Affiliation Switches

[jhampsten 0]

1995 evansville switch. and boy was it confusing around here for a bit.

 

WEVV- Fox to CBS

WEHT-CBS to ABC

WTVW-ABC to Fox

 

also this effected the Flora, IL cable system very drastically, since WBP-TV 24 had an agreement with WEVV to pretty much be a repeater of Fox 44, as we couldn't get Fox any other way. So WBP out of Flora repeated the Fox 44 programming, except the first 10 minutes of the news(mainly the top stories) and they showed our local news from up here, but they had the weather, and sports crews from Fox 44 do the weather and sports for up here too. Well, when the affliation switch came around, we already had two other CBS stations on the Flora cable system, and so we really didn't need that anymore, so WBP became totally ran here in Flora. Well WTVW was our ABC station, so we had fox taken care of. However we had no other ABC station on our system, the only thing that we could do with the cable was to drop WCEE- TV which was right before it became PAX, and so cable added WEHT for the ABC. needless to say it was confusing to say the least.

[jdcnow 14]

KDFW Dallas - CBS went to KTVT, KDAF lost FOX

 

There has been rumors (I don't know how credible) that the CBS brass were interested to some extent in KXAS at the time, and that NBC almost wound up at KTVT.

[johnnya2k6 171]

In fall 1995, Smith Broadcasting purchased all three of the Alaska ABC stations (KIMO Anchorage, KATN Fairbanks, KJUD Juneau) so they want to create a "statewide ABC superstation." As a result, KATN had to give up their secondary NBC affiliation, though it was their primary network -- ABC their secondary -- till about the mid-'80s. Alaska's Superstation came into effect in February 1996.

 

KTVF-11 responded by announcing that after 40 long, faithful years with CBS, they would jump to NBC in April 1996. They have been running some NBC shows like "Friends" and "Seinfeld" as their secondary network; now, they would be full-time with them. It's pretty funny that at one point until the switch, they aired programs from three networks (CBS, NBC, UPN)!

 

KFXF-7 while prepping themselves to launch sister station and new CBS affiliate KXD-13 later in the summer decided to add a handful of CBS shows to their lineup to go along with the Fox ones. 60 Minutes, Young and the Restless, and Letterman were a few that made the cut, while The Price is Right and the CBS Evening News didn't.

 

When the 1996-97 season started, Fairbanks would FINALLY have a station for each of the four networks; the "bad old days" of cherry-picking programs or blacking out promos of shows that wouldn't be shown were gone forever!!!

 

Jonathan Allen

[Sam Horn 78]

In Philadelphia' date=' Westinghouse/CBS found itself owning both KYW-3 (a Westinghouse station) and WCAU-10 (a CBS O&O). In Boston, the new company found itself owning WBZ-4...next door (with penetration into Boston) CBS owned WPRI-12 in Providence. Since Westinghouse could not, under FCC rules, own both stations in Philadelphia and for whatever reason could not own a stations in adjoining markets (Boston/Providence) the company had to sell off both of thier overlapping stations.[/quote']

 

The FCC has since vastly relaxed this rule, but it used to be that a company could not own two VHFs in different markets with overlapping Grade A signals. Someone can correct me if that's not the precise interpretation of the rule.

 

Westinghouse/CBS chose to sell WPRI to ClearChannel (and there is much confusion on this' date=' with LMAs and stuff flying back and forth, so I refer you to the WPRI history page) and keep WBZ (which was then with NBC).

 

There's really no confusion here -- WPRI was sold to Clear Channel. The only LMA was with Argyle for WNAC. It was three years after the sale to CC that Sunrise bought WPRI and sold WNAC's license to LIN. Three years still after that was when Sunrise entered into an LMA for WPRI with LIN.

 

So, really, no confusion.

 

When it comes to the Philadelphia situation' date=' I'm unclear on how NBC came into the picture.[/quote']

 

NBC wanted two things in Philadelphia: an O&O (which was a long time want -- see the WPTZ/WRCV/KYW clusterfuck) and a prime channel position. Fox was very, VERY interested in 10, and NBC didn't want to be left with 17/29. NBC, from here, began a very aggressive pursuit of 10, as you described.