Don't know the answer. Being a TV nerd from a very young age, I remember that in the early years (late 50s, early 60s?), KEYT ran programs from all 3 networks, so they were either getting multiple feeds, or perhaps just getting film and tape shipped up from LA. I recall reading that Hawaiian stations played shows a week or more after original airing, which were shipped (via airplane, I'm sure) from the mainland. Obviously, Santa Barbara is only a 2 hour drive from LA., so if shipped, likely got them same day. Network news must have been by Telco line.
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Which TV Guide local editions were available in the areas you grew up/once lived in?
- Thread starter Tim from Springfield IL
- Start date
Don't know the answer. Being a TV nerd from a very young age, I remember that in the early years (late 50s, early 60s?), KEYT ran programs from all 3 networks, so they were either getting multiple feeds, or perhaps just getting film and tape shipped up from LA. I recall reading that Hawaiian stations played shows a week or more after original airing, which were shipped (via airplane, I'm sure) from the mainland. Obviously, Santa Barbara is only a 2 hour drive from LA., so if shipped, likely got them same day. Network news must have been by Telco line.
The old "eastern Iowa" version of the Des Moines Register's Sunday TV insert (ca. '80s-90s) did include the same markets that you indicated, plus KHQA and WGEM, as well as the Mason City/Austin/Rochester Big 3, but IIRC WKBT-8 might have been the only LaCrosse, WI station included (I had thought Allamakee County, the northeasternmost Iowa county, was part of the LaCrosse/Eau Claire market, but from a quick check of Zap2it it appears this county is part of Cedar Rapids/Waterloo).
Living in Flint, Michigan in the late 80's I got an edition, which I think was either called the Flint-TriCities edition or the Mid-Michigan edition. It included listings for Flint-Bay City-Saginaw, Detroit, Lansing, a couple of stations over in Ontario, a PBS station in Bad Axe, and a station in Alpena (which was quite far north...not really sure why it was in there).
I can speak for Auglaize County. Time Warner up there carries all the major network affiliates from both Dayton and Lima plus WBNS from Columbus and WBGU. At least in St. Marys, Lima stations are in HD and Dayton channels are not even though it's part of the Dayton DMA.
TSC, which my grandmother had the final few years of her life, carried all the major Lima affiliates as well as WHIO and CW from Dayton. They used to carry WKEF and WRGT (NBC and Fox from Dayton) but dropped those in a carriage dispute back around the end of 2014 and to the best of my knowledge, those never came back. They never carried WDTN, owing to WLIO.
WatchTV, which my aunt and uncle who live near Glynwood get, carries all Dayton stations via Dish Network but also has Lima and WTVG from Toledo. Only system that serves Auglaize County that carries any Toledo stations, as far as I know.
Fort Wayne stations disappeared 10 years ago or more, even in much of Mercer County (think northern Mercer still gets Fort Wayne plus Dayton).
As a personal aside, in this day and age of cable systems being so reticent to carry multiple network affiliates, how WBNS has survived in Auglaize County this long when WHIO and Lima's CBS are available is beyond me. I know my family there likes it so they can keep up with Columbus. When I visited, I always watched WHIO for CBS, never WBNS.
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I grew up in Wesson, Miss. some 49 miles south of Jackson. Our version of the TV guide was called South Mississippi Edition which featured the TV station from Jackson, Meridian, Laurel-Hattiesburg, Biloxi-Gulfport as well as the Mobile, Ala. area & New Orleans, La. area. There was a Central Mississippi Edition which I found when visiting Jackson which included Jackson, Meridian, Greenwood-Greenville-Grenada & Tupelo-West Point areas.
In Manistee, MI, it was the Northern Michigan edition. Had all the Traverse City, Alpena, Flint/Saginaw, and Grand Rapids locals, along with the Lansing locals (minus WLAJ) and WKBD Detroit. The local bookstore also sold the Northern Wisconsin edition, which had Green Bay, Milwaukee, Wausau, Eau Claire-La Crosse, and Marquette [and WISC from Madison] (the Green Bay VHF stations were on cable into the 1990s here (and until 2009 in Ludington)).
Does WBNS carry Ohio State football? That could be a reason. Last time I saw TV in Auglaize County, it was the old Warner Cable as I recall (pre TWC). I don't even remember what we had in Mercer. I remember when the Dayton market was trying desperately to stay in the top 50 (back in the 70s). The 3 Dayton TV stations did an all-out push to keep Mercer County in the Dayton DMA (what WKEF got out of the deal I don't know, they weren't on the cable and they were difficult to get off antenna, especially since most antenna homes had their UHF antenna aimed at Ft. Wayne). You better believe if a cow got loose in Mercer County, a WHIO and WDTN news crew were there!
When I lived in Warminster, PA in the 70's and 80's, my local TV Guide was the PA/NJ edition, which later became the Philadelphia edition.
One station listed was WCMC-TV 40 in Wildwood, NJ(the shore area). That station, as you all know, was an NBC affiliate with short broadcast hours, and its local fare in black and white. Today, that station is WMGM-TV and is a Soul of the South affiliate.
One station listed was WCMC-TV 40 in Wildwood, NJ(the shore area). That station, as you all know, was an NBC affiliate with short broadcast hours, and its local fare in black and white. Today, that station is WMGM-TV and is a Soul of the South affiliate.
Back to the Des Moines Sunday Register's TV insert, in the 1960's the Cowles family's "Newspaper Iowa Depends Upon" put out one edition for the entire state. If a station put a Grade B over even a county or two of Iowa, the station likely had a listing. It may have been the most unwieldy TV listing anywhere. And with the listings organized by station, not time, there was simply no room for a quick program synopsis. Programs with titles longer than twelve characters were abbreviated as there just wasn't room.
It might be easier to list the stations that didn't make it: Lincoln's KOLN-TV 10 and KUON-TV 12, but since the southwestern corner of Iowa was already blanketed with Omaha signals, plus St. Joseph, maybe it would have been overkill to have a third CBS station for that region. Why KUON-TV wasn't listed is a mystery. It was the de facto NET outlet for Omaha in the early 60s, back when the N was for National, not Nebraska. Perhaps it was seen as an embarrassment how far ahead Nebraska was over Iowa in the realm of educational TV. KUON used full visual power of 316 kW and 830 ft HAAT between Lincoln and Omaha, and covered several southwest Iowa counties. Little KDPS-TV 11 Des Moines was a rather small operation owned by the Des Moines schools at the time, the only NET outlet in Iowa whose 320 ft HAAT and 28.8 kW visual power kept it limited to a 30 mile radius. (thanks to AmericanRadioHistory.com for reference material)
From memory, these were the stations listed in the Des Moines Sunday Register TV listings, with 1967 calls and network affiliations:
NORTHWEST
Sioux Falls:
KELO-TV 11 CBS
KSOO-TV 13 NBC
--------------
Sioux City:
KTIV 4 NBC
KVTV 9 CBS
SOUTHWEST
Omaha:
KMTV 3 NBC
WOW-TV 6 NBC
KETV 7 ABC
-----------------
St. Joseph MO:
KFEQ-TV 2 CBS
NORTHEAST
Mason City:
KGLO-TV 3 CBS
Austin MN:
KMMT 6 ABC
Rochester MN:
KROC-TV 10 NBC
-----------------
Cedar Rapids:
WMT-TV 2 CBS
KCRG-TV 9 ABC
Waterloo:
KWWL-TV 7 NBC
----------------
La Crosse WI:
WKBT 8 CBS
SOUTHEAST
Rock Island:
WHBF-TV 4 CBS
Davenport:
WOC-TV 6 NBC
Moline:
WQAD-TV 8 ABC
-------------------
Hannibal MO:
KHQA-TV 7 CBS
Quincy IL:
WGEM-TV 10 NBC
------------------
Ottumwa:
KTVO 3 CBS
CENTRAL
Ames:
WOI-TV 5 ABC
Des Moines
KRNT-TV 8 CBS
KDPS-TV 11 NET
WHO-TV 13 NBC
----------------
Fort Dodge
KVFD-TV 21 NBC
It might be easier to list the stations that didn't make it: Lincoln's KOLN-TV 10 and KUON-TV 12, but since the southwestern corner of Iowa was already blanketed with Omaha signals, plus St. Joseph, maybe it would have been overkill to have a third CBS station for that region. Why KUON-TV wasn't listed is a mystery. It was the de facto NET outlet for Omaha in the early 60s, back when the N was for National, not Nebraska. Perhaps it was seen as an embarrassment how far ahead Nebraska was over Iowa in the realm of educational TV. KUON used full visual power of 316 kW and 830 ft HAAT between Lincoln and Omaha, and covered several southwest Iowa counties. Little KDPS-TV 11 Des Moines was a rather small operation owned by the Des Moines schools at the time, the only NET outlet in Iowa whose 320 ft HAAT and 28.8 kW visual power kept it limited to a 30 mile radius. (thanks to AmericanRadioHistory.com for reference material)
From memory, these were the stations listed in the Des Moines Sunday Register TV listings, with 1967 calls and network affiliations:
NORTHWEST
Sioux Falls:
KELO-TV 11 CBS
KSOO-TV 13 NBC
--------------
Sioux City:
KTIV 4 NBC
KVTV 9 CBS
SOUTHWEST
Omaha:
KMTV 3 NBC
WOW-TV 6 NBC
KETV 7 ABC
-----------------
St. Joseph MO:
KFEQ-TV 2 CBS
NORTHEAST
Mason City:
KGLO-TV 3 CBS
Austin MN:
KMMT 6 ABC
Rochester MN:
KROC-TV 10 NBC
-----------------
Cedar Rapids:
WMT-TV 2 CBS
KCRG-TV 9 ABC
Waterloo:
KWWL-TV 7 NBC
----------------
La Crosse WI:
WKBT 8 CBS
SOUTHEAST
Rock Island:
WHBF-TV 4 CBS
Davenport:
WOC-TV 6 NBC
Moline:
WQAD-TV 8 ABC
-------------------
Hannibal MO:
KHQA-TV 7 CBS
Quincy IL:
WGEM-TV 10 NBC
------------------
Ottumwa:
KTVO 3 CBS
CENTRAL
Ames:
WOI-TV 5 ABC
Des Moines
KRNT-TV 8 CBS
KDPS-TV 11 NET
WHO-TV 13 NBC
----------------
Fort Dodge
KVFD-TV 21 NBC
WBNS has not carried Ohio State sports, outside any games televised by CBS, since the inception of the Big Ten Network. Before that, they aired the vast majority of OSU men's basketball games via ESPN Plus and some OSU football games via the same network.
I always figured WBNS was around as a way for western Ohio viewers to keep up on Columbus news. WBNS also is on many cable systems throughout the Dayton DMA, and not just in those counties that logically would/should get Columbus stations anyway. But despite WHIO's overwhelming popularity in Auglaize County and the onset of the Lima affiliates (which outside WLIO I personally think are a waste, but to each their own), WBNS has hung around. And not even the reasoning that they carry the Browns more than WHIO, which often must carry the Bengals, works anymore since Lima's CBS always carries the Browns in case of conflict.
Like I said earlier, my relatives still in the area do watch WBNS on occasion for Columbus news. But for CBS, they and everyone else I know up there have always defaulted to WHIO.
Unless it wasn't included back in the 1960s, I thought KEYC-12 Mankato, MN (CBS) was also included in the Register's Sunday insert (and later in the "western Iowa" listings when the paper later split the statewide listings by western/eastern parts of Iowa).
Also surprised that the former KORN-5 Mitchell, SD (originally ABC, now NBC as Sioux Falls' KDLT satellite, KDLV) was not included in the Register's listings too. Same with the UHF La Crosse stations, at least once the 80s/90s rolled around.
Figured that memory would fail me in at least one count! And there's really no excuse for that, since I drive within a few miles of the KEYC tower when I visit my dad. I suspect KEYC placed their tower as far southwest of Mankato as possible to pick up viewers in the prime farm country of SW Minnesota and NW Iowa that had very limited access to TV in the late 50s.
About KORN-TV 5 Mitchell SD, I was wondering why it never merited inclusion in the 1960's Register listings. So, it was back to the 1967 Television Digest, courtesy AmericanRadioHistory.com, for a possible explanation. At that time, the KORN signal was on a 570 ft tower just outside of Mitchell with visual power at 22.9 kW. The grade B contour didn't make it back to Sioux Falls. Plus in 1967 T-D listed it as an NBC affiliate. The Wikipedia entry for current day KDLT describes KORN and KSOO as a regional net similar to the KELO-land stations, except that KORN and KSOO were separately owned. The FCC apparently forced KORN into becoming a separate operation in 1969. (for the record the info from the Wikipedia entry isn't well substantiated)
I wondered the same thing about another SoDak station, KUSD-TV 2 Vermillion, the educational station of the University of South Dakota. The 1967 T-D listed it with 420 watts visual from a 183 ft tower on campus. Any coverage outside of Vermillion proper was pure gravy! The T-D entry noted that KUSD had applied for a full 100 kW 757 ft HAAT facility, and by the 70s both KUSD and KUON were listed in the western Iowa editions of the Register.
By the late 80's and early 90's Gannett ownership had retired the mast-head tag of "The Newspaper Iowa Depends Upon" and began shrinking the distribution area, cutting off the far corners of the state, so my guess is that La Crosse listings in the Register may have been history by the 90s.
Growing up in the central valley in the 70s-80s, we received the Northern California edition of TVG. I remember it covering stations from Modesto all the way to the Oregon border. Markets included were Sacramento, San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, Santa Rosa, Chico, Redding and Eureka.
That is correct. One ownership, one news department for all four affiliates.
Unlike in the old days, WLIO is now on channel 8 instead of 35. 8.1 is NBC, 8.2 in Fox.
Sister station WOHL is now on 35. 35.1 is ABC and 35.2 is CBS.
Without looking, I think Lima cable still carries WHIO, WBNS and WTVG as out-of-market affiliates.
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