The Strangest TV Station You Never Heard Of

[Stanislav]

No, you would find anything about it on the Net, but it did exist, I swear. I've even seen photos of the ID (alas, lost or misplaced long ago).

Way before direct satellite services or C-band dishes became available, the residents of the Bahamas basically did without television. Sure, some folks on the islands closest to the U.S. mainland probably erected large antennas and pulled snowy signals from South Florida, but it was not a very reliable source. And for a long time, the Broadcasting Corporation of The Bahamas (the guys behind the ZNS radio stations) had neither the interest nor the resources to start a domestic television service.

In the mid 1970's, an experiment in bringing more reliable over-the-air TV to the islands was conducted. A receiver and transmitter was put aloft in an aerostat (a tethered balloon) over Grand Bahama Island. (Yup...same basic concept that TV Marti uses today.) It picked up two of the Miami TV stations (don't recall which ones, but they alternated between the two) and rebroadcast the signal on channel 11, with 1 kw of power and directional towards Freeport (so as to avoid interference with WINK in Ft. Myers...or for that matter, any Cuban transmitters on channel 11).

I don't know if it was the ZNS folks who were behind the experiment, but it was a licensed operation, and carried the improbable call sign of ZFHQ6. (Making one wonder what ever happened to ZFHQ1 through ZFHQ5...) I also do not know how long it was actually in operation, nor how successful it was. Eventually, the availability of C-band dishes as well as the long-awaited debut of ZNS-TV on channel 13 made the whole aerostat concept moot.

I know of this station because I used to correspond with a couple of South Florida DXers, both of whom had seen an article about the balloon in the papers, and managed to pick up the signal on one or two occasions (in spite of it being aimed away from the U.S. mainland). And, as I said, I used to have a copy of a couple of off-air photos of the ID slide, depicting a graphic of the balloon with the call letters thereupon.

I assume that both switching between the two stations relayed as well as insertion of the IDs must have been controlled by a radio link. One wonders what plans were afoot if the experiment had been successful: were they planning to establish similar airborne relays elsewhere in the more outlying islands, or use the Grand Bahama facility as the first link in a point-to-point relay?

All in all, a very obscure, but interesting footnote in TV history.

 

[mleach]

I wonder if this TV service was in anyway connected to the TV station that was featured in a segment on NBC's Real People back in the late 70's?

As I can remember ( it has been so many years ) either Skip Stephson or John Barbour visited some island in the Caribbean to check out a local TV station there. What this station did was tape programs directly from either satellite or perhaps it could have been OTA from all networks. I seem to remember Real People mentioning that Laverne & Shirley was the island's top show at the time and how the owner of the station would go door to door and ask the people what they want to see on his local TV station. In Real People fashion they made a joke about how this was better than anything Neilsen could do ( I can see that LOL ). Real People also showed clips from one of their newscasts too so this station, of course had local news.

One interesting thing Real People brought up about this as I can recall, either Skip or John brought up the legal issue of taping a show off air/satellite and re-broadcasting them to their local viewers. The owner more/less said that since his station wasn't in the US and the laws of his nation had no issues with this..well..why not? I have to wonder what NBC ( or anyone else ) did about that "loophole" once this Real People segment had aired?

 

[Mr1derful]

I wonder if this TV service was in anyway connected to the TV station that was featured in a segment on NBC's Real People back in the late 70's?

As I can remember ( it has been so many years ) either Skip Stephson or John Barbour visited some island in the Caribbean to check out a local TV station there. What this station did was tape programs directly from either satellite or perhaps it could have been OTA from all networks. I seem to remember Real People mentioning that Laverne & Shirley was the island's top show at the time and how the owner of the station would go door to door and ask the people what they want to see on his local TV station. In Real People fashion they made a joke about how this was better than anything Neilsen could do ( I can see that LOL ). Real People also showed clips from one of their newscasts too so this station, of course had local news.

One interesting thing Real People brought up about this as I can recall, either Skip or John brought up the legal issue of taping a show off air/satellite and re-broadcasting them to their local viewers. The owner more/less said that since his station wasn't in the US and the laws of his nation had no issues with this..well..why not? I have to wonder what NBC ( or anyone else ) did about that "loophole" once this Real People segment had aired?

I don't remember this story on Real People. But I do remember a segment on the very 1st show(when it started out as a summer placement show) about "the worst TV station in America." It wasn't Skip, John, or Fred Willard(Byron Allen came about later that fall), but oh, I can't remember his name. Anyway he traveled to a small town in Nebraska. He interviewed the couple who owned and ran the station. The husband was also the news anchor. I remember they showed a clip of a newscast where in the middle of a story, he asks the camera man to step out from behind the camera to join him on the set. BTW, the set consisted of a podium and an American flag. The owner asked the camera man if he would tell the viewers the name of the family who was giving away puppies and where they could get them. But the wife made a great point when asked about the quality of programming, she replied they were serving the community needs as stated in the FCC.

 

[Stanislav]

I wonder if this TV service was in anyway connected to the TV station that was featured in a segment on NBC's Real People back in the late 70's?

As I can remember ( it has been so many years ) either Skip Stephson or John Barbour visited some island in the Caribbean to check out a local TV station there. What this station did was tape programs directly from either satellite or perhaps it could have been OTA from all networks. I seem to remember Real People mentioning that Laverne & Shirley was the island's top show at the time and how the owner of the station would go door to door and ask the people what they want to see on his local TV station. In Real People fashion they made a joke about how this was better than anything Neilsen could do ( I can see that LOL ). Real People also showed clips from one of their newscasts too so this station, of course had local news.

One interesting thing Real People brought up about this as I can recall, either Skip or John brought up the legal issue of taping a show off air/satellite and re-broadcasting them to their local viewers. The owner more/less said that since his station wasn't in the US and the laws of his nation had no issues with this..well..why not? I have to wonder what NBC ( or anyone else ) did about that "loophole" once this Real People segment had aired?

I don't remember this story on Real People. But I do remember a segment on the very 1st show(when it started out as a summer placement show) about "the worst TV station in America." It wasn't Skip, John, or Fred Willard(Byron Allen came about later that fall), but oh, I can't remember his name. Anyway he traveled to a small town in Nebraska. He interviewed the couple who owned and ran the station. The husband was also the news anchor. I remember they showed a clip of a newscast where in the middle of a story, he asks the camera man to step out from behind the camera to join him on the set. BTW, the set consisted of a podium and an American flag. The owner asked the camera man if he would tell the viewers the name of the family who was giving away puppies and where they could get them. But the wife made a great point when asked about the quality of programming, she replied they were serving the community needs as stated in the FCC.

I'm pretty sure that was actually KYUS (channel 3) in Miles City, Montana -- that was a one-camera, mom-and-pop operation for many years. (Prior to their being sold and becoming a satellite station.) They did do a Real People feature on them (probably the one you recall), and they were also profiled on other magazine type shows. I don't recall many of the details of the segment, but I seem to recall there was a clip that had the guy doing the news while his dog slept on the desk!

 

[radiorob2.0]

Let me add WHKY Hickory to the list of very unique stations. Channel 14 is owned by the Long family and is a true independent television station. The family has been offered lots of money but continues to keep it in the family. They produce two daily newscast called "The Unifour Tonight". I wouldn't call it strange, but very odd to find a TV station still doing Mom and Pop television.

Another one worth mentioning is the old WKYH Hazard (now WYMT). Back in the day it was truly small town television but was the only source of television news in the mountains. Search youtube for "WKYH" to see a sample of their programming back in the day.

 

[FreddyE1977]

I wonder if this TV service was in anyway connected to the TV station that was featured in a segment on NBC's Real People back in the late 70's?

As I can remember ( it has been so many years ) either Skip Stephson or John Barbour visited some island in the Caribbean to check out a local TV station there. What this station did was tape programs directly from either satellite or perhaps it could have been OTA from all networks. I seem to remember Real People mentioning that Laverne & Shirley was the island's top show at the time and how the owner of the station would go door to door and ask the people what they want to see on his local TV station. In Real People fashion they made a joke about how this was better than anything Neilsen could do ( I can see that LOL ). Real People also showed clips from one of their newscasts too so this station, of course had local news.

One interesting thing Real People brought up about this as I can recall, either Skip or John brought up the legal issue of taping a show off air/satellite and re-broadcasting them to their local viewers. The owner more/less said that since his station wasn't in the US and the laws of his nation had no issues with this..well..why not? I have to wonder what NBC ( or anyone else ) did about that "loophole" once this Real People segment had aired?

I remember seeing a similar report about the first TV station in Belize. It is a former British colony and the people speak English. Since it lies within the US satellite footprint, some enterprising person just threw up a C band dish and began hijacking and rebroadcasting the Superstations that were available in the US in the early 80's. The most popular program in Belize immediately became Chicago Cubs Baseball. This had a pronounced impact on the culture of Belize, as it was not one of the Central American countries in which Baseball had been played prior to the station going on the air. People began avidly watching and playing the game. The government was apparently having a cow, because this station was destroying the country's balance of trade. It had created an insatiable demand for Chicago Cubs hats, jerseys and souvenirs, as well as a number of American consumer products that were being advertised. (in a country where the median income was a couple hundred bucks a year, the impact was not inconsequential). They were looking for a way to shut them down and replace them with domestically produced programming. I am not sure what the outcome ever was. I am guessing that when all of the Superstations went to scrambled uplinks the problem took care of itself.

 

[oldtimeradio]

I remember that "Real people" episode of the Miles City MT TV station. The scene I remember is the "news" show where the host talked about the next story and the cameraman locking his camera in place and going to in front of the camera to deliver his report.

I still remember an Electronics Illustrated article from the sixties about a small town cable operation that did local news and community features. Their operation was cheap, but for me it was an interesting operation.

I've also read about, but did not see, WTAF channel 31 in Marion IN, and KKOG-TV channel 16 in Ventura CA. I don't know what programming 'TAF had, but I remember the owner always seemed to be petitioning the FCC for something.

KKOG was profiled before its sign on and near its demise by Broadcasting magazine. The article talked about their completely local love programming and their rate card that was as cheap as the most popular local radio station.

KKOG was talked about several years ago on this board about their unique operation.

Mike