Re: KYW/WPTZ/WTAM/etc (was Re: Rex Trailer on WCAP)

["A. Joseph Ross" <lawyer@attorneyross.com>]

On 21 May 2003 at 16:26, Scott Fybush wrote:

> In the briefest of nutshells: in 1956, NBC came to Westinghouse with a
> "deal they couldn't refuse." NBC allegedly told Westinghouse it wanted to
> trade WTAM/WNBK Cleveland (which NBC owned) for KYW/WPTZ Philadelphia
> (which Westinghouse owned, having bought WPTZ from Philco a few years
> earlier). If NBC didn't agree to make the deal, the story went, then WPTZ
> would lose its NBC affiliation. Philly was then the number four market,
> NBC was the number one network, 

I thought that by 1956, CBS was the number one network.

> and KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh, which Westinghouse had just purchased from
> DuMont in 1955. KDKA-TV was then and would remain for another year the
> only VHF commercial station in Pittsburgh, so perhaps that gave
> Westinghouse a little bit of useful leverage.)

When DuMont owned the station it was WDTV and was for some time the only 
TV station of any sort in Pittsburg.  Owning the only TV station in 
Pittsburg gave a minor network a major advantage for awhile.
 
> The FCC began investigating that deal, as well as another in which NBC was
> to buy WNAC AM-FM-TV in Boston from RKO (that was never consummated, of
> course), 

By that time, the FM was WRKO-FM.

-- 
A. Joseph Ross, J.D.                           617.367.0468
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