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WPFH/WVUE, Philly's Original Channel 12

V

VCarter

what would the original channel 12 station have been like (as WVUE) had it not
signed off the air in 1958? in a earlier post I saw on the Classic TV board,
the station looked to be running an average program schedule of shows popular
for that time. What do you think WVUE (or WPFH) could have been like if the
station remained commercial and not have signed off the air only to become the
educational WHYY in 1963? your thoughts?
 
Re: WDEL-TV Wilmington's Original Channel 12

FTR: This station was originally WDEL-TV and channel 12 is still allocated to Wilmington - hence Delaware News each night.

Had it stayed commercial: It is strange that the Philly market was not able to support an independent VHF station back then - in contrast to markets like Washington (WTTG), Detroit (CKLW-TV), Chicago (WGN-TV), Denver (KWGN) and Oakland (KTVU) among others. New York and LA had four independents each (one of the New York independents also became a public television station).

Independents were commercially viable. They had a mix of local-live programs (kids shows, cooking shows, talk shows), off-network syndicated programming and old movies. A few even had scrappy news departments. Philly's UHF stations came on the air a few years after commercial 12 folded and followed the same formula. If 12 had hung on, it would likely have eventually become a Fox, WB or UPN affiliate (which is what happened to the indie VHF's in other markets - except Detroit, where stronger Canadian content regs force CKLW-TV to start running more Canadian programming; they eventually became a CBC-owned station).

Why couldn't or wouldn't WDEL-TV make a go of it (when other stations did well elsewhere and UHF stations in Philly with technical disadvantage at the time were able to survive a few years later)? The usual reason. Bad management.
 
Re: WDEL-TV Wilmington's Original Channel 12

> FTR: This station was originally WDEL-TV and channel 12 is
> still allocated to Wilmington - hence Delaware News each
> night.
>
> Had it stayed commercial: It is strange that the Philly
> market was not able to support an independent VHF station
> back then - in contrast to markets like Washington (WTTG),
> Detroit (CKLW-TV), Chicago (WGN-TV), Denver (KWGN) and
> Oakland (KTVU) among others. New York and LA had four
> independents each (one of the New York independents also
> became a public television station).
>
> Independents were commercially viable. They had a mix of
> local-live programs (kids shows, cooking shows, talk shows),
> off-network syndicated programming and old movies. A few
> even had scrappy news departments. Philly's UHF stations
> came on the air a few years after commercial 12 folded and
> followed the same formula. If 12 had hung on, it would
> likely have eventually become a Fox, WB or UPN affiliate
> (which is what happened to the indie VHF's in other markets
> - except Detroit, where stronger Canadian content regs force
> CKLW-TV to start running more Canadian programming; they
> eventually became a CBC-owned station).
>
> Why couldn't or wouldn't WDEL-TV make a go of it (when other
> stations did well elsewhere and UHF stations in Philly with
> technical disadvantage at the time were able to survive a
> few years later)? The usual reason. Bad management.
>

I read somewhere it had to do with ownership cap, and the inability to secure a network(NBC affiliation) for this channel. Channel 3 (Westinghouse owned, at the time) boosting signal and reaching Wilmington, DE basically nulled any chance this station had to keep its short lived NBC affiliation.

Wilmington has always been considered part or tied to the Philadelphia media market, unlike Baltimore and its relation to D.C., which are separate but also 30 miles apart.

The Ch.12 owner owned stations in other markets and wanted network affiliates, and Wilmington (still not reaching Philly at the time, but close enough to Philly that Philly signals reach DE and being considered part of the same market) was too much a handicap with the ownership cap issue, and lack of network affiliation issue.

I suppose the poor management may have not found a suitable buyer for the station. If I had some millions back 60 yrs. ago, I would have bought it.
 
Re: WDEL-TV Wilmington's Original Channel 12

The original WDEL-TV was on channel 7, but when there was interference from New York and Washington, it was moved to channel 12. Two other factors, The were the market's ABC station, channel 6 was Dumont and secondary ABC. When Dumont went under, ABC moved full time to the better signal on channel 6. Also, the original tower site is short by todays standard for TV, 500 feet, compared to 1000+ in Philly. Finally, I saw some newspaper ads from the time that said they had a very large audience for a market the size of Wilmington, but of course they needed to compete against the Philly stations.
 
Re: WDEL-TV Wilmington's Original Channel 12

> Also, the original tower site is short by todays
> standard for TV, 500 feet, compared to 1000+ in Philly.

Where was WDEL-TV's stick? What's on the site now?

ixnay
 
Re: WDEL-TV Wilmington's Original Channel 12

> Where was WDEL-TV's stick? What's on the site now?

The original WDEL-TV 7 stick was at what's still the WDEL 1150/WSTW 93.7 site on Shipley Road in north Wilmington. It sat just south of the AM array; that piece of land is now empty, but the guy anchors can still be seen if you know where to look back there.

After that, WDEL/WVUE 12 was in Glassboro, N.J. I don't know what became of that site.

Storer owned a piece of land in Roxborough that would have become the channel 12 site if the station hadn't gone dark. That land was eventually bought by Bill Gross for the WWSG tower that went up in the late seventies, and that "Gross Tower" on Umbria near Paoli is still in use by WPSG and several FM stations.<P ID="signature">______________
Tower Site Calendar 2006 JUST RELEASED! - <a target="_blank" href=http://www.fybush.com/nerw.html#calendar>www.fybush.com</a></P>
 
Re: WDEL-TV Wilmington's Original Channel 12

> > Where was WDEL-TV's stick? What's on the site now?
>
> The original WDEL-TV 7 stick was at what's still the WDEL
> 1150/WSTW 93.7 site on Shipley Road in north Wilmington. It
> sat just south of the AM array; that piece of land is now
> empty, but the guy anchors can still be seen if you know
> where to look back there.
>
> After that, WDEL/WVUE 12 was in Glassboro, N.J. I don't know
> what became of that site.

WHYY 12 transmitted from Glassboro early in their history, probably from the same site. I think they were there into the early or even mid-'70s.
 
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