WLNE-TV FINDS A BUYER

[AKLes]

Ironically, I recall visiting relatives who lived in NW Connecticut back in the early 1970's and they frequently got a great signal from channel 6 (then WTEV). It was often clearer than some of the locals (3, 8, 30). And, tuning around, channels 10 and 12 were snowy while 6 was clear.

The Connecticut angle does not surprise me.

Consider the directionalization; the signal being moderately forced away from Maine and upstate New York pushed it in your direction. Also, the antenna atop that 1,100 foot tower was relatively high-gain so the signal strength tended to maximize at the horizon, actually skimming over some of the closer-in area. Not as badly as was the case for Boston UHF stations when they first started out with low-power transmitters and extremely high gain antennas but enough to help out in CT.

Answering somebody else's question, remember the offsets. With a good directional antenna, especially on a rotor, it would be easy to select among the three "6's" and, with the fine-tuning controls on analog sets, somebody who even thought to try fine-tuning could separate the three.

Likewise, I recall vacationing on Cape Cod back in the day (Falmouth) and channel 6 was THE station that you could watch. It was clear and crisp while nothing else came in well at all. They were CBS and often pre-empted to show Red Sox baseball back then. 10 and 12 were usually snowy, as was a faint channel 5 from Boston. Basically, we just had channel 6 to watch.

This is more of a site location matter. The WTEV tower is just off Narragansett bay with a lot of flat ground between there and the Cape. All the others are westward with a little bit of high ground between Rehoboth and The Cape.

IF there had been cable penetration in 1959, and IF WTEV had done anything responsible with news they might have had a chance. One was out their control and the other was caught up in a lot of personalities and politics.

 

[formeraa]

I was living in the area in the 80's. Channel 6 had just adopted the WLNE call letter -- and the We Love New England slogan. The first news experiment was "Action News" with the anchors split-screened between the brand-new DOWNTOWN Providence news studios and the older New Bedford studios. They had newscasts at 12 noon with John Greenwood, 6, 7, and 11pm with Magee Hickey and Chris Conanglia. The weekend newscasts were anchored by Kathryn Grey. Jerry Green and Joe Becker were on sports. Brad Field and Steve Cascione were the weathermen. After a year of lethargic ratings, the noon news and 7pm newscast were dropped.

The next experiment was the "Channel 6 News" with John Sweeney and Chris Conanglia at 6pm and John Sweeney and Magee Hickey at 11pm. Chris was the nightbeat reporter and Magee was a 6pm reporter. John Sweeney was the main anchor and news director and was touted as the "2nd coming of Christ". WLNE purchased the Weathermation forecasting system and correctly forecasted a couple of major snowfalls with degreed meteorologists (Brad and Steve), whereas 10 and 12 had weather personalities, Art Lake and Hank Bouchard, forecasting only flurries. This era quickly ended after Channel 6 divulged the fact that some very famous band (The Rolling Stones??) was going to do a concert in RI when it was supposed to be a small, secretive concert.

Finally, it was time to try the most aggressive newsteam that Channel 6 ever assembled. This was the "WLNE News" team with Dave Layman, Ann Conway, Ken Bell (sports), and John Ghiorse (weather). They lured John Ghiorse away from WJAR with a $1 millon contract over 6 years. At the time, this was arguably the best newsteam in Providence. Dave or Ann went out and filed a report each evening. John Ghiorse worked hard on his "Ghiorse Factor". Ken Bell covered the sports of New England. In addition, Barbara Meagher (and later Pamela Watts) anchored live from the Massachusetts Bureau (New Bedford studio) each evening at 6pm. The news intro trumpeted, "Now....Live from DOWNTOWN PROVIDENCE...This is WLNE News!". The reporters became very aggressive. 6 covered ALL the major events, but nobody really tuned in. This newscast eventually morphed into "WLNE 6 News" and later simply "6 News" with Larry Estepa and Pamela Watts, but by then hope was lost.

 

[formeraa]

By the way, I don't believe that CBS was a handicap for Channel 6. In 1980, CBS had the TOP rated national evening newscast with Walter Cronkite. Yes, CBS jas never succeeded with news in the morning (except for #2 status for a brief time in the mid-80's), but they had the BEST newscast in the evenings. In fact, for a time, WLNE tried the trick of running their newscast right up against CBS. I remember Ann and Dave reading their final story very quickly and saying, "NOW, CBS!!" (then they cut to Dan Rather immediately without a break) to captialize on CBS News' popularity.

Actually, the popularity of the morning shows was not as important in the scheme of things because there were NO early morning newscasts at that time. Typically, there were cut-ins during the early morning shows at 7:25 and 8:25am where a reporter read the news and, perhaps, the weekend weatherperson or a weather intern did the weather. The early morning newscasts didn't become popular until well into the mid-80's.

 

[Skynet74]

CBS had Walter Cronkite. That in my opinion was their only strong point. WLNE tried to build on that success, but as pointed out it just never really happened. As I've stated in the past, it is really going to take something outrageous to shock the system of viewers in Rhode Island for them to make that change to 6. WLNE is going to have to take a risk like never before. Perhaps a risk never seen before in local News anywhere. It's time to think out of the box. Otherwise it's going to be another 50 years in distant third.

 

[formeraa]

CBS was the "go-to" network for news before CNN began. It was known for its news division and strong reporters. In Seattle, where I grew up, our CBS affliate was also pretty bad in the 70's. So, we would watch the strong NBC affliate and then switch to the CBS Evening News at 6pm with Walter Cronkite.

While the Today Show has been around forever, Good Morning America started in the late-70's as primarily a cheery entertainment show with news updates on the half-hour. CBS was actually the only network with a totally hard news program in the morning in the 70's. However, a lot of affliates didn't carry it -- many still had local children's shows airing alongside Captain Kangaroo (e.g. JP Patches in Seattle).

 

[genius]

Wow, this has been an interesting read. Although I don't know much about the exact situation in Providence, here in Albuquerque the local CBS station KRQE was pretty much stuck at #3 since the 70s. I moved here in 1998 and I though they had a decent newscast, but it wasn't quite as good as the others in town and they had a revolving door of anchors. However, once Emmis bought the station, it's fortunes were turned around, the revovlving door closed, and they hired a very popular veteran anchor away from rival KOAT. Then Lin(who owns WPRI) bought the station, made more improvements to the quality etc. and KRQE has been winning timeslots ever since. Plus Lin also bought the Fox station KASA making a duopoly here in Albuquerque, and changing the 9:00PM newscast as an outlet for KRQE news.

So miracles can happen...

 

[formeraa]

Hey Genius --

Actually, WLNE tried the hire someone popular from the top-rated station ploy in the mid-80's. Chief Meteorologist John Ghiorse was the most popular weatherman in the market at top-rated WJAR. WLNE hired him away for the princely sum of $160K per year or so. Yes, at the time, thousands of viewers changed to channel 6, but it wasn't enough.

Channel 6 now has Walter Cryan (who retired as the 2nd most popular anchor in Providence) anchoring at 6pm. Perhaps if WLNE now invests in a great staff to surround him for the next couple of years...

I always wondered how the Boston stations played into all of this. While I was in Providence, many people watched the Boston local newscast particularly if you were from out-of-town.

 

[Skynet74]

I always wondered how the Boston stations played into all of this. While I was in Providence, many people watched the Boston local newscast particularly if you were from out-of-town.

I was one of those people. I grew up close to Providence, and most days during the 80's I was tuned into WBZ. I wasn't the only one. Kids in my Jr. High School class would talk about Bruce Schowegler and the weather each day. Boston must have pulled in some good ratings from the Providence area.

 

[BRNout]

Northwest Connecticut? Wouldn't you start to get channels 6 and 10 from Schenectady and Albany, NY at that point (assuming you were up high enough)?

It depends where you are - in the northwest corner (i.e. Salisbury or Canaan), you'd be right. In this case, it was in Harwinton - which still has higher topography to the west than it does to the east. The east slopes of the northwest hills can actually give pretty good reception of TV and FM signals from places like Providence and Boston. The only Albany station I ever got up there was WGNA 107.7 - the rest were mostly from the east. WAAF usually came in quite well, for example.

That seems to the case from Bristol to Burlington to New Hartford to Hartland. You actually get better reception of NY (FM/TV) signals in Vernon than you do in Bristol - thanks to topography. The reverse is true for Providence area stations.

Anyhow, I remember than channel 6 was a stand-out back then. Came in almost perfectly during tropo events (though I didn't know what those were back then).

 

[formeraa]

I always wondered how the Boston stations played into all of this. While I was in Providence, many people watched the Boston local newscast particularly if you were from out-of-town.

I was one of those people. I grew up close to Providence, and most days during the 80's I was tuned into WBZ. I wasn't the only one. Kids in my Jr. High School class would talk about Bruce Schowegler and the weather each day. Boston must have pulled in some good ratings from the Providence area.

We always said it was a choice between nasal-voiced Providence reporters live from the Johnstown council meeting or professional Boston newscasters reporting on significant regional, national, and international stories -- and professional meteorologists. With all due respect to Art Lake and Hank Bouchard (and I highly respected both of them), they didn't do well at all in severe weather conditions.

 

[burnedout guy]

maybe WLNE will finally do news under the new ownership

 

[Kenny Atkinson]

I hear Home Shopping.

 

[formeraa]

maybe WLNE will finally do news under the new ownership

They may try to do news, but nobody will tune in. Nobody ever turns to 6 in the Providence area for news. They could pair Walter Cryan with Patrice Wood, John Ghiose Weather, and Frank Carpano on Sports and STILL NO ONE WOULD WATCH!!!!

 

[Skynet74]

I'll watch WLNE News literally twice a year. That's the problem. It's hard to get ratings like that.

 

[formeraa]

Let me come at this from another angle. Providence has three network affliates locally plus three more right next door in Boston. Manchester, NH only has one affiliate. WMUR get huge ratings. Does anyone know the difference between Manchester and Providence from the historical perspective?

 

[NO DAG]

Until Imes bought Channel 9 in Manchester, their news was horrible. I think their biggest show was the "Uncle Gus" show. Imes put a huge investment into the news department, and the dividends paid off quite well. Is Channel 6's signal much weaker than Channel 10 and 12's ? Will the digital signal of channel 6 be more on a par with the digital signals of 10 and 12 ??

 

[KML0224]

I would hope WLNE-DT would be their equal. It's coming from Rehoboth, MA like WJAR-DT and WPRI-DT do. The major difference up in Manchester is that they're still a portion of the Boston/Worcester DMA where as Providence is completely separate. Blame that on them being the state capitol.

As for New Hampshire, I can't see why they're not their own market already. You already have ABC and PBS. Channel 21 (ION) was CBS in the past from 1987 to 1989. Channel 50 is MY. Why not make them FOX and have MY as a digital subchannel? This could make channel 60 the new market's NBC affiliate and have Telemundo as a subchannel. Hell! Why not? FOX operates MY and NBC owns Telemundo. Sure, this dream would be very cost prohibitive, but I think it would make sense.

 

[vibe]

Re Ch 6 Reception:
1. I remember visiting my aunt in the 1960's in Naugatuck Ct-they lived in a low lying area but got Ch 6 Schenecady with the rotor pointed NW and Ch 6 new Bedford (snowy) w/ it pointed SE.
2. In New Britain we lived in another hole in the ground but w/ an antenna mounted on to of a 3 story, Ch 6 came in reasonably well and watchable. That must have been 70-80 mi OTA.
3. Yes on the cape, particularly mid cape Ch 6 had the best signal by far.
4. In SE Conn (Stonington) Ch 6 was practically city grade and that was from another low lying area.
Since then I've always made it a point to try and live on a hill for reception and sanitary reasons.

 

[MarcB]

Re Ch 6 Reception:
1. I remember visiting my aunt in the 1960's in Naugatuck Ct-they lived in a low lying area but got Ch 6 Schenecady with the rotor pointed NW.

I guess that explains why WRGB used to be listed in the Waterbury Republican Newspaper.