WMUR/WXPO and CBS (Re: WMUR)

[Peter Q. George]

There was some talk about WMUR (Channel 9) being
originally a CBS affiliate and eventually a full-time
ABC affiliate.  Not being around at the time of WMUR's
premiere, I cannot prove or disprove it.  The Channel
9 of today totally bears little resemblance of the
station run by United Television or The Voice and
Vision Of New Hampshire.  Today, WMUR-TV (now owned by
Hearst) is the "station of record" during the New
Hampshire Primaries.  It's a full state-of-the-art
station, one of the best facilities available.  That
was not always the case as you can see on those
YouTube video files mentioned earlier.

Apparently those early local color broadcasts (1973)
were made using some very "barely broadcast quality"
industrial cameras.  I remember the look of Channel 9,
compared to the Boston stations at the time.  No
contest.  It would be another 8 years, in 1981, before
WMUR finally had a truly broadcast quality set up with
real good color cameras and a TBC that actually
stabilized the picture.  United ran that station down
to the ground.  I'm sure the great local folks at WMUR
wanted to have a station they could be proud of.  In
1981, under new ownership, they finally got their
wish.  It really looked great.

The story about CBS and New Hampshire did not stop
there. The old WXPO (Channel 50) tried THREE times in
1972 and again in 1973 to get CBS affiliation.  Since
the loss of Channel 5's CBS affiliation on 3/19/72,
when Channel 7 (WNAC-TV) went with CBS, many New
Hampshire viewers lost CBS programming as Channel 7's
signal paled with the old WHDH-TV, Channel 5.  I
recently saw one of the original exhibits/packages
being proposed to CBS executives to get Channel 50 on
the CBS Network.  One carrot sent to CBS, upon CBS
affiliation, was to have Channel 50 apply for the
then-unused Channel 21 allocation in Concord and to
run the new Channel 21 as a satellite, thus providing
full-coverage throughout New Hampshire.  Seemed like a
nifty idea.  CBS said NO.  I'm sure Channel 7 and RKO
General made a stink about this and effectively killed
the idea.  Channel 50 ran a test transmission on July
17, 1973 in the overnight hours.  More than likely
this was to show CBS executives that Channel 50 could
be of benefit for CBS in New Hampshire.  This would be
the last transmission of WXPO.  When CBS said NO,
Channel 50 decided it was time to GO. 

Today Channel 50 is occupied (until 2/17/09) by WZMY,
a MY-TV affiliate and Channel 21 (briefly and
ironically  an unsuccessful CBS affiliate as WNHT) is
now an ION Networks O and O.



73,

-Peter Q. George (K1XRB)
 Whitman, Massachusetts


     
--- Doug Drown <revdoug1@verizon.net> wrote:

> WMUR was originally a CBS affiliate that I believe
> had a secondary ABC 
> affiliation.  I'm not sure when that changed, but I
> remember the station 
> from the late '50s and it was an ABC affiliate by
> then.  -Doug
> 
> >
> > From: "A. Joseph Ross" <joe@attorneyross.com>
> > To: "Maureen Carney" <m_carney@yahoo.com>
> > Cc: <boston-radio-interest@lists.BostonRadio.org>
> > Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2008 1:37 AM
> > Subject: Re: WMUR
> >
> >
> >> On 21 Mar 2008 at 6:52, Maureen Carney wrote:
> >>
> >>> Besides "Uncle Gus" the other reason I would
> watch WMUR was because
> >>> they cleared ABC programming that the Boston
> affiate (either WCVB or
> >>> WNAC) wouldn't - stuff like "American
> Bandstand", "Edge of Night"
> >>> (when it came over to ABC in the late 70s/early
> 80s) and various
> >>> sporting events. Since for the most part I
> watched 9 on a B&W TV in my
> >>> parent's bedroom the crappy color didn't bother
> me!
> >>
> >> It's important to remember that there was no
> full-time ABC affiliate
> >> in Boston until WHDH-TV, channel 5 came on the
> air in November 1957.
> >> Before that, ABC programs were mostly carried by
> channel 7, a CBS
> >> affiliate, and sometimes by channel 4.
> >>
> >> At the time, channel 4 and channel 7 were not
> carrying the NBC and
> >> CBS evening news broadcasts, so channel 5 picked
> up both of them and
> >> did not carry the ABC news with John Daly.  That
> was on channel 9.
> >>
> >> I remember Uncle Gus in the early 1970s.  At the
> time I worked at
> >> Brookline Town Hall.  Uncle Gus was on at 5 PM,
> and I usually got
> >> home while he was still on.  After him was Robin
> Hood, with Richard
> >> Greene, which I liked to watch.  So I would
> usually turn on the TV
> >> and watch Uncle Gus until Robin Hood came on.
> >>
> >> -- 
> >> A. Joseph Ross, J.D.                          
> 617.367.0468
> >> 92 State Street, Suite 700                   Fax
> 617.507.7856
> >> Boston, MA 02109-2004                   
> http://www.attorneyross.com
> >>
> >>
> > 
> 
> 


Peter Q. George (K1XRB)
Whitman, Massachusetts
                           "Scanning the bands since 1967"
radiojunkie1@yahoo.com
radiojunkie3@yahoo.com
***********************************************************


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