Worst TV stations ever

[IM42A]

Just checked WECT's website and their weather map still includes Fayetteville in their coverage area (as well as Myrtle Beach). Also on TVTV, they are still carried in Southern Pines

Many stations highlight counties on their weather maps that aren't in their markets. WYMT Hazard KY, which is the "local" station for counties in four different markets, dips into Logan and even Wayne counties in West Virginia (granted, Wayne is a huge county, stretches from just north of Kermit to the west end of Huntington and the Ohio River) as well as one or two counties in Tennessee.

WECT's legacy cable carriage is indeed interesting, but it stops at the SC border.

 

[wm2k19]

Many stations highlight counties on their weather maps that aren't in their markets. WYMT Hazard KY, which is the "local" station for counties in four different markets, dips into Logan and even Wayne counties in West Virginia (granted, Wayne is a huge county, stretches from just north of Kermit to the west end of Huntington and the Ohio River) as well as one or two counties in Tennessee.

WECT's legacy cable carriage is indeed interesting, but it stops at the SC border.

Yes, I don't think WECT would still be carried in the SC area/markets, especially after WMBF was launched in 2008 as a proper NBC affiliate for the Myrtle Beach/Florence market and they were created and owned by the same company that owns WECT so I don't think that Raycom (as they were still known as at the time) would have gone to all that trouble in launching a new TV station/news operation just to keep another NBC affiliate in the market; for all intents and purposes, WMBF replaced WECT in the Grand Strand market cable systems.

 

[wm2k19]

One of these days I'm going to have to find the TV Guide I have from 1971. It's a wonder anyone in Raleigh-Durham ever found anything that was on CBS or NBC,

I found a TV listings rundown from a Raleigh News and Observer of a random Tuesday in January 1971 and it's....interesting.

According to the listings, WRDU (which at the time was carried on both channels 28 and 70) didn't even sign on until 10am, as WTVD carried both The Today Show at 7am followed by Captain Kangaroo at 9am (a time when most all kids would had been in school). WRDU at the time carried the NBC daytime lineup of game shows and soaps (that would change in later years as I mentioned above) while WTVD carried the CBS lineup of game shows and soaps.

However, WRDU aired a 5pm movie instead of any local news or NBC newscasts while WTVD carried their local news and the CBS Evening News With Walter Cronkite. At 7:30 when primetime programming began at the time, WTVD aired a one hour Don Knotts show from NBC, while WRDU aired F Troop (syndicated rerun) at 7:30, followed by Green Acres from CBS at 8pm. CBS's 7:30 show The Beverly Hillbillies aired on WTVD earlier in the day at 10:30am.

At 8:30, WTVD aired Hee Haw from CBS while WRDU aired Julia from NBC. At 9pm, WRDU carried the NBC Tuesday Night Movie while at 10pm, WTVD had Mannix from CBS.

And finally at 11pm, WRDU aired a late night movie while WTVD had their 11pm news followed by The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson from NBC at 11:30.

So as you can imagine, before the FCC intervened and forced the two stations to make a choice with only one network affiliation, trying to access CBS and NBC programming for Triangle residents back in the day was a mess and it also helps explain why WRAL TV 5 was the clear dominant #1 station in the market since they only had to worry about airing one network, even if said network was a distant third place nationally at the time.

 

[IM42A]

Yes, I don't think WECT would still be carried in the SC area/markets, especially after WMBF was launched in 2008 as a proper NBC affiliate for the Myrtle Beach/Florence market and they were created and owned by the same company that owns WECT so I don't think that Raycom (as they were still known as at the time) would have gone to all that trouble in launching a new TV station/news operation just to keep another NBC affiliate in the market; for all intents and purposes, WMBF replaced WECT in the Grand Strand market cable systems.

Good point, I didn't think of Raycom (and now Gray) owning both stations. OTOH, Gray doesn't own a station in the Raleigh-Durham market, and if there were a cable system that carried both WMBF and WBTV (in either the Charlotte or MBF market), it wouldn't really matter, as they are affiliates of separate networks. FWIW, Cheraw cable (this per TVTV) carries both WIS and WBTV, but not WMBF.

 

[IM42A]

I found a TV listings rundown from a Raleigh News and Observer of a random Tuesday in January 1971 and it's....interesting.

According to the listings, WRDU (which at the time was carried on both channels 28 and 70) didn't even sign on until 10am, as WTVD carried both The Today Show at 7am followed by Captain Kangaroo at 9am (a time when most all kids would had been in school). WRDU at the time carried the NBC daytime lineup of game shows and soaps (that would change in later years as I mentioned above) while WTVD carried the CBS lineup of game shows and soaps.

However, WRDU aired a 5pm movie instead of any local news or NBC newscasts while WTVD carried their local news and the CBS Evening News With Walter Cronkite. At 7:30 when primetime programming began at the time, WTVD aired a one hour Don Knotts show from NBC, while WRDU aired F Troop (syndicated rerun) at 7:30, followed by Green Acres from CBS at 8pm. CBS's 7:30 show The Beverly Hillbillies aired on WTVD earlier in the day at 10:30am.

At 8:30, WTVD aired Hee Haw from CBS while WRDU aired Julia from NBC. At 9pm, WRDU carried the NBC Tuesday Night Movie while at 10pm, WTVD had Mannix from CBS.

And finally at 11pm, WRDU aired a late night movie while WTVD had their 11pm news followed by The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson from NBC at 11:30.

So as you can imagine, before the FCC intervened and forced the two stations to make a choice with only one network affiliation, trying to access CBS and NBC programming for Triangle residents back in the day was a mess and it also helps explain why WRAL TV 5 was the clear dominant #1 station in the market since they only had to worry about airing one network, even if said network was a distant third place nationally at the time.

That sounds more like how stations in smaller Mountain Time Zone markets used to cherry-pick between various networks, and juggling time slots all different kinds of ways on top of that, as much out of necessity as anything else. I recently got hold of an old Utah-Idaho TV Guide from the 1970s and it was a real hodgepodge, while SLC stations were pretty steady, smaller-market stations in Idaho and Wyoming were all over the place. KMVT in Twin Falls split its network offerings roughly 1/3 for each of the then-Big Three.

I have to imagine a lot of Raleigh-market viewers just threw in the towel and got their NBC from WITN, WECT, or WSJS (now WXII) depending upon where they were in the market.

 

[thenetwork]

Speaking of bad TV stations, does anybody remember the single season syndicated weekly show, "Please Stand By" from the late 70s?

IIEC It was a low budget TV station somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. One of the stars was Elinore Donahue and was produced by "Laugh-In" showrunner George Schlatter.

Back to real stations...in Toledo, it was Channel 24/WDHO (later WNWO). They only had a early evening newscast in the 80s. It was a tiny building on the west side of town. Definitely a night and day difference between 24 and the other Big 3 channels, 11 and 13 in just the looks alone.

 

[IM42A]

Back to real stations...in Toledo, it was Channel 24/WDHO (later WNWO). They only had a early evening newscast in the 80s. It was a tiny building on the west side of town. Definitely a night and day difference between 24 and the other Big 3 channels, 11 and 13 in just the looks alone.

Back in the day, it wasn't unusual for network-affiliated stations to have truncated news operations. WHTN (now WOWK) Huntington WV didn't have a 6 pm newscast in the early 1970s. They weren't exactly a low-budget station, but they were in the shadow of highly-rated WSAZ in town. And more recently, WNEG Toccoa GA (sister station to WSPA Spartanburg, though I don't know if you could call it a "semi-satellite"), now WGTA, simply aired their 6 pm news again at 11 pm as an "encore presentation".

 

[vchimpanzee]

I have to imagine a lot of Raleigh-market viewers just threw in the towel and got their NBC from WITN, WECT, or WSJS (now WXII) depending upon where they were in the market.

WECT had CBS soaps. Wilmington didn't have CBS.

 

[IM42A]

WECT had CBS soaps. Wilmington didn't have CBS.

True, but aside from that, to my knowledge, CBS didn't have a substantial presence on WECT. It was far from being a split affiliation.

WBTW served as the CBS affiliate for at least the South Carolina side of the market (when in fact the Wilmington market had a South Carolina side), and could be easily received along the NC-SC border, though it would have been a challenge to try and get them in Wilmington proper. WNCT would have been easier for that area, though it would have been far from a slam dunk.

 

[vchimpanzee]

True, but aside from that, to my knowledge, CBS didn't have a substantial presence on WECT. It was far from being a split affiliation.

WBTW served as the CBS affiliate for at least the South Carolina side of the market (when in fact the Wilmington market had a South Carolina side), and could be easily received along the NC-SC border, though it would have been a challenge to try and get them in Wilmington proper. WNCT would have been easier for that area, though it would have been far from a slam dunk.

TV Guide did say WECT was NBC and CBS, but yeah, not a lot of CBS shows. WWAY was ABC and NBC, according to TV Guide.

WBTW was listed as CBS and ABC.

I remember a card the size of a business card when we started going to Myrtle Beach again around 1972. All the channels were listed. There were only 12, Two were in Wilmington, one Florence, one Columbia and three Charleston. Most of the channel numbers matched the actual channel numbers. We must have had cable because the signals were so good. Channel 9 had a camera showing weather readings and advertisements, with NOAA audio. There were also three channels with FM music. I wish I had actually found out which stations.

 

[IM42A]

TV Guide did say WECT was NBC and CBS, but yeah, not a lot of CBS shows. WWAY was ABC and NBC, according to TV Guide.

WBTW was listed as CBS and ABC.

I remember a card the size of a business card when we started going to Myrtle Beach again around 1972. All the channels were listed. There were only 12, Two were in Wilmington, one Florence, one Columbia and three Charleston. Most of the channel numbers matched the actual channel numbers. We must have had cable because the signals were so good. Channel 9 had a camera showing weather readings and advertisements, with NOAA audio. There were also three channels with FM music. I wish I had actually found out which stations.

I remember that well. All of the stations at that time were VHF, so they easily lent themselves to being carried on the same VHF channels (on a 12-channel system) that they used for OTA broadcast.

 

[SCPirate]

True, but aside from that, to my knowledge, CBS didn't have a substantial presence on WECT. It was far from being a split affiliation.

WBTW served as the CBS affiliate for at least the South Carolina side of the market (when in fact the Wilmington market had a South Carolina side), and could be easily received along the NC-SC border, though it would have been a challenge to try and get them in Wilmington proper. WNCT would have been easier for that area, though it would have been far from a slam dunk.

I remember growing up in Laurinburg in the '70s and using rabbit ears we could pick up CBS on WBTW/13, NBC on WECT/6, ABC on WRAL/5, and PBS on WUNC/4.

 

[ftballfan]

TV Guide did say WECT was NBC and CBS, but yeah, not a lot of CBS shows. WWAY was ABC and NBC, according to TV Guide.

WBTW was listed as CBS and ABC.

I remember a card the size of a business card when we started going to Myrtle Beach again around 1972. All the channels were listed. There were only 12, Two were in Wilmington, one Florence, one Columbia and three Charleston. Most of the channel numbers matched the actual channel numbers. We must have had cable because the signals were so good. Channel 9 had a camera showing weather readings and advertisements, with NOAA audio. There were also three channels with FM music. I wish I had actually found out which stations.

Did WWAY air NFL games from CBS or did the CBS NFL package go uncleared in Wilmington?

 

[IM42A]

I remember growing up in Laurinburg in the '70s and using rabbit ears we could pick up CBS on WBTW/13, NBC on WECT/6, ABC on WRAL/5, and PBS on WUNC/4.

That reminds me of when my parents first moved to Myrtle Beach in 1996 and hadn't had cable installed yet. They just wanted each of the three major networks (they didn't care about Fox or PBS), so I made a makeshift antenna out of 300-ohm ribbon wire, secured it to the wall, and got them WBTW, WWAY, and WECT. The Wilmington stations came in more easily than WBTW.

Just going by ease of OTA reception, Wilmington (and, now, WMBF) would be the most intuitive choice for Myrtle Beach, indeed, that's probably what kept Horry County in the Wilmington market for so long. People have been making do with out-of-state television for as long as there has been television. Just ask anyone in eastern Kentucky.

 

[vchimpanzee]

Did WWAY air NFL games from CBS or did the CBS NFL package go uncleared in Wilmington?

I would have a hard time getting to that TV Guide. It's one of only a handful of that edition that I have.

Also, it probably wasn't printed during NFL season, and it may be that I don't have any from then.

 

[IM42A]

I actually happen to have a North Carolina TV Guide from 09/26/73, and it lists an NFL game from CBS (Redskins at Eagles, Sunday 09/27) on WWAY.

It also shows As The World Turns at 1:30 pm weekdays on WECT.

CBS isn't listed as a secondary network on the channels listed page for either WWAY or WECT.