) from 8 to 11.

In 1950, Cox Enterprises, owner of WSB and The Atlanta Constitution, purchased The Atlanta Journal, then owner of WCON/2. Cox moved Channel 8's operations to Channel 2. In 1951, WLTV signed on Channel 8. In 1953, the WLTV moved to Channel 11 and became WLWA. This occurred because the FCC allocated Channel 8 as non-commercial, even though WGTV did not sign on until 1960.
 
Buddy Hayes said:
WSIX (now WKRN) in Nashville flipped from Ch. 8 to Ch. 2 sometime in the 70s, swapping with the PBS station.
Click to expand...

I believe something similar happened in New Orleans around 1970 with the local ABC affilliate, WVUE, flipping with WYES, the PBS station. Channels 8 and 12 were involved, with ABC going to 8, PBS to 12, if memory serves.
 
In Chicago, WOCH-LP 28 was forced off of 28 due to WTMJ in Milwaukee taking 28 for their HD channel. Since WOCH had -LP after their call letters, they were forced off that channel. They eventually found ch. 41 available, and became a Class A station, so they won't lose their channel, even if another full power station wanted 41. WOCH-CA now has protection on 41.
WFBT-CA was on ch. 23 in Chicago, after WCIU 26 lost their Univision afilliation due to Univision buying WGBO 66. WCIU decided to become an independent English speaking programmed station, and moved their ethnic programming to the then new station on 23. After getting a boost in power, becoming the most powerful low power station, they decided to move the ethnic programming again, to another station on 48, which was licensed to Blue Island IL (I believe the COL has since been moved to Chicago), and 23 now airs classic TV programs (similar to TV Land), and the call letters are WWME-CA, with the WFBT-CA calls on 48.
WMWB-LP was on 69 in South Bend Indiana, but Weigel Broadcasting moved the call letters to 25. That station has since become the CW affiliate, and the call letters are now WCWW.
When WSJV switched from ABC to Fox in 1995, Weigel also got ABC back on the air in South Bend on 58 as WBND-LP. Since WSJV has their digital channel on 58, WBND-LP was forced to find another channel, and they moved 1 channel up to 57. They'll have to find another channel once analog is turned off, as well as their current channel WMYS-LP 69, which is the My Network affiliate. In that case, who knows if Weigel will be able to get any full power stations for the South Bend market.
I didn't include the full power South Bend stations as they were already covered in a previous reply.
 
Scott Fybush said:
Someone ought to do a website summarizing all of these changes...just like someone really ought to do a definitive affiliation-changes website. But then what would we talk about here every couple of months when one thread or the other rolls around?
Click to expand...

If Meredith would pay me to maintain my website, I'd do it<grin>...

From the 1950 Vane Jones, stations that have moved since then:

AL Birmingham WBRC-4 (now 6)
CT New Haven WNHC-6 (now WTNH-8)
FL Jacksonville WJAX-2 (CP only; now WTLV?)
GA Atlanta WSB-8 (now 2)
IN Bloomington WTTV-10 (now 4)
IA Ames WOI-4 (now 5)
IA Davenport WOC-5 (now KWQC-6)
KY Louisville WAVE-5 (now 3)
KY Louisville WHAS-9 (now 11)
MI Grand Rapids WLAV-7 (now WOOD-8)
NY Schenectady WRGB-4 (now 6)
NY Rochester WHAM-6 (now WROC-8?)
NY Syracuse WHEN-8 (now WIXT-9)
NY Utica WKTV-13 (now 2)
OH Cincinnati WLWT-4 (now 5)
OH Cincinnati WKRC-11 (now 12)
OH Cincinnati WCPO-7 (now 9)
OH Cleveland WXEL-9 (now WJW-8)
OH Cleveland WNBK-4 (now WKYC-3)
OH Columbus WLWC-3 (now WCMH-4)
OH Dayton WLWD-5 (now WDTN-2)
OH Dayton WHIO-13 (now 7)
PA Johnstown WJAC-13 (now 6)
PA Lancaster WGAL-4 (now 8)
PA Pittsburgh WDTV-3 (now KDKA-2)
RI Providence WJAR-11 (now 10)
TN Memphis WMCT-4 (now WMC-5)
VA Norfolk WTAR-4 (now WTKR-3)
WV Huntington WSAZ-5 (now 3)
WI Milwaukee WTMJ-3 (now 4)

In Canada, CBLT moved from 9 to 6 to 5 and CITY-79 to 57. And CKVU from 21 to 10.

I would respectfully suggest we keep away from LPTVs: the FCC has granted 289 channel displacements alone since the beginning of the DTV transition. That doesn't count LPTVs that changed channel for other reasons...
 
RE: WTVQ Lexington

The station started at Channel 62 as WBLG and changed calls in 1974. The move to Channel 36 happened in June 1980 and included the dismantling and erection of a new tower. The reallocation of Channel 62 was part of a long legal battle between two companies and the frequency finally returned to the air in 1988 as WLKT. The station was doomed from the start with technical problems. The most notable was the STL antenna wasn’t high enough to reach the transmitter site. The STL tower was raised in a cost effective way and it looked like it. Other problems included audio and video issues but what killed WLKT less than a year later was the lack of revenue and programming. WDKY had signed on the air in 1986 and had Fox and established itself leaving WLKT with very little potential revenue. When the money ran out the transmitter was shut down less than a year after sign on. Channel 62 returned to the air as a LPTV but a few CP still exist to reestablish a full power signal.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom