sctvhound

WYFF Noon newscast from Christmas Eve 1997 (includes talent open).

Two WCBD promos from 1995. America’s Top News Team... https://streamable.com/vhed8j

No. All that aired was CBSN’s taped programming they usually show at that time.

WIS-TV in Columbia adding a special 3pm “newscast” for the next two weeks. So they can get in more political ads.

Nancy O’Dell before she was famous. A 1992 report from her at WCBD. Dan Ashley is one of the news anchors.

CBS in this market (Charleston) has been #1 for decades. Even the CBS Evening News was drawing 8s and 9s here with Glor. The only thing NBC wins here is the 7-8 time slot (Wheel-Jeopardy) and the Today Show from 7-9. But even WCSC knew they were gonna be in trouble when Dan Rather left the Evening News. They added a 7pm news almost immediately when Katie Couric started the Evening News, trying to keep a lead-in. Later on they added news at 7:30pm. ABC and Fox in Columbia are distant 3rd and 4th. It really is a 2-station market and WACH and WOLO fight for the crumbs most of the time.

We have a WMDN open from... 1998. Looks like 1988 in every aspect.

Gotta love the font WBTW used for the weather. Small town. And it seemed like nearly every small or medium market CBS affiliate in the late 80s used the CBS Evening News font at the time. And even being only two channels over from ABC (WPDE), the difference in 13 and 15’s ratings was stark. Didn’t hurt that WBTW had over a quarter century head start on WPDE.

There was a 4-5 year stretch WCIV had poor graphics and music. Albritton treated them as the red-headed step child in their company for years. They hired Leslie Lyles from St. Louis (who used to be on WCBD), and still couldn’t get past a very distant 3rd in the ratings behind WCSC and WCBD. Even in the early 2000s, they were still running CREFLO DOLLAR at noon. Almost unheard of for a network station in a top 100 market. Their set had this interesting brick look. Then around 2003 they changed to a look showing the Ravenel Bridge (which didn’t open until 2005). It wasn’t until the last 4-5 years when Sinclair started putting money into it that the station started getting more equal with 2 and 5.

Some rare WCIV and WCSC from 1985. Including a WCIV close.

What works works in that market, considering they only have 1 other news competitor in WRDW/WAGT (WFXG only starting local news a couple years ago as WTOC did their news for years). And George Myers is still there.

Those L3 graphics were straight out of the 80s! And mid 80s at that.

Some good WCBD and ABC content from 1986. Includes a couple WCBD promos, at the start, 11:45 and 19:00 plus an ABC news brief.

Part of a WSAV newscast (including open) from 1981. Gary Miller (of CNN and ESPN fame) was the sportscaster.

Even Charleston, not a top 100 market at the time, had all 3 stations running morning news from 1996 on. The CBS (WCSC) started theirs in the mid 1980s. NBC WCIV started in the early 90s, then WCBD was the last to start around 1995 or 1996.