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WBNX to be acquired by Nexstar & re-affiliate with the CW in Fall 2025 creating a duopoly with FOX affiliate WJW

radiofollower said:
When Angley owned the station, they would blip "hell" and "damn" from any movie and also refused to run any episode of syndicated programming which even remotely discussed sex.
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Yes, I remember that. The Fresh Prince was often edited to remove profanity. Funny enough, I have some Tom and Jerry shorts on a tape that aired on WBNX in 1996, one of which would be politically incorrect by today's standards. That short, titled "The Truce Hurts", has yet to air on MeTV/Toons, even though a simple edit to remove the offending scene could be done without breaking the flow of the cartoon. Other theatrical cartoon shorts that air on MeTV/Toons with the same or similar content have been edited -some of which being edited by Weigel themselves(?) in later airings, though a few minor cases have been reverted back.

In the mid 2000's, I remember watching Everybody Loves Raymond on WBNX. One day during one episode, Ray says "I'm gonna kick you in your...", and before that particular word could be said, I heard beep, boop, beep, boop, beep, boop. Right there, I thought WBNX got a bit carried away with their censoring, but after several seconds, a weather alert banner started scrolling at the top of the screen. Talk about timing.

I don't remember when WBNX stopped with the censoring, (Wikipedia article clams it was when they acquired The WB affiliation in 97), but The Fresh Prince retained it's edits long after they abandoned the censoring. I'm surprised that Family Feud even airs on WBNX, given it's risque questions and answers. I guess they completely quit caring at that point. However, even though nothing has ever been made public as to why WBNX dropped The CW back in 2018, I believe it was that they didn't want to air Jerry Springer, which, at the time, was scheduled to air on The CW later that fall. I don't blame them, as if I owned a TV station, I wouldn't want a show like that airing on it.
 
I don't recall WBNX dropping the CW per say. At the time I thought the CW kind of "Spanish Archered" them in favor of going to WUAB (Who had a horribly timed 9 PM newscast at that time anyway.)

Subject of "politically incorrect" edits? I remember WKBF and WUAB both airing Little Rascals/Our Gang shorts that were so edited, you couldn't even make the real story out. "Little Sinner" (1935) was one of the most over-edited, abruptly ended ones I can think of.

WBNX aired the shorts sometime in the early to mid 1990's. I wonder how much of a patchwork job those had???
 
WHK planned to put 19 on in the fifties but didn't. In the mid sixties, Norman Wain applied to make it WIXY TV but that also fizzled. There were then several applicants but it all got bogged down in hearings allowing 61 then 43 to light up before them.
To break the stalemate somehow the channel was reassigned to Shaker Heights and Payne with the backing of other broadcast groups got it on in 1985 and then sold out to Malrite who jumped on the Fox network when they started.
Surprisin̈gly I recall few tie ins with their radio other than Jeff Kinzbach was the imaging voice.
BTW, the WOIO calls had belonged to 1060 AM in Canton. Don't know if 19 bought them or they were just available.
 
Santa fe said:
WHK planned to put 19 on in the fifties but didn't. In the mid sixties, Norman Wain applied to make it WIXY TV but that also fizzled.
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Wain didn't, but Joe Zingale (a former Wain/Weiss associate) sure did. He held the permit for WCTF-TV, which too failed to get built.

The family of Ray T. Miller, owner of WERE, also held a permit for channel 19 in the mid-60s, but Ray's death basically quashed that.
skiwest said:
And also in the fifties, wasn't WERE planning to put channel 65 on?
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So many radio stations sought permits for UHF stations in the 1950s and never built them out. WERE had two unbuilt permits, first at 65 in the 1950s and at 19 in the 1960s. Channel 43 in Lorain was originally at 31 and WEOL held an unbuilt permit for that channel in the 1950s.

And even if a channel 19 had managed to take to the air in the late 1960s against 43 and 61, chances are only one of the three would have survived. WKBF was doomed the very second WUAB signed on because Kasier (who bled money at every station they built out BUT WKBD in Detroit) was no match for the deep pockets United Artists had.
 
Generally speaking, UHF stations in VHF dominant markets were at a complete disadvantage. Not only in budget but in the fact that UHF signals were almost always tough to receive clearly unless you were right near the tower.
 
Nathan Obral said:
Wain didn't, but Joe Zingale (a former Wain/Weiss associate) sure did. He held the permit for WCTF-TV, which too failed to get built.

The family of Ray T. Miller, owner of WERE, also held a permit for channel 19 in the mid-60s, but Ray's death basically quashed that.

So many radio stations sought permits for UHF stations in the 1950s and never built them out. WERE had two unbuilt permits, first at 65 in the 1950s and at 19 in the 1960s. Channel 43 in Lorain was originally at 31 and WEOL held an unbuilt permit for that channel in the 1950s.

And even if a channel 19 had managed to take to the air in the late 1960s against 43 and 61, chances are only one of the three would have survived. WKBF was doomed the very second WUAB signed on because Kasier (who bled money at every station they built out BUT WKBD in Detroit) was no match for the deep pockets United Artists had.
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Santa fe said:
WHK planned to put 19 on in the fifties but didn't.
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If you go to the rear of the old WHK building (now The Agora) the garage on the left was going to be the WHK-TV studio.
 
If WHK had got the TV station, Mad Daddy might have beaten Ghoulardi to the air by four years!

If WERE had gotten a station, Bill Randle might have beaten Don Webster and Upbeat to the air!
 
Santa fe said:
If WHK had got the TV station, Mad Daddy might have beaten Ghoulardi to the air by four years!

If WERE had gotten a station, Bill Randle might have beaten Don Webster and Upbeat to the air!
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Because the all-channel reciever act wasn't law until 1962, even if WHK-TV or WERE-TV signed on, they would have suffered significant financial losses against 3, 5 and 8, and gone dark.

There was a reason why neither were built.
 
21, 27 and 33 in Youngstown and 49 in Akron did survive even though it was possible to watch VHF from Cleveland and Pittsburgh. But they were all network affiliates too, so didn't have the burden of providing programming and were in their own market.
I remember wondering what that blank spot between 13 and 2 was on our old 1955 Hallicrafters TV tuner. That set even had a big knob labelled "color" that when turned, the picture went dark.
 
Santa fe said:
21, 27 and 33 in Youngstown and 49 in Akron did survive even though it was possible to watch VHF from Cleveland and Pittsburgh.
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The Cleveland and Pittsburgh TV stations did not clearly reach many parts of the Youngstown market. That's why the FCC defined Youngstown as a "UHF" market like Springfield Massachusetts and South Bend, Indiana.
 
Santa fe said:
21, 27 and 33 in Youngstown and 49 in Akron did survive even though it was possible to watch VHF from Cleveland and Pittsburgh.
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If the Berk family didn't own WAKR 1590, WAKR-TV would have gone out of business before the 1950s ended. The radio station kept the TV station afloat for decades.
 
27 and 21 were put on by WKBN and WFMJ respectively and WKBN was owned by the Williamson family who I believe were Youngstown Sheet and Tube and WFMJ by the Vindicator. It all helped.
The stations were split up and sold years ago of course. But the WKBN AM FM TV combo was quite impressive in its day.
 
At some point WBNX website will have to redirect viewers to the WJW-TV website given that Nexstar is now the owner of the station. Here are other examples of Nexstar duopolies sites. In those cases the secondary station simply merged with the primary Nexstar station like KWGN-TV is mainly inside the Fox 31 News site in Denver and content from KUSI-TV simply redirects viewers with KSWB-TV in San Diego.



 
MediaLover said:
WBNX is already listed on the Nexstar website! Paul Perozeni, the GM for WJW, is now also in the same role for 55. Yet, the station website still has its current Winston staff intact for now.
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There may not be anyone left at WBNX to update the website. I find it hard to believe that anyone will be surviving if the station is little more than a few servers that can be run out of a remote master control. (WJW's master control is IIRC run out of Denver.)
 
Nathan Obral said:
There may not be anyone left at WBNX to update the website. I find it hard to believe that anyone will be surviving if the station is little more than a few servers that can be run out of a remote master control. (WJW's master control is IIRC run out of Denver.)
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Their Facebook page is still being updated as if the sale has yet to happen, so obviously the current WBNX staff is still in charge. I'm guessing once the new master control is set up over at Nexstar and is ready to be switched over, then the new management/staff will take over. I'm also guessing that whoever manages the current WBNX website is also responsible for The Grace Cathedral and Ernest Angley websites as well, so it's not totally abandoned at this point.
 
snowdog88 said:
Their Facebook page is still being updated as if the sale has yet to happen, so obviously the current WBNX staff is still in charge. I'm guessing once the new master control is set up over at Nexstar and is ready to be switched over, then the new management/staff will take over. I'm also guessing that whoever manages the current WBNX website is also responsible for The Grace Cathedral and Ernest Angley websites as well, so it's not totally abandoned at this point.
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Facebook posts can easily be automated and it's possible the responsibilities have been passed over to Nexstar staff. One probably wouldn't notice if the changeover happened.

Also the WBNX signage is already removed from Grace Cathedral. Methinks they'll wait until September to put up new signage at Dick Goddard Way because the logo will be changed by then.
 


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