What if?

[TVCOOL]

What if these things happened?

During surviving into the 1960s when they were bought out by 20th Century Fox and changed their name to Fox.

UPN outlasting the WB and when the WB closes they take their stations and their shows.

The cable TV universe tops out at 60-75 channels and therefore not the 500 channel universe that exists today.

In 2000 Sinclair buys the UPN stations instead of Fox.

ABC,CBS and NBC in 2008 gives back 10pm to their stations and the 10pm shows move to Saturday nights.

UHF was successful in the 1950s when the first TVs included an UHF tuner.

 

[FreddyE1977]

If UHF had flourished in the 1950's likely the Fox network would never have been founded. Dumont would likely have survived as a
4th. network. Or Fox would have become the 5th. quasi-network and UPN/WB would never have started.

If local stations got 10PM back they'd likely just fill it with the same syndicated crap they run now at 7-8.

The number of cable channels would always have expanded to fill the technical universe allotted.

 

[K.M. Richards]

The problem with UHF was more than just whether or not tuners were available. The power needed for an acceptable UHF television signal was grossly underestimated by the FCC in the late-40s/early-50s when they were working on a channel allocation scheme that added UHF, and the transmitter manufacturers were hard-pressed to design and make available UHF transmitters that could create high ERPs when combined with what antennas were available.

With poor signals in the first place, the manufacturers saw little incentive to provide tuners of reasonable quality, although they did manage to do so in areas that had only UHF stations ... because they would have zero sales otherwise.

But Freddy is right in his first statement. Had UHF been in a comparable position with VHF for signal reception, DuMont would have been able to hold on for a while longer and perhaps find a way around the failed merger attempt with ABC, especially if they'd been able to survive until the FCC ruled on the Paramount issue.

We still might have had a fifth network by the end of the 1980s, but it would likely have been some kind of joint venture with Fox, Columbia and Warner Bros. rather than each starting their own, because with UHF having instant parity a lot of independent stations would have succeeded on that band and not wanted to affiliate. But Overmyer still probably wouldn't have happened, regardless.

 

[LKellerIII]

The problem with UHF was more than just whether or not tuners were available. The power needed for an acceptable UHF television signal was grossly underestimated by the FCC in the late-40s/early-50s when they were working on a channel allocation scheme that added UHF, and the transmitter manufacturers were hard-pressed to design and make available UHF transmitters that could create high ERPs when combined with what antennas were available.

With poor signals in the first place, the manufacturers saw little incentive to provide tuners of reasonable quality, although they did manage to do so in areas that had only UHF stations ... because they would have zero sales otherwise.

But Freddy is right in his first statement. Had UHF been in a comparable position with VHF for signal reception, DuMont would have been able to hold on for a while longer and perhaps find a way around the failed merger attempt with ABC, especially if they'd been able to survive until the FCC ruled on the Paramount issue.

We still might have had a fifth network by the end of the 1980s, but it would likely have been some kind of joint venture with Fox, Columbia and Warner Bros. rather than each starting their own, because with UHF having instant parity a lot of independent stations would have succeeded on that band and not wanted to affiliate. But Overmyer still probably wouldn't have happened, regardless.

My parents bought their first TV - a large (for the time) RCA Victor black and white - in 1956. It did NOT have a UHF tuner. TVs were comparatively expensive. I went online and checked prices on TVs in the early 60s. in 1961, a 23" Zenith B&W tabletop (no console) cost $259.00. Adjusted for inflation, that equals $2,060 today. In 1960, an RCA color TV (tabletop) cost $495. Adjusted for inflation, that's a whopping $3,977 in 2015 dollars.

So people didn't replace TVs on a whim, and generally only replaced them when the TV Repairman (remember them?) deemed them hopeless. IIRC, you even repaired your TV when the picture-tube blew out. So unless you lived in a city that had UHF network affiliates, you generally didn't own a TV with a UHF tuner. That made it nearly impossible in the early years for UHF stations in big cities like Los Angeles to get viewers.

I grew up in LA - and we were more lucky than most because we had 7 VHF stations - the "Big 3" networks and 4 independents. Early UHF stations - I recall a Channel 18 - were doomed to failure. When cable TV came to our suburb...probably about 1966 - the cable company placed KCET (28) and KMEX (36?) on VHF channels (6,8, 10, or 12). So that was the first time we could get UHF stations.

Given the cost, my parents did not replace that old RCA TV until 1970, and they were middle-class and had a fair amount of money to spend.

 

[nomadcowatbk]

In the old days, people kept the TVs longer than their cars, now it's the opposite, a color TV from the 60s could work for years if you didn't need a remote or stereo sound

 

[TVCOOL]

Not really the ABC,CBS & NBC stations would've moved their 11pm news a hour and start their late night talk shows 30 minutes.

 

[TVCOOL]

Here is another "What If" WNTA (now WNET) ch. 13 never went educational and gotten the TV rights of the then -expansion New York Mets in 1962.

 

[K.M. Richards]

Here comes a plug for the History of UHF Television site ...

I grew up in LA - and we were more lucky than most because we had 7 VHF stations - the "Big 3" networks and 4 independents. Early UHF stations - I recall a Channel 18 - were doomed to failure. When cable TV came to our suburb...probably about 1966 - the cable company placed KCET (28) and KMEX (36?) on VHF channels (6,8, 10, or 12). So that was the first time we could get UHF stations.

KCHU/18 San Bernardino was only a failure because its parent newspaper (The Sun) was sold to the Los Angeles Times, who had recently gotten out of the television business by selling KTTV to Metromedia and abandoned the TV station when they took over The Sun. They did have an "executive" spokesperson say the station was failing, but that belied an ad that had run in the newspaper heralding all the advertisers who ran spots on KCHU.

http://www.uhftelevision.com/articles/kchu.html

KMEX was, and still is, on channel 34. It is the oldest continually-operated UHF in California. On my cable system, it shared channel 8 with KWHY/22; KCET was on 10, and the short-lived local KKOG/16 was on 12.

 

[K.M. Richards]

Here is another "What If" WNTA (now WNET) ch. 13 never went educational and gotten the TV rights of the then -expansion New York Mets in 1962.

You do know that WNTA was on the verge of bankruptcy when five of the six licensees of the other commercial VHF stations (CBS, NBC, Metromedia, ABC, and RKO) joined together to buy the station and turn it over to the people who had been trying to get a non-commercial, educational UHF going, right?

For that "what if" to happen, National Telefilm Associates would have had to stay in the black long enough to put in a real bid for Mets telecasts*. Considering that the original owner of channel 13 (as WATV) lasted nine years before selling and NTA didn't even last three before throwing in the towel, what do you think could have happened to allow your "what if" to happen?

*-I know that they did do so, but that was only after the state of New Jersey tried to block the sale of channel 13 to the educational interests, and it was seen as a desperation move at the time.

 

[TVCOOL]

What if? Fox picked up the TV Rights to the NBA back in 2002 instead of ESPN/ABC?

 

[K.M. Richards]

What if? Fox picked up the TV Rights to the NBA back in 2002 instead of ESPN/ABC?

Fox Sports 1 would have existed a decade sooner. Otherwise, I doubt much would have changed to dramatically alter the television landscape.

ESPN/ABC, with some resources freed up from not carrying the NBA, would have outbid Fox for something else in a future year, which is why I don't think there would be a long-term result of significance.

 

[cwf1701]

What if? Fox picked up the TV Rights to the NBA back in 2002 instead of ESPN/ABC?

Jimmy Kimmel never makes his promo during the 2004 NBA final about Burning Detroit down.

What if: CBS went to WXYZ-7 following the Fox network switch in 1994 (where FOX went from WKBD-50 to WJBK-2) instead of going to WGPR-62? Would it had led to a merger of the Detroit, Flint and Toledo TV Markets if ABC decides to Merge WJRT and WTVG into a single operation (similar to ABC 33/40 in Birmingham) ?

 

[K.M. Richards]

What if: CBS went to WXYZ-7 following the Fox network switch in 1994 (where FOX went from WKBD-50 to WJBK-2) instead of going to WGPR-62? Would it had led to a merger of the Detroit, Flint and Toledo TV Markets if ABC decides to Merge WJRT and WTVG into a single operation (similar to ABC 33/40 in Birmingham) ?

Not likely. Those three markets are large enough that Nielsen wouldn't combine them based on a single network's market coverage via simulcast (satellite) stations.

Another factor: In 1994, Scripps owned six ABC affiliates and three NBC. All their CBS-affiliated stations are the result of mergers and acquisitions in this century. They wouldn't have changed the affiliation of a station that had been ABC for its entire history (it was an ABC O&O originally, as I'm sure you knew) without some existing relationship with the new network.

 

[TVCOOL]

What if the WB closes but UPN survives in 2006?

 

[newsmark]

Jimmy Kimmel never makes his promo during the 2004 NBA final about Burning Detroit down.

What if: CBS went to WXYZ-7 following the Fox network switch in 1994 (where FOX went from WKBD-50 to WJBK-2) instead of going to WGPR-62? Would it had led to a merger of the Detroit, Flint and Toledo TV Markets if ABC decides to Merge WJRT and WTVG into a single operation (similar to ABC 33/40 in Birmingham) ?

I agree with KM that CBS going to WXYZ was pretty slim. They would have had a slightly better chance going to WDIV 4--since Post-Newsweek had CBS ties with a couple of other station. The better option for all probably would have been for CBS to end up on WKBD-50. UPN probably would have ended up on 62 or 38. But Viacom/Paramount had other ideas and we got UPN Detroit instead.

A similar situation played out in Dallas-Fort Worth. KTVT/11 was set to be the market's WB affiliate. That would have sent CBS to KDAF/33, KTXA/21 or KDFI/27. I think KDAF/33 would have been most likely at the time. If The WB and UPN merger still happened, I think CBS would have strongarmed their way to making KTVT//11 the CBS affiliate, giving Tribune the CW Affiliation for KDAF/33. And we'd be right back where we are today, except that 33 would probably be a bit stronger than they are now and 11 would probably be a bit weaker in the market.

 

[newsmark]

What if the WB closes but UPN survives in 2006?

Tribune would have created some kind of program service for its formerly-WB stations--probably by buying more off-network comedies, which might have actually performed better than The CW.
Eventually, shows like Celebrity Name Game, Manhattan, Salem and The Arsenio Hall show might have ended up in Prime Time.

 

[ShawnHill1]

What if the WB closes but UPN survives in 2006?

Obviously, there would be no CW network to speak of, since those two networks merged into The CW (I don't care how was they spun it, it was unequivocally a merger)...perhaps UPN, already more established, would been a slightly-stronger network, and perhaps the stronger shows that The WB had prior to the merger would have gone to UPN, with some of the others going cable-only (TBS, TNT, ABC Family).

My opinion--I guess for those stations didn't make the cut in regards to losing The WB and not aligning with UPN, perhaps the bigger market stations (WPIX, WGN, KTLA, and a few others) would have survived as independents, while the others would either finagle an network affiliation from another existing, established station (not unlike what happened in San Diego in 2008, when KSWB took Fox from XETV, but that's a different case there), being forced to become independents, or perhaps go dark.

Here's perhaps the biggest "what if" that hasn't been brought up yet...what if Fox didn't get the NFL contract in 1994? We're all aware of the domino effect that the Fox-NFL union caused nationwide, especially with numerous stations (and entire markets) being affected.

 

[FreddyE1977]

What if? Fox picked up the TV Rights to the NBA back in 2002 instead of ESPN/ABC?

According to the book Outfoxed, a history of the Fox Network written by Alex Ben Block, Fox made a serious run at
snagging Monday Night Football away from ABC in the late 1980's.

That surely would have started their ascendancy much sooner. The reason it didn't happen?
According to Block the head of the NFL's Television Committee at that time was Art Modell the then-owner of
the Cleveland Browns. He was reportedly too cheap to pay for cable, and the then-Fox affiliate in Cleveland,
WOIO-TV 19, did not come in well at his house.

Apparently he single-handedly nixed the deal with the complaint that "I don't want my team's games on
that crappy station with the fuzzy signal."

 

[nomadcowatbk]

According to the book Outfoxed, a history of the Fox Network written by Alex Ben Block, Fox made a serious run at
snagging Monday Night Football away from ABC in the late 1980's.

That surely would have started their ascendancy much sooner. The reason it didn't happen?
According to Block the head of the NFL's Television Committee at that time was Art Modell the then-owner of
the Cleveland Browns. He was reportedly too cheap to pay for cable, and the then-Fox affiliate in Cleveland,
WOIO-TV 19, did not come in well at his house.

Apparently he single-handedly nixed the deal with the complaint that "I don't want my team's games on
that crappy station with the fuzzy signal."

He didn't assume the Fox viewing position

 

[MarioMania]

When did UHF start to take off?