Worst Stations and Markets for Local TV

[KeithE4]

Re: Defunct TV stations in your city

Chicago
W9XZV/KS2XBS Ch. 2 was Zenith's pay-TV experimental channel. It operated off and on between 1939 and 1953, when it was bounced to make way for WBBM-TV's move from Channel 4. It also held the callsign WTZR, but that was never used on-air as the station never received its commercial license. KS2XBS briefly returned on Channel 38 in the '60s.

WXXW Ch. 20 was WTTW's second channel, operating between 1965 and 1974. Its license survives today as WYCC, and its CP goes back to the never-built WIND-TV from 1953.

W36AO was a Juke Box Network station that had broadcast on Channel 36 in Palatine in the late '80s and early '90s. I think it became a TBN affiliate later, and I don't know when it left the air.

WCAE Ch. 50 St. John IN (1967-84) was Indiana's first public broadcasting station. Its license was never turned in to the FCC and it was used to test WPWR's transmitter in late '86, right before it moved from 60 to 50, but I don't know if WPWR or WYIN/56 is its "official" successor.

WLXT Ch. 60 Aurora was a short-lived independent circa 1970.

WBBS-TV Ch. 60 shared time with WPWR-TV between 1982 and 1985. It was a Spanish-language station.


Phoenix
KOY-TV Ch. 10 shared time with KOOL-TV in 1953 and '54, alternating days until KOOL bought them out.

Juke Box Network also had an affiliate in Phoenix on Channel 61 around 1990. I don't know if it moved or left the air, but by the time I moved back here in 1994, it was gone.

Yuma
KIVA Ch. 11 aired between 1953 and 1970. It is no relation to the current KYMA.

 

[RadioDaze]

Re: Defunct TV stations in your city

In Raleigh-Durham, the market's first TV station, WNAO-TV/Raleigh, was a UHF on channel 28 that signed on on 1953. Three VHF stations followed in 1954 (WTVD/Durham), 1955 (WUNC/Chapel Hill), and 1956 (WRAL/Raleigh), WTVD and WRAL specifically spelling doom for WNAO, which fell silent in 1957.

In the southern part of the market, Fayetteville had WFLB-TV on UHF channel 18 from 1955-1958.

We've had quite a few LPTV stations come and go, such as W34AX in Henderson, WUBX-CA 13 in Durham (Former W13BW), and WBXU-CA 13 in Raleigh (W13CI).

 

[dave73]

Re: Defunct TV stations in your city

Chicago
WCAE Ch. 50 St. John IN (1967-84) was Indiana's first public broadcasting station. Its license was never turned in to the FCC and it was used to test WPWR's transmitter in late '86, right before it moved from 60 to 50, but I don't know if WPWR or WYIN/56 is its "official" successor.

I have always looked at WPWR-TV being the successor to WCAE (channel wise), only after the allocation was changed from non-commercial to commercial. WYIN's license on 56 goes back to WGMI (originally a commercial license), which was an unbuilt CP that Newsweb Corp. held. So WYIN signed on 56 for the first time in 1987. As for WCAE, I don't remember the station ever being on the air in 1984. I remember it being off the air in 1983, & nothing ever broadcasting on 50 until late 1986, when Newsweb was running test patterns on the station with the WCAE call letters.

As for WCAE being Indiana's first non-commercial station, I'm surprised that it was in fact Indiana's first non-commercial station. Their original network was NET, then became PBS in October 1970. WFWA Fort Wayne, IN was the last non-commercial station to sign on in Indiana.

 

[mnradiofan]

Re: Defunct TV stations in your city

The only defunct channel I can think of in the Twin Cities (full power, at least) would be KXLI-41, which isn't really defunct. They tried to start a network with KTMA back in the late 80's, and it fell through, causing KXLI to leave the air at the end of 1988 (and KTMA to go bankrupt and be forced into a sale). It returned to the air in 1990, sans studio, broadcasting directly from the transmitter site (which it still does to this day I believe) and is now the Ion affiliate for Minneapolis. It took them YEARS to regain carriage on most of the cable systems in town, because they are technically licensed to St Cloud, so I'm not sure Must Carry applies in this case.

 

[w9wi]

Re: Defunct TV stations in your city

Chicago
WCAE Ch. 50 St. John IN (1967-84) was Indiana's first public broadcasting station. Its license was never turned in to the FCC and it was used to test WPWR's transmitter in late '86, right before it moved from 60 to 50, but I don't know if WPWR or WYIN/56 is its "official" successor.

I have always looked at WPWR-TV being the successor to WCAE (channel wise), only after the allocation was changed from non-commercial to commercial. WYIN's license on 56 goes back to WGMI (originally a commercial license), which was an unbuilt CP that Newsweb Corp. held. So WYIN signed on 56 for the first time in 1987. As for WCAE, I don't remember the station ever being on the air in 1984. I remember it being off the air in 1983, & nothing ever broadcasting on 50 until late 1986, when Newsweb was running test patterns on the station with the WCAE call letters.

As for WCAE being Indiana's first non-commercial station, I'm surprised that it was in fact Indiana's first non-commercial station. Their original network was NET, then became PBS in October 1970. WFWA Fort Wayne, IN was the last non-commercial station to sign on in Indiana.

WYIN claims (on their website) they descended from WCAE. Which would jibe with FCC policy on conservation of non-commercial reservations.

WFWA was *not* the last non-comm to sign on in Indiana; that title would go to WDTI-69 (WTBU at the time?) Indianapolis, which came on six years later. Yes, WDTI holds a non-commercial license.

 

[w9wi]

Re: Defunct TV stations in your city

Oh, Milwaukee? -- only one truly defunct station. WCAE-TV channel 25 operated in the mid-1950s, as a CBS affiliate. They left the air when CBS bought WOKY-TV 19. (CBS also traded WOKY-TV's inferior equipment to WCAE-TV in return for WCAE's gear, with the thought that WCAE would continue to operate. With a second VHF station -- WTVW channel 12 -- already in operation, and a pretty good chance for a third VHF, WITI channel 6 -- WCAE decided not to continue.)

There was a permit for channel 31 but it never operated.

Nashville's channel 17 has had at least one false start. Other than LPTVs I can't think of any other truly defunct stations in Middle Tennessee.

 

[nsa1]

Re: Defunct TV stations in your city

WKBF 61 in Cleveland, a Kaiser-owned independent, went dark in 1975. The frequency was later occupied by another indie, WCLQ, which later became WQHS (home shopping network), and is now a Univision O&O.

 

[Mario500]

Re: Defunct TV stations in your city

Mobile, Alabama used to have a station with the call letters WKAB-TV; it was the first TV station in the area to begin broadcasting. Here is a link to a series of articles about the history of WKAB-TV in Mobile.

 

[dave73]

Re: Defunct TV stations in your city

Chicago
WCAE Ch. 50 St. John IN (1967-84) was Indiana's first public broadcasting station. Its license was never turned in to the FCC and it was used to test WPWR's transmitter in late '86, right before it moved from 60 to 50, but I don't know if WPWR or WYIN/56 is its "official" successor.

I have always looked at WPWR-TV being the successor to WCAE (channel wise), only after the allocation was changed from non-commercial to commercial. WYIN's license on 56 goes back to WGMI (originally a commercial license), which was an unbuilt CP that Newsweb Corp. held. So WYIN signed on 56 for the first time in 1987. As for WCAE, I don't remember the station ever being on the air in 1984. I remember it being off the air in 1983, & nothing ever broadcasting on 50 until late 1986, when Newsweb was running test patterns on the station with the WCAE call letters.

As for WCAE being Indiana's first non-commercial station, I'm surprised that it was in fact Indiana's first non-commercial station. Their original network was NET, then became PBS in October 1970. WFWA Fort Wayne, IN was the last non-commercial station to sign on in Indiana.

WYIN claims (on their website) they descended from WCAE. Which would jibe with FCC policy on conservation of non-commercial reservations.

WFWA was *not* the last non-comm to sign on in Indiana; that title would go to WDTI-69 (WTBU at the time?) Indianapolis, which came on six years later. Yes, WDTI holds a non-commercial license.

When I looked back on that one, I didn't realize that now WDTI used to be WBTU, a former PBS station.

Now as for WCAE/WGMI mess I found wasn't easy. Newsweb Corp. was already holding the unbuilt CP for WGMI Gary. They also acquired the WCAE license from the Lake Central School System. Since channel 50 was able to be moved to Chicago for broadcasting purposees (not changing the COL), they applied with the FCC to swap the allocations to make 50 commercial, & 56 non-commercial. The original 56 license that was commercial, but changed to non-commercial, was transferred to what is now the Northwest Indiana Broadcasting Company. The original WCAE license (originally non-commercial, but now commercial), is currently held by Fox Corp. The fact of the manner is that the license WYIN holds did not evolve from the WCAE license. They however did evolve from WCAE in the sense that they're providing a TV station to NW Indiana with programming aimed at NW Indiana. Had the Northwest Indiana Broadcasting Company acted sooner, they would have been broadcasting on 50, & WPWR-TV would have likely stayed on 60. 56 most likely would never made it to the air, & the channel allocation probably would have been deleted. 54 & 33 were also non-commercial allocations for the Chicago market (54 for Kankakee & 33 for Dekalb), but those never went on the air, & have since been deleted. I'm surprised 62 managed to stay on the air in the analog days, with their limited signal.

 

[FreddyE1977]

Re: Defunct TV stations in your city

Pittsburgh has had WENS-TV 16, which went dark in 1957 after it's transmitter was damaged in a storm.
Two new VHF competitors were about to sign on, and it was deemed not economically feasible to rebuild.
The license was later transferred and the station returned some years later as public broadcaster WQEX.

Channel 53 has gone kaput twice. Once in the 1950's after a brief existence as WJKF. And then in the
early 70's as WPGH (it was on for a few years, off for three, and back on again).

Also several LPTV's on 29, 35, 63.

 

[KML0224]

Re: Defunct TV stations in your city

The obvious example in Hartford/New Haven would be the old WHCT-TV channel 18 of Hartford. They were the market's first CBS affiliate as WGTH-TV. They were then an independent station. Even Dr. Gene Scott's people owned it for a few years. Then came the controversial sale to Astroline Communications in the mid-1980s. They tried to compete with then-independent WTXX-TV channel 20 of Waterbury and pre-FOX WTIC-TV channel 61 of Hartford. Outside of some Hartford Whalers NHL games, I can't remember anything else worth watching. They were forced off the air in April of 1991 by the FCC. They were nearly entirely running as a home shopping channel by then. It came back on around 1997 and looked like they would become the market's PAX affiliate. Today, the station is WUVN-TV, a Univision affiliate owned by Entravision.

 

[spencerkarter85]

Re: Defunct TV stations in your city

In Greenville, SC market: WAIM 40 (CBS/ABC later Indiependent) around 1979. Came back as indie WAXA 40 in the mid 1980s, after losing the FOX affiliation to WHNS 21 in 1988 following Frank Outlaw's death, suffererd Chapter 11 and went dark on August 31, 1989. If WAXA was still on the air in 1990-onwards, it would pick up Match Game (1990 ABC revival), and other ABC shows prempted from WLOS 13 (if it wasn't simalcast), and syndicated shows we never got to see in GSP like Hogan Family,Perfect Strangers, etc. Today it's WMYA My40.

Also last year WNEG 32 (despite having an inadequate signal/pay-TV coverage in it's home market) which was then a commercial indie became non-commercial WUGA. As a result, GSP viewers didn't get to see Punk'd, The Hills, Storm Stories, The Daily Buzz, and the rest of Steve Harvey's first year on Family Feud until WMYA My40 regain Family Feud this season.

 

[trapper12]

Re: Defunct TV stations in your city

WLKT-TV channel 62 in Lexington Ky. It came and went before anyone really knew it was there. Also on channel 62 in Lexington several years later was WBLU LP. It is gone now.

 

[Ultimajock]

Re: Defunct TV stations in your city

Oh, Milwaukee? -- only one truly defunct station. WCAE-TV channel 25 operated in the mid-1950s, as a CBS affiliate. They left the air when CBS bought WOKY-TV 19. (CBS also traded WOKY-TV's inferior equipment to WCAE-TV in return for WCAE's gear, with the thought that WCAE would continue to operate. With a second VHF station -- WTVW channel 12 -- already in operation, and a pretty good chance for a third VHF, WITI channel 6 -- WCAE decided not to continue.)

...Channel 25 was WCAN-TV, matching their co-owned radio station WCAN/1250...

...and, up Highway 41 from Milwaukee:

Fond du Lac: KFIZ-TV/34, independent/CBS secondary, 16 December 1968 to 19 November 1972
Neenah: WNAM-TV/42, ABC, 10 December 1953 to 2 January 1955 (license morphed into WFRV/5 Green Bay)
Oshkosh: WOSH-TV/48, NBC, 27 June 1953 to 22 March 1954 (assets used to build WMBV/11 Marinette)

 

[mjlarochelle]

Re: Defunct TV stations in your city

There have been a few in Southeast Michigan...

- WDCP-TV in University Center - originally WUCM and later WDCQ, was a PBS station on Channel 19. The station had a full-power repeater on Channel 35 in Bad Axe (WDCQ, originally WUCX and later WDCP - confused yet?). When the DTV transition took place, it was decided to use one digital transmitter instead of two analog transmitters, so the Bad Axe station was kept while WDCP was shut down entirely. Interestingly, the remaining WDCQ now uses 19.1 for its PSIP, instead of 35.1.
- WPAG-TV in Ann Arbor, an early UHF station, broadcast on Channel 20 from 1953 to 1957
- WJMY-TV in Allen Park (a suburb of Detroit) took over Channel 20, got a CP, and broadcast a test card one night in 1968. It never came back on the air. The Channel 20 allocation later went to independent WXON-TV, now MyNetworkTV affiliate WMYD.
- WFHD-LP in Ann Arbor was a repeater of Detroit's WDWO-CA (TCT) on Channel 27, now silent.
- W67AJ in Ann Arbor was a repeater of CBS affiliate WLAJ-TV in Lansing. The translator was owned by Eastern Michigan U, and has been off the air since 2007.
- WXON-LP in Flint - no relation to WXON/WMYD in Detroit - broadcast starting in 1999 on Channel 54. Its license was cancelled by the FCC in January of this year, although I don't know when it actually signed off. The station's Wikipedia article says it was an independent station.
- WTAC-TV in Flint signed on in 1953 on Channel 16, and went off the air after less than a year. It was affiliated with ABC and DuMont.

On the Canadian side of the border in Western Ontario, the only station that has actually ceased broadcasting was digital-only CKXT-DT-2 in London, a short-lived rebroadcast station for the now-defunct CKXT-TV in Toronto.

 

[dhett]

Re: Defunct TV stations in your city

Also in Arizona:

Full power:
KPOL broadcast on channel 40 in Tucson from 1985 before going dark in 1989. The license lay dormant until it was purchased out of bankruptcy and launched as KHRR in 1992.
KTFL was a FamilyNet affiliate in Flagstaff, broadcasting on channel 4 from 2000 through 2006, when the license was canceled and call sign deleted.

Low power:
There have been about 160 low power licenses canceled throughout the State of Arizona, mostly from small community-owned translator associations who no longer wished to maintain a translator system once DBS became widely available.

In the Phoenix area:
KUSK/KAZT owned four stations that served as translators for the full power Prescott station:
K17BU Mesa broadcast from Usery Mtn. in Mesa. Became K57HX when it was displaced by KPHO's digital operations. When it came time to clear the 700 MHz band, the owners of K57HX chose to shutter the station instead.
K49DF Phoenix covered the west valley from the White Tanks Mtns. Was displaced when channel 49 was assigned to KASW for digital operations. Became K18GH, but interference from KTVW 33 crippled the station and it shut down.
K55EH Phoenix covered the central and north valley from Shaw Butte. Once the primary translator for KUSK, once KHSK 27 became KAZT-CD, the channel 55 signal was redundant. The station went dark and twelve months later, the FCC canceled the license.
K43CO Casa Grande broadcast to central Pinal County, including Casa Grande, Eloy, Coolidge and Florence, from 1989 until 2010, when the FCC canceled the license, presumably at the licensee's request.

 

[EricStein]

Re: Defunct TV stations in your city

Also in Arizona:

Full power:
KPOL broadcast on channel 40 in Tucson from 1985 before going dark in 1989. The license lay dormant until it was purchased out of bankruptcy and launched as KHRR in 1992.

I remember seeing TV listings for both of Tucson's UHF independents in the late-'80s, and I thought KPOL was more aggressively programmed than KDTU-18 (an independent owned by the Diocese of Tucson, now MNT station KTTU) and also had stereo sound (which KDTU/KTTU didn't). By 1989, KDTU and KPOL were in bad financial shape, but a company by the name of Clear Channel came to KDTU's rescue and that sale sealed the fate for KPOL. Tucson did not have room for three English-language independent stations (this included Fox affiliate KMSB-TV 11). Fast forward to 2012, and both KMSB and KTTU are now operated by CBS affiliate KOLD-TV, a sign of how weak Tucson still is as a TV market.

An example of a typical KPOL nightly sign-off can be seen here.

If you go back to the 1970's, Phoenix's KPAZ-TV 21 can also be considered a once-"defunct" station. They were on the air from 1967 until 1977 as first a bilingual independent, then a Christian-leaning independent. The transmitter was repossessed in 1977 and the station stayed dark for several months until Trinity Broadcasting Network stepped in and assumed the license and put the station back on the air.

Low power:
There have been about 160 low power licenses canceled throughout the State of Arizona, mostly from small community-owned translator associations who no longer wished to maintain a translator system once DBS became widely available.

I believe KeithE4 mentioned Channel 61 (K61CA) as an example of a station that was short lived. It was on the air from early 1983 until October of 1984 as a locally-programmed music video station, years before The Box came to town on now-defunct K58DV (which became KPHZ-LP, then KDTP-LP--what remains of the station is piggybacked on a subchannel of KDPH-LD as "58.1" with Jewelry Television shopping).

 

[crainbebo]

Re: Defunct TV stations in your city

Forgot to add one,

KCWT-27 Wenatchee, WA, 1984-1993. Had been an independent, then turned into a satellite of KCPQ-13 in Seattle [FOX], before turning into Channel America, and finally a TBN affiliate until 1993, when it's transmitter malfunctioned and KCWT went to TV Heaven.

-crainbebo

 

[Joey1986]

Re: Defunct TV stations in your city

In Ventura, CA, part of the Los Angeles market, there was KKOG-TV channel 16 (the call letters stood for Kalifornia's Koast of Gold). This station existed for a whopping nine months, from December 1968 to September 1969. There is no channel 16 in the Los Angeles market now. The frequencies occupied by UHF channel 16 have long since been reallocated from TV in Ventura to mobile radio in L.A.

Then from May 5, 1974, to December 23, 1975, there was KVST-TV channel 68 (the call letters stood for K Viewer Sponsored Television, since the station was owned by the Viewer Sponsored Television Foundation. Various technical problems led to this station's demise after a mere 19 months.

In May 1987, the Black Television Workshop returned channel 68 to the air as KEEF-TV. By August 8 of that year, KEEF-TV was gone, due to the FCC's Mass Media Bureau shutting the station down for using antennas and antenna height other than those which were authorized by the Commission. Obviously, the removal of channels above 51 from TV use as part of the 2009 digital transition, channel 68 is gone forever.

The only defunct low-power station in the Los Angeles market that I can think of is Almavisión translator K55KD, which had to file for an STA to move to channel 57 due to interference complaints lodged by Qualcomm, which had purchased exclusive rights to broadcast on the frequencies occupied by UHF channel 55.

 

[azumanga]

Re: Defunct TV stations in your city

WBBS-TV Ch. 60 shared time with WPWR-TV between 1982 and 1985. It was a Spanish-language station.

The station is still on the air today, as WXFT-DT. After WSNS picked up the SIN affiliation, WBBS gave its weekday hours to WPWR, and kept its weekend hours for Spanish movies. After WPWR moved to channel 50, channel 60 was sold to HSN, and became WEHS in 1986, then Telefutura and WXFT in 2002.

The complicated story can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WXFT-DT

- W67AJ in Ann Arbor was a repeater of CBS affiliate WLAJ-TV in Lansing. The translator was owned by Eastern Michigan U, and has been off the air since 2007.

CBS is Lansing was, and still is, WLNS, and W67AJ repeated that station.