that horrible BEEP

[Scott Fybush]

Kevin Vahey wrote:
> Waving from Chicago and I waved to Scott when the train passed Rochester the
> other night

Oh, THAT's who that was! If you'd looked to the north of the train as it 
left the Rochester station, you'd have seen WXXI's studios just a couple 
of blocks north of the train tracks.

Stop and say howdy, next time... :-)

> Concerning VHF assignments
> 
> Obviously the big problem with WJAR being on Channel 11 was being only 130
> air miles from WPIX in NY which had to cause major problems for both in
> eastern Connecticut and Long Island. Moving to 10 solved the Providence
> problem.

The FCC initially gravely underestimated the reach of VHF TV, creating a 
whole bunch of short-spacings, mainly in the northeast. There were the 
channel 4s in Boston, Schenectady, NYC, Lancaster and Washington; the 7s 
in Boston, NYC, Wilmington DE and Washington; 7s in Detroit, Grand 
Rapids and Chicago; 4 in Detroit and Cleveland, and so on. Most of those 
problems were alleviated by the 1952 realignment, about which, yes, I'll 
write something one of these days.

> In Chicago there has always been a great debate at how much influence the
> Chicago Tribune had with the FCC in those days. Not only were they able to
> get Channel 11 in New York but the belief exists that the Tribune was able
> to reduce the number of VHF stations in Chicago to enhance the value of
> their Channel 9. Chicago didn't get the same amount of extra stations that
> NYC and LA received winding up with 2,4,5,7,9 and later 11 (public)
> 
> WGN thrived for 30 years as the only non-network VHF and it wasn't until
> cable took hold in the 80's that the UHF signals in Chicago began to compete
> with WGN.

It worked out very nicely for Tribune in Chicago, didn't it? Chicago was 
initially allocated the full roster of Vs, as I recall - 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 
11 and 13. 13 ended up reallocated to Rockford (and wedged in, 
tremendously short-spaced, across Lake Michigan in Grand Rapids), and 4 
went away from Chicago so that it could be used in Milwaukee by WTMJ, 
which had to get off 3 to clear up a terrible short-spacing to WKZO-TV 
Kalamazoo across the lake. Had 4 not been moved to Milwaukee, it 
probably would have been a second independent (really a first 
independent, since WGN-TV was the DuMont station in Chicago until DuMont 
folded), and would probably have ended up with Fox three decades later.

Other very sizable markets ended up even shorter of channels. Detroit, 
which I believe was the fifth largest market in the fifties, had only 2, 
4 and 7, plus 9 across the river in Windsor. DC and Philly each ended up 
with only 4 VHF signals, just like Boston.

One wonders how the dynamic would have changed if CBS had gotten its way 
and moved ALL TV to UHF in the early fifties, eliminating the artificial 
scarcity of channels at the time.

s