Weirdest beliefs about TV among the (non-geek) "laity?"

[Stanislav]

I mentioned this long ago in another thread, but in the 70's WFTV (ABC) here in Orlando briefly picked up one of the NBC movie packages that had been consistently pre-empted by WESH. (Yet was apparently perceived as better than whatever ABC had running in prime-time that evening.) Tricky enough to cherry-pick a single show or handful of shows from another network, what with needing to be on the ball to cover the other network's voice-overs and promos for other programs to avoid confusion, but in this case the whole movie slot was branded as "NBC [XX] Night at the Movies" in the intro and at every commercial break, so it was pretty hard to escape mention of the other network. Caused a great deal of consternation among viewers, and I believe WFTV dropped the experiment after only 2 or 3 weeks.

 

[bpatrick]

IIRC, WFTV picked up NBC's Saturday-night movie in 1971,
when ABC was giving 9:30-11 back to the affiliates and had
a succession of failures from 8:30-9:30 (Lawrence Welk had
moved to 7:30). WLOS Greenville/Spartanburg/Asheville did
the same thing, stepping in when WFBC (now WYFF) elected
to pre-empt the NBC movie, and WLOS is also an ABC affiliate.

Needless to say, the networks discourage affiliates from running
shows from another network. I've been directly affected twice:
in Norfolk, CBS affiliate WTAR (now WTKR) carried Joey Bishop's
late-night show for two years when ABC affiliate WVEC turned it
down in favor of movies; Joey was off the air in Hampton Roads
when Merv Griffin moved to CBS in the summer of 1969, and WVEC
never carried Dick Cavett in late-night. In Greenville/Spartanburg/
Asheville CBS affiliate WSPA carried the game show "Treasure Isle,"
but at 9 AM ("Search For Tomorrow" and "Guiding Light" still shared
the 12:30-1 slot on CBS, against "Treasure Isle" on ABC). It bombed.

 

[mleach]

On the subject of pre-emptions....

Looking back I am a bit surprised that in Washington DC..neither WDCA or even WTTG back in the 80's never did pick up the large number of CBS shows that then-WDVM channel 9 had pre-empted such as ther CBS weekday morning game shows like Press Your Luck and The Price Is Right and the CBS Saturday Morning line-up including Charlie Brown & Snoopy and Bugs Bunny & Road Runner for which WDVM had called those shows "...pure garbage !!"

Maybe at the time the attitude among WTTG and WDCA was that if people really wanted to see CBS THAT bad..then they could tune into Baltimore's WBAL or Richmond's WTVR.

Or perhaps WTTG & WDCA knew that WDVM would be sold sooner or later so why bother? and with that the CBS pre-emptions would had come to an end anyway..which BTW did happen when Gannett took WDVM and changed the calls to WUSA in 1986.

 

[Ultimajock]

Also aren't most stations that are on "channel 13" affilated with ABC?

...when I lived in the Eau Claire, Wisconsin, market, WEAU-TV/13 was (always was and still is) NBC. When I lived in the Rockford, Illinois, market, WREX-TV/13 was NBC (although it started out splitting CBS and ABC, eventually sticking with ABC until the mid-'90s). When I visited the Marquette, Michigan, market, WNMU-TV/13 was (and always has been) PBS. Here in the Tucson market, KOLD-TV/13 (actually a digital signal on Channel 32 now) is and always has been CBS...

 

[bpatrick]

I've gotten these on Ch. 13:

WVEC Norfolk (ABC)
WLOS Greenville/Spartanburg/Asheville (ABC)
WAPI (WVTM) Birmingham (split NBC and CBS when
I first moved there in '69, became exclusive NBC in
'70)
WTVT Tampa/St. Petersburg (CBS then, Fox now)
KERA Dallas/Ft. Worth (PBS)
WJZ Baltimore (ABC then, CBS now)

and when I go to the beach nowadays:

WBTW Florence/Myrtle Beach (CBS)

Let's see:

ABC on 13:

KIMO Anchorage
KRDO Colorado Springs
WMBB Panama City, FL
WBKO Bowling Green, KY
WZZM Grand Rapids, MI
WLOX Biloxi, MS
KHGI Lincoln, NE
KTNV Las Vegas, NV
WOKR (or whatever it is now) Rochester, NY
WTVG Toledo, OH
WLOS Greenville/Spartanburg/Asheville
KSFY Sioux Falls, SD
KTRK Houston
WVEC Norfolk
WSET Roanoke/Lynchburg, VA

by my count: 15

CBS on 13:

the station in Fairbanks whose calls I never remember
KOLD Tucson, AZ
KOVR Sacramento, CA
WMAZ Macon, GA
WIBW Topeka, KS
WGME Portland, ME
WJZ Baltimore
KRCG Jefferson City, MO
KRQE Albuquerque, NM
KVAL Eugene, OR
WBTW Florence/Myrtle Beach, SC
KVTV Laredo, TX
KLBK Lubbock, TX
WOWK Charleston/Huntington, WV

by my count: 14

NBC on 13:

WVTM Birmingham, AL
KHNL Honolulu
WREX Rockford, IL
WTHR Indianapolis
WHO Des Moines, IA
WNYT Albany, NY
WEAU LaCrosse/Eau Claire, WI

by my count: 7

PBS on 13:

I think there's one in Fayetteville, AR
KEET Eureka, CA
one in Monroe, LA whose calls escape me
WNET New York
one in Fargo, ND whose calls escape me
KETA Oklahoma City
WQED Pittsburgh
KERA Dallas/Ft. Worth

by my count: 8

ABC noses out CBS if my list is correct, but I
think it's a bit of a stretch to say that "most"
stations on 13 are ABC affiliates. I didn't even
factor in Fox stations in Tampa, Seattle, and Salt
Lake City.

 

[mjlarochelle]

Today, WAGM-DT is solely a CBS affiliate and has FOX on channel 8-2. I had read where there was supposed to be another station in that market by now, not counting PBS affiliate WMEM-DT.

Unless something has changed recently, WAGM actually has FOX on Channel 8-1 and CBS on Channel 8-2, an anomoly in the DTV transition. It would make FOX 8 appear to be the primary channel for WAGM but in reality it is still seen as a CBS affiliate, which it of course is.

On the topic of whether people watch networks or watch shows, I think it's a very individual thing. My mother is in between - she watches shows, but if there's nothing on, she always turns to the same stations to see what's on - CNN, CKCO, Global, CTV News Channel, CITY. I watch networks mostly.

 

[TexasTom]

The porn industry has tended to get in on the ground floor of almost every technological innovation. When the Internet first started developing the capacity and bandwidth to be able to capably stream video, who took advantage of it the fastest? Hint: it wasn't the big mainstream Hollywood studios.

I remember a cartoon (I think it was in Electronics Illustrated) in the early 70's, when the first doomed attempts at home videocassette players were making headlines in such publications (though then tanking in the marketplace until Betamax). It showed a seedy Tijuana street with a tourist passing by a local. The local has his trenchcoat half open, displaying a series of small rectangular objects. He beckons to the tourist: "Pssst...hey, meester...feelthy videocassettes!" At the time, it was considered humorous and over the top, the notion of the typical furtive streetside peddler of dirty 8mm movies now offering them in the new medium. Only in hindsight do we realize how prescient that cartoon was!!

Very prescient indeed -- in the early days of video rentals, estimates were that more than half of the rental market was for porn. As the eighties progressed and a better selection of "mainstream" titles became available, the percentage of the market held by porn steadily dropped.

Many early video rental stores offered both mainstream and x-rated videos -- typically, with the x-rated fare limited to a back room or a list that was handed out to customers who were over 18. As chain operations (such as Blockbuster) became prevalent, this practice largely disappeared.

 

[dhett]

Today, WAGM-DT is solely a CBS affiliate and has FOX on channel 8-2. I had read where there was supposed to be another station in that market by now, not counting PBS affiliate WMEM-DT.

Western Broadcasting Company had a construction permit for a full-service station on channel 47, but the permit expired last June 28 without the station being built.

 

[onairb]

Here are a few I remember re: confusing networks with local channels.
A few months back, on another board I used to visit somebody posted a rant about 'Fox'. Not Fox News, mind you, the Fox network. He was upset that the 'idiots' at 'Stupid Fox' had 'cancelled Seinfeld'...or, in English, the Fox affiliate that reran that show every night at 7 had removed it from the schedule.

Regarding confusion of channel numbering, in early 2002, when NBC made its affiliate switch in the Bay Area, it went from Channel 4(KRON, never owned by the network) to KNTV (channel 11, formerly an ABC affiliate, which NBC purchased in order to make the switch). Although KNTV remained on OTA channel 11, it was assigned channel 3 on Bay Area cable systems (mostly Comcast).
Thus, KNTV rebranded itself as 'KNTV 11, NBC 3', downplaying its analog channel number. KNTV had been located in San Jose, but with the affiliation change, it was added to systems in the North and East Bay Area, where it had previously
At the time, TV GUIDE was still publishing local listings, and the San Francisco edition carried the Sacramento channels..among them, KCRA, that city's NBC affiliate...on channel 3.
There was confusion among viewers in the East Bay(Oakland) area, who had recieved KCRA on cable, and were confused by now, in efefct, having two 'Channel 3's' showing NBC. Eventually, KNTV stopped saying the number '3' on-air, and started using 'NBC 11'(shortly before this year's digital transition, they stopped using channel numbers altogether, and are now 'NBC Bay Area'.)

Finally, a childhood memory: at some point when I was in 3rd grade in 1982, some of my classmates must have gotten confused about the syndicated reruns of 'Happy Days', while the show was still in first-run(post-Ron Howard) on ABC. I remember a discussion of how 'Richie is on the show on channel 44'-KBHK, the independent channel showing 'Happy Days Again', as the reruns were titled-'but he's in the Army on Channel 7'-KGO, the ABC affiliate. One kid seemed to get that 'Richie' was the character's name, but was convinced Ron Howard was somehow 'still there, they just don't show him'.

 

[mjlarochelle]

I once read some people were protesting FOX News Channel in front of WMSN FOX 47 in Madison, Wisconsin. Even though WMSN is owned by Sinclair and their news is produced by the local Quincy Newspapers-owned ABC affiliate, WKOW.

This was a third-hand story and I don't know how true it is, especially since WMSN was part of News Central when it existed and protesters may have thought Sinclair was a branch of FOX.

 

[mleach]

I once read some people were protesting FOX News Channel in front of WMSN FOX 47 in Madison, Wisconsin. Even though WMSN is owned by Sinclair and their news is produced by the local Quincy Newspapers-owned ABC affiliate, WKOW.

This was a third-hand story and I don't know how true it is, especially since WMSN was part of News Central when it existed and protesters may have thought Sinclair was a branch of FOX.

That is funny !!!

Somewhat reminds me of a deleted scene from the recent Eddie Murphy bomb of a movie.. "Imagine That".

In one scene Eddie's daughter wanted her dad to get the local Denver TV stations ( movie was shot in Denver BTW ) to feature her concert only to have Eddie Murphy say to his on screen daughter Olivia "...I dont think thats a good idea !! 9 News and 7 News don't like kids !!"

Had Nickelodeon kept that scene in the movie intact..it wouldn't surprise at all if some joker would stand out in front of both KMGH and KUSA ( not hard to too since both stations are pretty much neighbors ) protesting that those two TV stations "don't like children".

Despite being a "deleted scene"..the clip did pop up on You Tube some months back only to get yanked by Nickelodeon.

 

[ixnay]

This thread has wandered off the original topic - but in an interesting direction.

And if this if this website were railroad.net (yes, it's about the RR industry, and I post on it occasionally, being something of a railfan), the mods, who seem quite drunk with power, would waste little time cracking down on it, as they have next to 0 tolerance for topic drift (in any direction). I've seen it done, more than once, even to me on one occasion.

ixnay

 

[Stanislav]

This thread has wandered off the original topic - but in an interesting direction.

And if this if this website were railroad.net (yes, it's about the RR industry, and I post on it occasionally, being something of a railfan), the mods, who seem quite drunk with power, would waste little time cracking down on it, as they have next to 0 tolerance for topic drift (in any direction). I've seen it done, more than once, even to me on one occasion.

Unless something off-topic is glaringly so, to the point of being a complete non-sequitur, I have no problems with it. Something related to, inspired by, or in any way akin to the main topic is fine by me. Forums like this are sort of like a text-on-screen version of a conversation, and said conversation (especially when there is as much enthusiasm for the subject as exists here) just naturally wanders onto little side roads that are, nonetheless, still linked to the main highway. In a verbal conversation, if someone says, "Oh, you know, that kind of reminds me of..." they are not rebuked for going "off-topic" and admonished to wait and start anew when the current subject matter has been thoroughly discussed. No, the conversationalists wander off for a bit, then eventually return to the main topic.

 

[stdjsb25]

For awhile in 1984, Warners and a couple of other studios instituted a program where the video stores would rent the tapes from the studio on a monthly basis, then re-rent them to consumers. I actually liked this, because it allowed my store to stock many more copies of a hot new movie than I could otherwise afford. When they weren't popular anymore, I'd just send them back. But this turned out to be an administrative nightmare for the studios, who ended up being stuck with thousands of copies of tapes they no longer had a market for. So they gave up on that.

Disney originally would not sell to video rental stores, only for sale to "authorized" Disney retailers. So we had to buy Disney movies retail, then rent them out, since it was legal to do so.

Fox was one of the studios that ran a Video Rental Library program. The first video release of "Star Wars" in May 1982 was one such release, four months before it became available for sale. I've heard that a "Video Rental Library" copy of that on VHS can run upwards in the $200+ range.

As for Disney, if I recall correctly, they had seperate versions of movies for both sale and rental. Retail tapes would open before the FBI warning with a spiel that says "For Sale Only: Not Intended for Rental", while rental tapes were "For Rental Only: Not Intended for Sale" and a byline that indicated that the tapes were property of Disney. In addition, the clamshell cases were different for each version. A plain case was used for rental tapes, while retail tapes were in those white clamshell cases that looked all alike.

 

[LKellerIII]

For awhile in 1984, Warners and a couple of other studios instituted a program where the video stores would rent the tapes from the studio on a monthly basis, then re-rent them to consumers. I actually liked this, because it allowed my store to stock many more copies of a hot new movie than I could otherwise afford. When they weren't popular anymore, I'd just send them back. But this turned out to be an administrative nightmare for the studios, who ended up being stuck with thousands of copies of tapes they no longer had a market for. So they gave up on that.

Disney originally would not sell to video rental stores, only for sale to "authorized" Disney retailers. So we had to buy Disney movies retail, then rent them out, since it was legal to do so.

Fox was one of the studios that ran a Video Rental Library program. The first video release of "Star Wars" in May 1982 was one such release, four months before it became available for sale. I've heard that a "Video Rental Library" copy of that on VHS can run upwards in the $200+ range.

As for Disney, if I recall correctly, they had seperate versions of movies for both sale and rental. Retail tapes would open before the FBI warning with a spiel that says "For Sale Only: Not Intended for Rental", while rental tapes were "For Rental Only: Not Intended for Sale" and a byline that indicated that the tapes were property of Disney. In addition, the clamshell cases were different for each version. A plain case was used for rental tapes, while retail tapes were in those white clamshell cases that looked all alike.

I don't recall the separate Disney sales and rental tapes. When I first opening the store (May 1983), you had to be an "Authorized Disney Retailer," and you had to promise only to sell them. So we'd go to one of those "authorized" stores, and buy them at retail price.The key was - they were "not intended for rental,", but it was still perfectly legal to do so. So we did.

As for any 1982 Fox rental program, that was before my store was open. As I remember it, Star Wars was released on VHS/Beta after I opened my store, so that would have been late 83 or 84. I remember that the hot new release in the month I opened the store was 9 to 5. The studio rental programs didn't start until maybe 84 - and I thought they were great. My store was new and struggling - it was expensive purchasing copies for $45 to $60 each. Renting them for much less (about $25 per month per copy, if I remember) was much cheaper in the long run, because I could stock more copies, and return the extras each month as the demand went downhill.

The $200 cost for a rental copy you've heard seems way too high. Even at $5.00 per rental (the price we were getting in 1983, believe it or not), it would have taken 40 turnovers to break even. Not realistic.

 

[hubcity]

Fox was one of the studios that ran a Video Rental Library program. The first video release of "Star Wars" in May 1982 was one such release, four months before it became available for sale. I've heard that a "Video Rental Library" copy of that on VHS can run upwards in the $200+ range.

The $200 cost for a rental copy you've heard seems way too high. Even at $5.00 per rental (the price we were getting in 1983, believe it or not), it would have taken 40 turnovers to break even. Not realistic.

I suspect I know what he meant, and a Google search confirms it - the $200 (actually $100-$200) is for an unplayed Video Rental Library edition - probably on Beta - of Star Wars, the first ever made available to home viewers, purchased today as a collectable. Back then it was likely less (I seem to remember $80 or so.)

 

[visaman]

The "channel X is NBC, channel Y is CBS, etc." thing is also why viewers go bananas when there is a network switch. I read on another board that when Seattle had their big multi-channel network swap some years back, the first post-switch Nielsens showed every station involved in the swap had lost viewers -- the only station that gained was the one affiliate that didn't change.

Are you sure you are talking about Seattle? I don't think they went through a network swap in that market

There was a brief time in the 90's when KIRO lost their CBS affiliation to KSTW, which later became a UPN, then a CW affiliate.

 

[mleach]

This thread has wandered off the original topic - but in an interesting direction.

And if this if this website were railroad.net (yes, it's about the RR industry, and I post on it occasionally, being something of a railfan), the mods, who seem quite drunk with power, would waste little time cracking down on it, as they have next to 0 tolerance for topic drift (in any direction). I've seen it done, more than once, even to me on one occasion.

ixnay

My wife for the longest time used to go to the boards on Roadfood.com until the people on that site, they too became drunk with "power" and didn't allow ANYTHING to go "off topic". Say for an example a thread is about McDonalds and someone brings up The Olive Garden or even Wendy's, not only does the thread get locked but they could find themselves banned from posting future messages for a period of time too. That happened to her quite a few times but the straw that broke the camel's back was when under a thread titled "have you ever met a TV star?', she brought up the time where she once had lunch with Isabel Sanford from "The Jeffersons" way back in 2000 only to get a "private message" from a board moderator pretty much calling my wife "a liar" only because she didn't have a You Tube video of that lunch to back up her claim that she had really met Isabel in the first place. Yeah like anyone would do that? Anyway the site had banned her so it was "bye bye" to Roadfood.com

With radio-info.com, I have noticed a small but growing trend another some members who wish the site would "crack down" on posts that to them are "off-topic", however I doubt this site would ever resort to the practice being done by Roadfood only because the topics here can very easily stray away from the original topic though for the most part its only temporary since entertanment/broadcasting is so broad a subject to begin with. Say if someone for example brings up The Real Don Steele and his appearance on the TV show "Batman"..ah be kind of hard NOT to bring up "KHJ-AM', "Bossradio", K-Earth 101", "Robert W. Morgan" or even his cancer death since all of those things were connected to Steele. Now to bring up something totally 100% unrelated in a Steele post such as say that one of Don's neighbors was a baker for Ralphs Supermarkets and today Ralphs offers double coupons or had a recent sale on Pepsi..well what does that have to do with the Real Don Steele? Then yeah..that would be "off-topic".

 

[bpatrick]

The "channel X is NBC, channel Y is CBS, etc." thing is also why viewers go bananas when there is a network switch. I read on another board that when Seattle had their big multi-channel network swap some years back, the first post-switch Nielsens showed every station involved in the swap had lost viewers -- the only station that gained was the one affiliate that didn't change.

Are you sure you are talking about Seattle? I don't think they went through a network swap in that market

There was a brief time in the 90's when KIRO lost their CBS affiliation to KSTW, which later became a UPN, then a CW affiliate.

When ABC was picking off NBC affiliates in the '70s and early '80s a conventional wisdom emerged: two stations stood to gain--the one that went to ABC and the one that stayed put (usually the CBS affiliate). And even with the more recent multi-network switches the station that stayed put tends to benefit, as KPNX did in Phoenix and WFLA in Tampa (the latter, an NBC affiliate, unseated WTVT as number one in news when TVT switched from CBS to Fox).

But as for people going bananas when there's a switch, there was very little confusion when WSB and WXIA switched in Atlanta. WXIA set up a telephone hotline to answer viewers' questions about what would be seen where; they got about 600, far fewer than they expected. It doesn't mean that people don't learn to associate stations and networks; I for one (and I consider myself pretty knowledgeable when it comes to affiliations), perhaps because I don't go to Georgia much anymore, still expect to find ABC on 11 Alive, even though I know I won't.

 

[Tim L]

With radio-info.com, I have noticed a small but growing trend another some members who wish the site would "crack down" on posts that to them are "off-topic", however I doubt this site would ever resort to the practice being done by Roadfood only because the topics here can very easily stray away from the original topic though for the most part its only temporary since entertanment/broadcasting is so broad a subject to begin with. Say if someone for example brings up The Real Don Steele and his appearance on the TV show "Batman"..ah be kind of hard NOT to bring up "KHJ-AM', "Bossradio", K-Earth 101", "Robert W. Morgan" or even his cancer death since all of those things were connected to Steele. Now to bring up something totally 100% unrelated in a Steele post such as say that one of Don's neighbors was a baker for Ralphs Supermarkets and today Ralphs offers double coupons or had a recent sale on Pepsi..well what does that have to do with the Real Don Steele? Then yeah..that would be "off-topic".

Good points:
I know at times when certain topics come up I sometimes tend to bring a "Cleveland/Northeast Ohio Angle" to the topic that may not interest very many..but its "Classic TV" and it's "on topic" to me..

mleach:
I can see somebody from roadfood.com reading your post and saying "so SHE was the one"..LOL