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WOR TV 9 1980s

I will upload just the commercials without Jackie Gleason at a future date. I'm not sure when but youtube has threatened to delete my channel over showing a few seconds of tv show clips.
 
In the mid-1980's (shortly after cable TV came to my suburban Boston hometown), the service included WOR/WWOR-9, and for good reason: The station probably had as much (if not more) live sports as any TV station in the country.

The sports schedule included Mets' baseball (110 regular-season games, about 55 each home and away), Rangers' hockey (30 away games), Islanders hockey (20 away games), Devils hockey (15 away games), Knicks basketball (30 away games), Nets basketball (15 away games), and some St. John's and Seton Hall men's basketball games (about 6-7 games of each).

That was a total of around 230-235 live sports events each year.

Of the teams listed above, I believe only the Mets still have games on over-the-air TV in New York (currently on WPIX-11), and only around 25 games a year. But when their current deal with WPIX expires, I expect SNY will carry all non-network Mets' games.
 
WOR TV was the station most of us did not watch much as kids. They looked like they were getting somewhat ambitious in the early 70's with shows like Dick Van Dyke, Lucy Show, beverly Hillbillies, Real McCoys, Banana Splits, Flipper, Gilligan's Island, Gigantor, pre 48 Bugs Bunny cartoons, along with sports, movies, drama shows. But gradually by 1974 the cartoons were gone, the sitcoms were gone by late in 1976. WOR TV consisted from the late 70's to mid 80's of drama shows like Bonanza, Ironside, The Saint, Voyage To Bottom Of The Sea. They had several old movies from the 30's to early 70's a day. They had Jim Bakker's PTL Club 1977-83 and the 700 Club 83-87. They had checkerboard public affairs shows on on sports nights 10-11 PM and every morning for 30 minutes before 9 AM sometime. They had Straight Talk a locally produced talk show and Joe Franklin. They had game shows for a while in evenings. They also had a local version of Romper Room 10 AM weekdays. They had virtually no sitcoms to speak of. many considered Channel 9 an also ran. Still they had the only 12 noon local newscast on weekdays.

In 1984 WOR TV began adding a couple Sitcoms; Bewitched, Partridge Family, Bilko, and Burns & Allen. That Fall they added a few game shows plus I Dream of Jeannie. They began running more classic sitcoms from 930 to noon weekdays pushing Romper Room to 830 AM. The newer shows they had included Hart to Hart and Magnum PI.

In 1987, WOR TV was sold to MCA TV and renamed WWOR. That fall they actually only altered about 5 hours a day of programming. the religion was replaced with cartoons 630-9 AM; Sitcoms remained 9-11 AM; a new talk show was added at 11, news stayed at noon. Afternoons had the same drama shows WOR TV had before till 7 PM. Then they ran Barney Miller and some first run syndicated shows till 9 followed by Morton Downy at 9 and news at 10 and RKO Holdover drama shows and movies late night. They paid record prices for Cosby Show which they added in 1988. By 1989, recent sitcoms occupied evening hours. Still WWOR remained the 6th rated station in a 6 major player station market. So the overhaul did not do alot of good in terms of ratings.

Had I run WOR TV in the late 70's, I would have run the same stuff weekends and also same sports at night. Bur daytime I would have run sitcoms that other stations passed on that were not on in the market. I would have never let Gilligan's Island or Get Smart fall off the station and onto WPIX and later WNEW TV. I would have renewed beverly Hillbillies. I would ahve picked up shows falling off other stations like Leave It To Beaver, McHale's Navy, Dennis The Menace, Mr Ed, Green Acres, and others. As shows like Andy Griffith fell off Channel 5 in 1981 I would ahve picked that up as well. I would have also had a kids block in mornings running cartoons the other stations passed on from 7-9. I would have pushed Jim Bakker to 6 AM and kept Romper Room and Joe Franklin. I would have dumped Straight Talk and moved game shows to late mornings and news at noon with a movie still at 1, and sitcoms afternoons, and maybe game shows evenings. WOR TV would have looked alot different in the 70's and 80's If I were running it.
 
We got WWOR on our cable system in Columbus, Ohio, for several years in the 1980s. I remember the Mets games, but didn't realize they carried so many other teams.
Oddly enough, our cable carried *either* WGN or WWOR, not both, while several other systems in our region did carry both. As someone who was just getting into baseball back then, namely the Cubs because of family ties to Chicago, I wasn't too happy about not getting to watch my team other than when they played the Mets or the Braves (and occasionally the Reds, who barely televised at all in those days).
WGN replaced WWOR on July 1, 1990 (I remember that specifically because I was so excited), and WWOR soon after disappeared from many cable systems in my part of the country. Coincidentally, relatives in Chicagoland kept WWOR on their cable for a few years after we lost it, but other than that I saw WWOR exactly one more time after that, in a hotel in Memphis in 1995, not long before their national feed disappeared. It was a real shame how the superstation feed went downhill so fast after Syndex.
 
schmave said:
We got WWOR on our cable system in Columbus, Ohio, for several years in the 1980s. I remember the Mets games, but didn't realize they carried so many other teams.
Oddly enough, our cable carried *either* WGN or WWOR, not both, while several other systems in our region did carry both. As someone who was just getting into baseball back then, namely the Cubs because of family ties to Chicago, I wasn't too happy about not getting to watch my team other than when they played the Mets or the Braves (and occasionally the Reds, who barely televised at all in those days).
WGN replaced WWOR on July 1, 1990 (I remember that specifically because I was so excited), and WWOR soon after disappeared from many cable systems in my part of the country. Coincidentally, relatives in Chicagoland kept WWOR on their cable for a few years after we lost it, but other than that I saw WWOR exactly one more time after that, in a hotel in Memphis in 1995, not long before their national feed disappeared. It was a real shame how the superstation feed went downhill so fast after Syndex.
Click to expand...

It certainly did...it didn't affect WGN so much in the beginning of Syndex, but it make a mess of WWOR's national feed--at that time, other than shows they carried from the Universal library (Magnum, P.I. and A-Team, for example), local news and sports, and at the first The Cosby Show (and perhaps another sitcom or two), everything else was pretty much covered up nationally.
 
I was a headend technician for United Cable Television of Scottsdale, Arizona in the 80s. We carried WOR until sometime in the mid-80s and dropped them due to the Syndex issue. I personally was charged with the task of "pulling the plug" and replacing it with the Satellite News Channel. Upset a lot of Mets fans in the greater Phoenix area.
 
Had it on my system in Pittsburgh in the mid-80's. I remember coming home in the afternoon and crashing
on the couch to Mets baseball, Magnum PI and Hawaii Five-O.

It was also the station that introduced me to The Morton Downey, Jr. Show.
I recall having my jaw hit the table and thinking "What is this??"
 
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