TV Stations with Different Channel Numbers on Their CP's Before Signing On

[wbhist]

The recent thread about TV stations that sported different call letters on their construction permits (CP's) from when they took to the air got me to thinking about TV stations which had different channel numbers on their CP's from when they first signed on, if any (or at the very least, had a different allocation from what it ended up).

One famous case was in the early 1960's, when (per New York Times articles between 1962 and 1965) Paterson, NJ was originally allocated Channel 37, before being moved up the dial to 41 by the time a CP was granted in '65 to the first owners of what signed on in 1968 as the area's second Spanish-language station, WXTV (and by then, 37 was rendered off-limits to broadcasters).

Any other examples in other markets of channel number switches either before or during the CP phase?

 

[radiorob2.0]

What became WXIX Channel 19 Newport/Cincinnati was originally a CP Channel 73.

 

[dhett]

I have no analog examples, but here are a few stations that signed on as digital-only on a channel different from their initial allocation:

In the Denver market, Greeley was allocated ch 45 (thanks to one of our own Radio-Info members - I'll let you decide whether or not to remain anonymous, but I remember who you are). The permit holder got the allocation changed to ch 38 before selling the permit to TBN, who signed on KPJR-DT in June 2009.

Topeka KS was allocated ch 22, but that has been changed to ch 12. I'm not even sure KSQA has signed on yet; the original CP was extended by 18 months and will expire in February 2011.

In the Wichita KS market, Derby was allocated ch 46, which was changed to ch 31 before Univision affiliate KDCU signed on in August 2009.

Mobile's WDPM-DT changed from ch 18 to ch 23 before signing on in April 2009.

Gainesville FL station WNBW was originally assigned ch 29 for analog operations, but signed on in digital in January 2009 on ch 9.

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There were a lot of stations whose pre-transition channel assignment changed between the initial 1997 allocation and licensing.

In my general area, KSAZ 10 Phoenix was initally assigned ch 23 and KVOA 4 Tucson ch 31, putting adjacent channels in Phoenix between KSAZ 23 and KTVK 24, and in Tucson between KUAT 30, KVOA 31 and KOLD 32. The two stations petitioned to switch channel assignments, and the FCC agreed.

In Phoenix, KNXV 15 was originally assigned ch 14 but was moved to ch 56.

In Tucson, KHRR 40 was initally assigned ch 41 before successfully petitioning to move to ch 42.

In Flagstaff, KCFG 9 was allocated ch 28, adjacent to the ch 27 allocation of KWBF 13 (now KFPH). The station was licensed on ch 32. (I have never seen a signal from them, though.)

In the Yuma/El Centro market, KAJB 54 Calipatria CA was assigned ch 50 for digital operations. Trouble is, Mexican station XHRCS San Luis Rio Colorado SON began operations on ch 50, less than 50 miles from the KAJB tower. KAJB had to change to ch 36 and then had to fight Mexico for that before being granted a CP about 9 years after filing its application for DT.

Several Las Vegas market stations changed: KVVU 5 Henderson moved from ch 24 to ch 9, KTNV 13 from ch 17 to ch 12, KUPN 21 (now KVMY) from 20 to 22, KFBT 33 (now KVCW) from 32 to 29, KBLR 39 from 38 to 40, and KMCC 34 from 35 to 32. KMCC also changed cities from Lake Havasu City AZ to Laughlin NV before its analog sign-on in May 2004.

Several Salt Lake City stations also changed pre-transition allocations.

 

[fybush]

What's now WSYT 68 in Syracuse NY started out as a CP on channel 62 (with the calls WKAF, which were also abandoned before the station signed on.) I'm not sure why it shifted, though I suspect it may have had something to do with opening 62 for use in Kingston by what's now WRNN.

 

[KeithE4]

What became WXIX Channel 19 Newport/Cincinnati was originally a CP Channel 73.

It was Channel 74, as WNOP-TV. Channel 73 was used by Lima and Youngstown in the mid '50s.

 

[bpatrick]

WNBE (WCTI) New Bern, NC, was originally licensed to Ch. 13,
but issues of short-spacing to WVEC Norfolk (also on 13) caused
a change to Ch. 12. Then WRVA (WWBT) Richmond complained
about potential short-spacing to it, since it is also on 12. My guess
is that New Bern's 12, being farther away from Virginia than WITN
or WNCT, really wasn't much of a threat to Richmond's 12; in fact,
when I lived in Kinston, 35 miles from New Bern, I could barely pick
up 12. At any rate it's been on either analog 12 or virtual 12 ever
since it went on the air in 1963.

And I'm sure by now most of you know about WCON, Ch. 2 in Atlanta,
licensed to the Atlanta Constitution around 1948. The Journal's station,
WSB, was assigned to Ch. 8; when the Cox family bought the Constitution,
they moved WSB to Ch. 2. WCON never got on the air; it was sold to a
company called Broadcasting, Inc., which put WLTV Ch. 8 on the air in 1951.
Ch. 8, in turn, was relicensed to the University of Georgia, putting what was
now WLW-A on Ch. 11 in 1953 (the station now known as WXIA, 11 Alive).
What's always intrigued me about this mess is that WCON radio was an ABC
affiliate, and that at least implies that ABC might have been on Ch. 2 in Atlanta
from the beginning had WCON-TV signed on.

 

[Bob1370]

Two digital station CPs in Rochester, NY, WHEC-DT on Channel 59 and WHAM-DT on Channel 59, were declared "out of band" when the transition came, so they had to drop down to Channel 10 and Channel 13 (the old analog channels of WHEC-TV and WHAM-TV) respectively, where they are today.

 

[mjlarochelle]

In Canada, CHCH Hamilton was originally approved for Channel 13, and CKCO Kitchener was originally supposed to get Channel 11. The two stations swapped channel allocations shortly before they both signed on in 1954. It was a surprising move because the allocation was moved closer to two existing Channel 11 allocations, one in Kingston, Ontario and one in Pittsburgh. Sure enough, CKWS stayed on that channel when it signed on later that year, and WIIC (now WPXI) stayed there when it signed on in 1957.

According to Popular Mechanics Magazine, Channel 8 was originally allocated to Owen Sound, Ont. and Buffalo. NBC wanted Channel 8 for a station in Buffalo, but the owner of CKNX Radio in Wingham, Ont. wanted a TV station in Wingham. He successfully got Channel 8 moved southward to Wingham and got CKNX-TV on the air in 1955, and in the end NBC chose Channel 17 for what became an unsuccessful UHF TV experiment known as WBUF-TV, later donated to the group that formed the local NET/PBS station. I don't know if WBUF ever had a construction permit for Channel 8 though.

 

[Savage]

Channel 8 never would have worked in Buffalo because of the allocation to Syracuse, which later moved to Rochester in a two-market swap. 8 came west to Rochester, allowing Channel 9 to be assigned to Syracuse, while Rochester's Channel 5 flipped eastward to Syracuse.

This all happened IIRC in 1962.

 

[Bob1370]

Bob Savage's memories of the 1962 Rochester/Syracuse channel swap are dead-on.

And it's odd that NBC ever contemplated a Channel 8 drop-in in Buffalo, or maybe a move for WBUF to Channel 8, because they'd never have been able to own and operate it--they were first to hit their five VHF station limit back in 1948 when they put WNBQ in Chicago, WNBK in Cleveland and KMBH in Los Angeles on the air within months of each other (alongside WNBT in New York and WNBW in Washington, which were on the air already). The limits on how many V's a network or anyone else could own didn't thaw until deep into the 1980s. Not to mention that Channel 7 was assigned to Buffalo in both the pre-freeze and post-freeze table and was inevitably going to be assigned to someone from the list of a half-dozen applicants sooner or later (Clinton Churchill's WKBW Inc. beat out the Courier-Express for it in the final comparative hearing showdown in 1957 and got channel 7 on the air at full power late the next year). No one has contemplated assigning adjacent channels to the same market until digital technology made it possible after the 2009 amalog shutdown. Channel 8 was never coming to Buffalo.

Don't know where Popular Mechanics got its info, but a lot of errors crept into that article.