I decided to start a new thread to add this comment. The Courier Journal customized editions to different portions of Kentucky. I have seen an edition of the C/J that included all those channels. However, the majority of Kentucky received an edition that included Louisville and channels relevant to the edition.
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The Mother of All Television Listings Comment
- Thread starter radiorob2.0
- Start date
radiorob2.0 said:
Around 1980, I bought a copy of the C-J while our family was dining at a restaurant in Renfro Valley, south of Lexington -- my copy had the statewide listings as presented here (though with some channel additions and changes since 1974). The edition that only had the Louisville channels was mainly distributed in the Louisville area.
Awhile back in the 1990s, the Tampa library downtown had copies of the C-J available to look at -- the daily editions had the statewide listings, while the TV magazine in the Sunday edition only had Louisville's.
Also, when was WCYB and WKPT added to the listings? I recall the C-J having them at some point, but it was not mentioned here.
azumanga said:
WCYB was listed in 1974; I put them in part four (you have to scroll down past the Knoxville listings). As for ABC affil WKPT, I have no idea. As a UHF, its signal reach probably was not strong enough to reach any part of Kentucky but the extreme southeast corner (around Middlesboro and the Cumberland Gap area). The C-J primarily listed VHF stations; out of the 33 stations in the listing, only 12 were UHF (including all transmitters of Kentucky Educational Television, which I counted as one station for my purposes here).
As a side note, the copy I have was purchased by my maternal grandparents, who were on vacation visiting the Ellis Park horse track in Henderson, Kentucky, across the river from Evansville, Indiana. They also bought a copy or two of the Evansville newspaper, which had a similar spread of regional stations, albeit smaller than the C-J. The listings there included Louisville, Nashville, Paducah/Cape Girardeau/Harrisburg, Terre Haute, and even St. Louis (KSDK).
The C/J for "The Golden Triangle" (within I-71, I-64, and I-75 including Lexington, Frankfort and Northern KY) only included Louisville, Lexington, and Cincinnati. The C/J also printed an Indiana edition that included listings for Indy, Evansville, and I believe Terre Haute.
Mike, thanks for posting all those listings. I would love to have seen a copy of that paper back in the day.
--Russell
--Russell
Russell W. said:
R.W., as they say in my town, "You's welcome!"
Some thoughts to ponder about the numerous markets the "Mother of All TV Listings" covered:
1) The year-long CST for all of Kentucky made things a bit odd for station scheduling. Some examples:
WAVE, Louisville--its Morning Show was probably during normal circumstances a full hour in length, at 9 a.m. ET, before the 10 a.m. NBC feed; The Mike Douglas Show may well have aired at another time normally and was dispatched to 2:30 to fill in the gap between Another World and the afternoon movie;
WHAS, Louisville--the midday Omelet displaced, out of necessity, several daytime shows, which were tape-delayed for later in the afternoon (most notably As the World Turns, at 3 p.m.);
all Kentucky stations--the local newscast moving to after, rather than before, the network newscasts, meaning that Prime Time Access was shortened by a half-hour, probably entailing the relocation of some of those programs to 5 p.m.
Can you not imagine all the confusion that this initially created, and all the in-house promotion, both on-screen and off, that stations had to do? I am sure station managers did not have a very high opinion of Kentucky state government as a result ("Damn those stubborn lawmakers! Why can't we do like the rest of the country and put up with it?") By 1976, the Feds ditched the concept of year-long Daylight Saving Time, so that controversy died down.
2) 1974 was one of the last years that stations, by and large, carried most if not all their networks' feeds on schedule. In the past, pre-emptions were primarily a primetime phenomenon, something that third-rated stations normally did to boost their local ad spot revenues. But in the early 1970s, the networks were at the height of their power over affils.
Notice that the only market which shuffled around or rejected programs on a large scale was Cincinnati. That market's stations, except for indie WXIX, were all the flagship outlets for their respective owners (WLWT, Avco; WCPO, Scripps-Howard; WKRC, Taft). It does not take much imagination to figure that corporate brass, due to close proximity, bore harder on their flagships' managers to get top local spot rates. Tradition played a factor especially with WLWT, due to its long-running Paul Dixon and 50-50 Club, both highly established daytime fixtures for viewers in the Ohio Valley. A very unusual side-effect was ABC affil WKRC picking up several pre-empted NBC daytime shows, including Somerset, a soap packaged by none other than Cincinnati's Procter and Gamble! Stranger still, there was an indie in the market, and it opted for cartoons and sitcom reruns!
All in all, the other markets stayed in line with network intentions. This era would not last long, though, particularly in daytime, in part due to a show that originated from the Avco "WLW" regional network: Phil Donahue.
3) One extreme oddity: small Paducah, Kentucky, population probably no more than 25,000 in 1974, had an independent station, while Nashville, population around 15-20 times that, did not (Louisville, about the same size of a market as Nashville, did with WDRB). The city of Nashville likely had more residents than the entire Paducah-Cape Girardeau-southern Illinois market did, or close to it. But Nashville's channel 17 had sat idle since 1971, when WMCV-TV went bust after three years of struggle to get a ratings foothold. The license changed hands repeatedly until 1976, when Reel Broadcasting re-launched the station as the current-day WZTV. American broadcasting has not always had the cookie-cutter sameness in every part of the country, as it has since the 1980s. There were haves and have nots.
And WDXR was surely a have not, as it did not sign on until 2:30 p.m. and could only manage one local program, a kiddie show. With three network affils that were not exactly state-of-the-art technically or otherwise, how could one expect a UHF indie to possibly be better? Not surprisingly, by 1975 or so, the owners apparently ran out of money (or patience), and with no one else interested in restarting channel 29 (remember, no FOX or minor networks back then) and thus no buyers, the license wound up in the hands of Kentucky Educational Television, who obviously got the license converted to non-commercial in order to supplement its Murray, Ky. translator for the "Purchase" region between the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.
The mere fact that only three of the 33 listed stations were unaffiliated tells us that television was a far different animal than today.
1) The year-long CST for all of Kentucky made things a bit odd for station scheduling. Some examples:
WAVE, Louisville--its Morning Show was probably during normal circumstances a full hour in length, at 9 a.m. ET, before the 10 a.m. NBC feed; The Mike Douglas Show may well have aired at another time normally and was dispatched to 2:30 to fill in the gap between Another World and the afternoon movie;
WHAS, Louisville--the midday Omelet displaced, out of necessity, several daytime shows, which were tape-delayed for later in the afternoon (most notably As the World Turns, at 3 p.m.);
all Kentucky stations--the local newscast moving to after, rather than before, the network newscasts, meaning that Prime Time Access was shortened by a half-hour, probably entailing the relocation of some of those programs to 5 p.m.
Can you not imagine all the confusion that this initially created, and all the in-house promotion, both on-screen and off, that stations had to do? I am sure station managers did not have a very high opinion of Kentucky state government as a result ("Damn those stubborn lawmakers! Why can't we do like the rest of the country and put up with it?") By 1976, the Feds ditched the concept of year-long Daylight Saving Time, so that controversy died down.
2) 1974 was one of the last years that stations, by and large, carried most if not all their networks' feeds on schedule. In the past, pre-emptions were primarily a primetime phenomenon, something that third-rated stations normally did to boost their local ad spot revenues. But in the early 1970s, the networks were at the height of their power over affils.
Notice that the only market which shuffled around or rejected programs on a large scale was Cincinnati. That market's stations, except for indie WXIX, were all the flagship outlets for their respective owners (WLWT, Avco; WCPO, Scripps-Howard; WKRC, Taft). It does not take much imagination to figure that corporate brass, due to close proximity, bore harder on their flagships' managers to get top local spot rates. Tradition played a factor especially with WLWT, due to its long-running Paul Dixon and 50-50 Club, both highly established daytime fixtures for viewers in the Ohio Valley. A very unusual side-effect was ABC affil WKRC picking up several pre-empted NBC daytime shows, including Somerset, a soap packaged by none other than Cincinnati's Procter and Gamble! Stranger still, there was an indie in the market, and it opted for cartoons and sitcom reruns!
All in all, the other markets stayed in line with network intentions. This era would not last long, though, particularly in daytime, in part due to a show that originated from the Avco "WLW" regional network: Phil Donahue.
3) One extreme oddity: small Paducah, Kentucky, population probably no more than 25,000 in 1974, had an independent station, while Nashville, population around 15-20 times that, did not (Louisville, about the same size of a market as Nashville, did with WDRB). The city of Nashville likely had more residents than the entire Paducah-Cape Girardeau-southern Illinois market did, or close to it. But Nashville's channel 17 had sat idle since 1971, when WMCV-TV went bust after three years of struggle to get a ratings foothold. The license changed hands repeatedly until 1976, when Reel Broadcasting re-launched the station as the current-day WZTV. American broadcasting has not always had the cookie-cutter sameness in every part of the country, as it has since the 1980s. There were haves and have nots.
And WDXR was surely a have not, as it did not sign on until 2:30 p.m. and could only manage one local program, a kiddie show. With three network affils that were not exactly state-of-the-art technically or otherwise, how could one expect a UHF indie to possibly be better? Not surprisingly, by 1975 or so, the owners apparently ran out of money (or patience), and with no one else interested in restarting channel 29 (remember, no FOX or minor networks back then) and thus no buyers, the license wound up in the hands of Kentucky Educational Television, who obviously got the license converted to non-commercial in order to supplement its Murray, Ky. translator for the "Purchase" region between the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.
The mere fact that only three of the 33 listed stations were unaffiliated tells us that television was a far different animal than today.
Mike Stroud said:
You have to remember, the market wasn't just Paducah. The Paducah/Cape Goradeau/Harrisburg (Marion) TV market has been in the Top 100 market for years. The square miles over four states was a challenge. WPSD and KFVS transmitted from very tall towers. WSIL was limited due to spacing issues and compensated with KPOB Popular Bluff as a satellite station.
The owner of WDXR-TV (sister to family owned WDXR radio) attempted an independent station. Operating cost was a factor along with the inability to cover the entire market. Also, many of the outdoor antennas (except for near Popular Bluff) were VHF only. The owners did attempt to secure ABC before the station went dark. KET took over the allocation several years later. An independent station finally did arrive years later with KBSI Cape Giradeau. By that time cable helped penetration.
When I was in grad school I knew a woman from Cape
Girardeau; she was talking one day about television in
that area and mentioned Chs. 6 (NBC), 12 (CBS), and
23 (Fox). When I asked her about Ch. 3, she sort of
rolled her eyes and grudgingly admitted that, yes, there
was Ch. 3. Obviously, WSIL has never been much to
write home about.
Girardeau; she was talking one day about television in
that area and mentioned Chs. 6 (NBC), 12 (CBS), and
23 (Fox). When I asked her about Ch. 3, she sort of
rolled her eyes and grudgingly admitted that, yes, there
was Ch. 3. Obviously, WSIL has never been much to
write home about.
I grew up in northwest Tennessee, in the Paducah-Cape Girardeau market. We got our NBC from channel 6 in Paducah and CBS from channel 12 in Cape, but we were too far south for Harrisburg, IL, so we got our ABC from channel 7 (WBBJ-TV) in Jackson, TN. And channel 7 wasn't that great, either. Their on-screen graphics were terrible! :-[ And I think that nearly everyone who ever worked there only stayed there just long enough to acquire some experience, then they were off to larger (and presumably, better paying) markets.
bpatrick said:
For viewers in Cape, at least when I lived there, WSIL served three purposes:
1) ABC programming.
2) Uncle Briggs.
3) A punchline.
Not necessarily in that order. ;D
In 3's defense, I will say that their newscasts - even then - were played straight and were as professional as they could be. None of the balloons or wadded scripts that defined Birmingham's channel 42.
Oh and I just remembered another peculiarity about WSIL: in 1979 they began using two cuts from the Tim Weissburg/Dan Fogelberg "Twin Sons" album for their news themes.
Open: "Lazy Susan"
Close: "Lahaina Luna"
http://www.amazon.com/Twin-Sons-Dif...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1259087518&sr=1-1
Yeah, when I hear those, I'm ready to hear some news..... :
--Russell
Re Firepoint's comment about WBBJ-7 ....
Yes, that station was very much bottom-of-the-barrel. I think for a time in the '90s they didn't even clear "Nightline"!
I'm trying to articulate the difference between each breed of "low budget" ... WSIL and stations like WBBJ were very much apples and oranges. I think it was in the whole attitude each presented. WBBJ - and others like it (WTVY/Dothan, Ala. comes quickly to mind) - projected a "This is how we are, and we love it that way" feel, with the typical west Tennessee viewer embracing it fully.
while WSIL was "Hey, we don't have much money - we're a small town and do the best we can. Thanks for watching us, we appreciate it" -- literally so, as in the late '70s, the typical channel 3 ID had Briggs Gordon voicing, "You're watching channel 3 ... and WE APPRECIATE IT!"
If that makes any sense.....
--Russell
Yes, that station was very much bottom-of-the-barrel. I think for a time in the '90s they didn't even clear "Nightline"!
I'm trying to articulate the difference between each breed of "low budget" ... WSIL and stations like WBBJ were very much apples and oranges. I think it was in the whole attitude each presented. WBBJ - and others like it (WTVY/Dothan, Ala. comes quickly to mind) - projected a "This is how we are, and we love it that way" feel, with the typical west Tennessee viewer embracing it fully.
while WSIL was "Hey, we don't have much money - we're a small town and do the best we can. Thanks for watching us, we appreciate it" -- literally so, as in the late '70s, the typical channel 3 ID had Briggs Gordon voicing, "You're watching channel 3 ... and WE APPRECIATE IT!"
If that makes any sense.....
--Russell
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