WPTV and WSM to become ABC affiliation in the 80s

[DucNguyen0131]

October 1, 1984

WGR-AM-FM-TV became a CBS owned-and-operated station, after acquiring it from the Taft Television and Radio Co., Inc., which was based in Cincinnati and owned ABC and independent affiliates.

As a compensation for the loss of WGR-AM-FM-TV, Taft bought out WAAY-TV, and two Huntsville radio stations WFIX and WRSA-FM, to cover the Huntsville area. WAAY-TV was currently an ABC affiliate.

This made Taft five ABC affiliates and two independent television stations. WDAF-TV in Kansas City was an ABC affiliate since 1981, defecting KMBC-TV to NBC.

Taft's television stations currently were WTVN-TV in Columbus, WKRC-TV in Cincinnati and WBRC-TV in Birmingham, and two independents WDCA-TV in Washington, D.C. and WTAF-TV in Philadelphia.

 

[DucNguyen0131]

October 3, 1984

The Federal Communications Commission had approved Metromedia's $550 million offer to purchase the Sinclair Broadcast Group. It is speculated that Julian J. Smith would run Metromedia's radio-television unit.

WNEW-TV is Metromedia's largest television station by market size.

Sinclair owns and operates television stations in Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Columbus, which are WBFF, WPTT and WTTE.

Metromedia's most recent acquisitions were KNBN-TV in Dallas/Fort Worth and WCIX-TV in Miami/Fort Lauderdale.

 

[DucNguyen0131]

October 8, 1984

The $35 million acquisition of WFTS-TV by TVX Broadcast Group has been approved by The Federal Communications Commission. This means that Tampa would have its own TVX station.

WFTS is also introducing a new logo at that same time, consisting of a multi-lined "28", in the same style WNOL-TV in New Orleans has been used recently.

TVX's flagship station was WTVZ-TV in Norfolk, which has been signed on in 1979.

TVX's largest television station by market size was WLVI-TV in Boston, which was acquired from Field Communications in 1983.

 

[DucNguyen0131]

October 13, 1984

The ABC affiliate KCRA-TV in Sacramento, owned by Scripps-Howard Broadcasting is introducing a new logo. It was compromised of a "3" inside a circle, with "Circle 3" being the nickname of its logo.

It has some, compared to WEWS' "Circle 5" and the "Circle 7" logo used by ABC owned-and-operated television stations.

KCRA-TV now reflects its ABC affiliation. The previous TV tube logo was shown for the last time, will disappear, paving way for the new "Circle 3" logo.

The station's news continued to be branded as "Channel 3 Reports", and the news format was changed to become virtually identical to the "Eyewitness News" format used by WABC-TV.

 

[DucNguyen0131]

October 22, 1984

The Federal Communications Commission had today approved Tribune Company's $2.5 billion offer to purchase WXNE-TV in Boston, which was owned by the Christian Broadcasting Network.

Tribune has existing independents in form of KNTV, WGN-TV, WPIX-TV, KWGN-TV, WGNX-TV, WGNO-TV and KHJ-TV, the latter of them was acquired from RKO General.

WXNE-TV first signed on the air on October 10, 1977, operating on UHF channel 25. It is expected that Tribune would change its call letters to "WGNE", which stood for "WGN New England".

The new call letters reflect the call letters of the WGN station. It is expected that KHJ-TV-AM-FM would change its call letters to "KWGH", which stood for "WGN Hollywood".

 

[DucNguyen0131]

October 25, 1984

The General Electric radio/TV cluster in Denver, KOA-AM-TV and KOAQ is officially changing its call letters to KCNC-AM-FM-TV, which stood for "Colorado's News Channel", the slogan of KOA-TV in Denver (IOTL only the KOA-TV call letters were changed to KCNC in 1983).

This means this put a big business giving General Electric Broadcasting, to apply an "all-news" direction to the TV and radio stations.

The first one, WBGT-AM-FM-TV was changed to WNCN in Durham several months earlier when its owner announced the change of the call letters.

Channel 4 started in 1953 and General Electric took control of the Denver stations in 1968, and it was currently a NBC affiliate.

 

[DucNguyen0131]

November 1, 1984

Reg Grundy Productions, in association with Group W Productions, a subsidiary of Westinghouse-RCA announced a deal to launch a new first-run syndicated game show Time Machine (ITTL this has a better concept than the IOTL version that was on NBC in 1985).

Time Machine was expected to clear and rushed throughout 75% of the country, airing on all Westinghouse-RCA and General Electric stations, airing at 4:00pm.

The syndicated game show offers viewers to earn a prize in order to earn pop culture in time, events and history.

Time Machine was hosted by John Davidson, and it was created by Bill Barr, who came up with the concept of the series. Time Machine is Reg Grundy's first series to be offered directly to first-run syndication. It will be premiered in the January of 1985.

 

[DucNguyen0131]

November 3, 1984

Perry A. Sook, who runs TeleRep announced he would quit to run General Electric Broadcasting. General Electric is owner of 10 television stations, with company flagships being WRGB-TV in Schenectady and WKYP-TV in Philadelphia, both of them were currently NBC affiliates.

General Electric's first television property came in 1928 with the launch of W2XB, the world's first television station in Schenectady, eventually getting a commercial license in 1942 with WRGB.

General Electric's television holdings grew up in the 1960s with the acquisition of the Nashville and Denver stations, followed in the 1980s by many more TV acquisitions.

Two of the largest TV stations, WKYP-TV in Philadelphia and KGEB-TV in San Francisco, ranked fourth and fifth by the Designated Market Area by the Nielsens.

 

[DucNguyen0131]

November 12, 1984

WJLA-TV, the Allbritton-owned ABC affiliate brought us to the "Action News" name for the first time, in order to compete viewers against the Cox-owned CBS affiliate WDVM-TV in Washington, D.C.

It will be branded the newscasts as "Action 7 News", and adapted "News Series 2000" by Frank Gari for the first time.

The "Action News" name was previously unseen in the Washington, D.C. television market.

Cox-owned WDVM-TV is using the "Eyewitness News" branding for its newscasts, having so do since the early 1970s, and gave the newscasts a big name for Scott Chapin, who was WDVM's voiceover when Cox took control of the station as well as the introduction of a new slogan "Coverage You Can Count On".

 

[DucNguyen0131]

November 19, 1984

The Chicago-based Tribune Broadcasting Company unit of the Tribune Company is finalizing their offer to purchase WXNE-TV from the Christian Broadcasting Network. It will be immediately renamed to "WGNE", which stood for "WGN New England".

Tribune's other independents in the nation were KNTV, WGN-TV, WPIX-TV, KWGN-TV, WGNX-TV, WGNO-TV and KHJ-TV.

Its flagship was WGN-TV in Chicago, and WPIX-TV in New York.

It is announced to Tribune that WPIX would be renamed to "WGNY", for "WGN New York" (the WGNY radio station would be eventually renamed to "WNWB" shortly after)

 

[DucNguyen0131]

November 22, 1984

The Federal Communications Commission had announced its approval for General Electric's bid for the United Television company. It is formerly owned by 20th Century-Fox, though a prior sale to Post-Newsweek was aborted.

To make room for that, in a separate deal, GE kept KGEB and traded KBHK to Viacom for KCST and WVIT in San Diego and Hartford (It is expected that WVIT would be renamed to WCNC (IOTL this was used for a Charlotte station starting in 1989), to match KCNC in Denver).

On the same day, the sale of WFTS-TV in Tampa/St. Petersburg from Family Television Group to TVX Broadcast Group has been officially completed.

This means that TVX would be the largest owner of any independent television station, competing against the Tribune Company.

 

[DucNguyen0131]

November 25, 1984

After the final ABC show The Love Boat, airing on WVEC faded to black, WTKR and WVEC swapped network affiliations. WTKR, the Knight Ridder-owned affiliate is now an ABC affiliate, while WVEC is now a CBS affiliate.

This came because ABC had better relations with Knight Ridder, and Dun & Bradstreet had better relations with CBS.

The last CBS/ABC affiliation swap came in Miami when WTVJ and WPLG swapped network affiliations in 1983.

Most of these moved to ABC were NBC affiliates, which NBC were in third place, such as WPTV in West Palm Beach, WSM-TV in Nashville, WSB-TV in Atlanta and WSOC in Charlotte.

 

[DucNguyen0131]

December 2, 1984

The sale of KTVK/Arizona Television Company by Bonneville International has been completed. KTVK, the ABC affiliate and KTSP, the CBS affiliate, all in Phoenix swapped network affiliations, because Gulf thought the relations with ABC are better.

The LDS Church has banned most of CBS' daytime programs from KTVK's schedule, in a similar manner to KSL and KIRO.

KTVK was Bonneville's third television station, the first two of which are KSL-TV in Salt Lake City and KIRO-TV in Seattle.

The reason cited was that KTVK was number one in all television ratings, yet we have to combine it with one of the most popular CBS shows.

 

[DucNguyen0131]

December 9, 1984

WRGB-TV-AM-FM, General Electric's station in Schenectady, the capital city of New York would change its call letters to "WCRN", which stood for "Capital Region's News Channel", following General Electric's steps on the "all-news format".

This was emphasized by the success and popularity of the news programming, which included The Capital Region's Evening News.

WCRN-TV was always been a NBC affiliate since 1942, having do so, since it was the oldest television station ever made, and in 1980, owner General Electric had a group deal with NBC, following WSM's announcement that they would switch to ABC.

It was proposed that Dun & Bradstreet said they were in the running to buy Storer/CBS Inc., which made the Houston market the world's first owned-and-operated station, which was subjected to FCC approval.

 

[DucNguyen0131]

December 13, 1984

It is officially confirmed to Mark Goodson that Bert Convy has won the bid to host the nighttime version of The Price is Right, beating out Tom Kennedy, who was in the commitment to doing a nighttime version of Super Password.

Bert Convy's prior game show experience was hosting the highly successful 1970s game show TattleTales, which in 1982 also had a revival that was tanked in 1983.

Bert Convy is also a celebrity panelist on various game shows like To Tell the Truth and Match Game.

Mark Goodson said they had expanded our relationship with Bert Convy to develop new and original television projects for the studio. The Television Program Service is the syndicator of the program.

 

[DucNguyen0131]

December 17, 1984

Kevin O'Connell, former host of the NBC game show Go, and current anchor at KNBC-TV in Los Angeles was officially named as host of the new syndicated game show Break the Bank, which will debut in syndication in the fall of 1985.

Kevin O'Connell beat out Gene Rayburn as the hosting gig for the series.

Producer and director Richard Kline said that O'Connell's experience was impressed as good suitor for the series.

Break the Bank was planned a go for syndication in 1985, and station groups covered included Storer/CBS, Dun & Bradstreet, Hubbard Broadcasting and others. It will be syndicated by Blair Entertainment. Time Machine, a Group W/Reg Grundy joint venture is about to debut next month in first-run syndication.

 

[DucNguyen0131]

December 18, 1984

Metromedia Inc. is finalizing their offer to purchase the Sinclair Broadcast Group, who owns TV stations in Columbus, Pittsburgh and Baltimore, which are the three UHF television stations.

Metromedia Radio & Television Group is expanding their television and radio activity, because the FCC ownership cap is lifted.

David D. Smith, who runs Sinclair Broadcast Group was hired to run Metromedia Radio & Television Group to serve as president of the company.

Metromedia's flagship station is WNEW-TV in New York, which was launched in the 1940s, and Metromedia planned to launch a news department for WBFF-TV in Baltimore.

 

[DucNguyen0131]

December 20, 1984

The acquisition of United Television Inc. from 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation to General Electric Broadcasting Company has been officially completed. This means, by all accounts, General Electric owns larger TV properties.

The addition of Kansas City, San Antonio and Salt Lake City to General Electric's TV portfolio felt "amazed" at it.

At the same time, General Electric officially kept KGEB-TV in San Francisco, and trade KBHK to Viacom for two NBC affiliates KCST in San Diego and WVIT in New Haven/Hartford.

WVIT is Viacom's first television property since 1977, and became a General Electric station. (Two years later, WVIT became a NBC O&O for the second time in history, since 1959 after agreeing to a waiver between WNBC-TV in New York).

 

[DucNguyen0131]

December 24, 1984

Wometco Enterprises announced that they would sell off its television holdings. Among Wometco's television holdings were WTVJ (channel 7-ABC), WLOS (channel 13-ABC), WZZM (channel 13-ABC) and KVOS (channel 12-independent), as well as a UHF station WWHT (independent-channel 68).

Hearst is seeking for the three Wometco stations, while Tribune is seeking for KVOS, and forced to sell WWHT to the Home Shopping Network.

This came because KKR had required to divest its television holdings, and wanted to let Tribune to buy KTLA, and merged KWGH's stronger programming into the schedule, forcing KCET to take over channel 9, and became an educational TV station.

At the same time, Time Machine, which debuted next month as Reg Grundy's first foray into first-run syndication, has 90% clearance all over the country. If the show was successful, then it would form a 90-minute block with Hot Streak and Supermarket Sweep being proposed to market into the same stations Time Machine had carried, and the proposed 90-minute block was a venture between Group W Productions and Reg Grundy Productions.

 

[stratonapba]

This Just In: ABC Daytime is considering to let Family Feud end after an 8 Year Run later this Summer of 1985, The Show hosted by Richard Dawson will be replaced by a new game show from JM Productions (in which they produce the Arcade Game Show Starcade on WTBS in Atlanta, GA and The Video Game for Syndication) called Finders Keepers and the pilot was taped in January of 1985 and will hosted by Nee-Fi and his co-host sidekick Sci-Fi (played by Christopher Kreisa from JM Productions other Game Show, The Video Game) and announced by Kevin McMahon (from Starcade) with the theme music performed by Mike Post (best known for composing the theme music to The Rockford Files, The Greatest American Hero, Hill Street Blues and Magnum P.I.).

Here's a Video of the Pilot which was taped in January of that year.