TV Guide Channel Lineup Question

[Stanislav]

My family lived in Vermont (near Middlebury) from about 1964-1969. The TV Guide edition sold there was a huge one, listing a couple of dozen stations. As I recall, it covered the relevant Vermont and Plattsburgh NY stations, Watertown NY, WMTW in Poland Spring, the Albany area stations, and a chunk of Canadians from Sherbrooke all the way west to Ottawa-Hull.

I've wanted for some time to obtain a couple copies of this edition for nostalgia's sake. Problem is, none of the editions I've seen seem to match up with the channel lineup I remember. It doesn't seem to have been either the Eastern New York or Western New England editions.

Anyone around from back in that era that might help me pinpoint this? Thanks.

 

[fybush]

> My family lived in Vermont (near Middlebury) from about
> 1964-1969. The TV Guide edition sold there was a huge one,
> listing a couple of dozen stations. As I recall, it covered
> the relevant Vermont and Plattsburgh NY stations, Watertown
> NY, WMTW in Poland Spring, the Albany area stations, and a
> chunk of Canadians from Sherbrooke all the way west to
> Ottawa-Hull.
>
> I've wanted for some time to obtain a couple copies of this
> edition for nostalgia's sake. Problem is, none of the
> editions I've seen seem to match up with the channel lineup
> I remember. It doesn't seem to have been either the Eastern
> New York or Western New England editions.
>
> Anyone around from back in that era that might help me
> pinpoint this? Thanks.

I believe - and the rabid TV Guide collectors would know better than I - that in that era, the Canadian TV Guide was still published by the same company (Triangle, back then) that published US TV Guide, and that some border areas got Canadian editions. So I'd bet you were getting the Ottawa-Montreal edition.<P ID="signature">______________
Tower Site Calendar 2006 ON SALE! - <a target="_blank" href=http://www.fybush.com/nerw.html#calendar>www.fybush.com</a></P>

 

[Stanislav]

> I believe - and the rabid TV Guide collectors would know
> better than I - that in that era, the Canadian TV Guide was
> still published by the same company (Triangle, back then)
> that published US TV Guide, and that some border areas got
> Canadian editions. So I'd bet you were getting the
> Ottawa-Montreal edition.


That's entirely possible, although I wonder whether a Canadian edition would have covered stations as far south as Albany-Troy-Schenectady. Most folks in that part of VT at the time had rotatable outdoor antennas that picked up 6-10-13 from that market fairly reliably -- 13 being the only full-time source for ABC. (Burlington-Plattsburgh did not have an ABC affiliate at the time, and WMTW-8 was very hit-or-miss across the mountains).

 

[rugrats1]

> That's entirely possible, although I wonder whether a
> Canadian edition would have covered stations as far south as
> Albany-Troy-Schenectady.

Up until 1977 (at the latest), TVG for Vermont and Northeastern NYS was covered by a Canadian edition -- the Montreal/St. Lawrence edition, which also included the aforementioned Albany-area channels, plus Utica's WUTR. It was a Canadian edition, due to a higher cover price ($.25 to $35, instead of $.15 to $.25 for US editions), and ads from Canadian stations, businesses and PSAs in the listings.

Buffalo, northern Montana and the Puget Sound area (but not Seattle itself) also had editions that straddled borders until 1977, when the Canadian TVG became entirely a Canadian publication, and the US TVG took over the US areas.

 

[Stanislav]

> Up until 1977 (at the latest), TVG for Vermont and
> Northeastern NYS was covered by a Canadian edition -- the
> Montreal/St. Lawrence edition, which also included the
> aforementioned Albany-area channels, plus Utica's WUTR. It
> was a Canadian edition, due to a higher cover price ($.25 to
> $35, instead of $.15 to $.25 for US editions), and ads from
> Canadian stations, businesses and PSAs in the listings.


Well, now that you mention it, the phrase "Montreal-St. Lawrence Edition" suddenly rings a bell and sounds awfully familiar. But I really don't recall any Canada-specific ads (apart from the usual station blurbs within the programming section, but there were those of U.S. stations as well) or content (they still had the Hollywood and New York reports, Cleveland Amory's reviews, etc.). But channel-wise this sounds like the one. (I remember being very frustrated getting a TV Guide that had like 20 or 30 channels in it, and we could only get, at most, half a dozen of them.)

 

[rugrats1]

> Well, now that you mention it, the phrase "Montreal-St.
> Lawrence Edition" suddenly rings a bell and sounds awfully
> familiar. But I really don't recall any Canada-specific ads
> (apart from the usual station blurbs within the programming
> section, but there were those of U.S. stations as well)

I have a copy of the Montreal TVG from 1972; that issue included a couple of CBC ads, a Canadian Red Cross PSA, and a record club offer for Canadian residents. Alongside these were ads for "The Ponderosa" (syndicated "Bonanza") on WCAX, "You're Not Elected Charlie Brown" on CBS (sponsored by Coke and Dolly Madison), and Laredo cigarette kits (which were not even available in Canada, I think). All in the local programming section.