Worcester's Channel 5 allocation (was Re: MyTV joins MyNetwork)

[Doug Drown]

<< I seem to remember a channel 14 from Worcester with different call
letters, around the late 50s or early 60s, after Channel 5 came on in
Boston.  I don't remember the call letters, but I think there was a Z in
it.>>

The call letters were WJZB.   It was a reincarnated version, as it were, of
WWOR, and operated briefly in the mid-'60s (around 1964-67-ish) as owner
William L. Putnam (of Springfield's WWLP and Greenfield's WRLP)'s second
attempt to get a UHF station established in Worcester.  I remember it well.
It signed on every weekday afternoon at around 5:00, and featured old
half-hour B&W documentaries and what-not until the 6 P.M. newscast.  If my
memory is correct --- I can verify this by looking through a couple of old
copies of the Telegram that I have from that period --- WJZB simulcasted
WWLP's evening news and then followed it up with NBC's Huntley-Brinkley
Report.  After that, it went back to old documentaries and sitcoms until it
signed off in mid-evening.   I think the weekend schedule was a little
longer; the station went on the air earlier in the afternoon.

Just what the point was of all this is anyone's guess.  As mentioned
earlier, Worcester was already being served by two other NBC affiliates (4
and 10).  I suspect Mr. Putnam may have seen WJZB as something of an
experimental springboard toward something with more local programming and a
more fulsome schedule.  Unfortunately, it didn't happen.  Ironically, in
Boston, at about the time WJZB went dark, The Archdiocese of Boston put
WIHS-TV (now WSBK) on the air, and Kaiser/Globe's WKBG-TV (now WLVI)
followed not long afterward.  Both, obviously, became successful.  And
Worcester itself, by the early '70s, saw the advent of State Mutual's WSMW
Channel 27 (now WUNI), which seemed to have done modestly well for several
years as an indie with local newscasts and programming.  If WJZB had hung in
there a little longer, it might have made it.

When I served my first pastorate in the Athol area about ten years later, I
used to watch WRLP regularly.  It carried the full NBC schedule.  Originally
the station had been a repeater for WWLP, but by the time I came to
Royalston it was doing its own Greenfield-based newscasts, and covered the
Keene-Brattleboro-Greenfield-Athol region really quite well.  WRLP operated
for many years, and was discontinued in the late '70s, just as the region's
population started growing.   I've often wondered why.  Insufficient
advertising revenue?   The advent of cable?  Perhaps someone in this forum
can fill us in.

-Doug





----- Original Message ----- 
From: "A. Joseph Ross" <joe@attorneyross.com>
To: "Peter Q. George" <radiojunkie3@yahoo.com>
Cc: <boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 23, 2006 9:54 PM
Subject: Re: Worcester's Channel 5 allocation (was Re: MyTV joins MyNetwork)


> On 23 Jul 2006 at 18:27, Peter Q. George wrote:
>
> > Channel 5 as a Worcester allocation DID have an
> > applicant, The Worcester Telegram and Gazette.  It was
> > to be WTAG-TV.  BUT, Worcester, even in those early
> > days of TV was a "shadow market" and faithfully got
> > very strong signals from both Boston and Providence.
> > Channel 14 WWOR-TV in Worcester, an ABC/NBC/DuMont
> > station was bleeding money due to few UHF converters
> > (and the strong VHF's coming in throughout Worcester),
> > and left the air a couple of years after it's debut.
>
> I seem to remember a channel 14 from Worcester with different call
> letters, around the late 50s or early 60s, after Channel 5 came on in
> Boston.  I don't remember the call letters, but I think there was a Z
> in it.
>
> -- 
> A. Joseph Ross, J.D.                           617.367.0468
>  15 Court Square, Suite 210                 Fax 617.742.7581
> Boston, MA 02108-2503                    http://www.attorneyross.com
>
>
>