WMUR/WXPO and CBS (Re: WMUR)

[Kevin Vahey]

Neil Cortel almost pulled it off with CBS.

The story was a little more involved and at one point CBS was
considering buying WXPO.

Turned out one William Paley owned a summer home up in the Lake's
Region and could not get CBS there so needless to say this was
discussed at the highest levels of Black Rock.

CBS was also looking at moving 50 to the old WHDH-TV tower and making
it WEEI-TV. CBS wanted nothing to do with RKO General but was stuck
with them in 72.

What killed it was the FCC was not very friendly to CBS in those days
as the network was not a member of the Richard Nixon fan club. CBS
also looked into buying WSMW that State Mutual was desperate to
unload.

15 years later 21 would become a CBS affiliate but it was doomed as
they had problems getting put on cable clusters in southern NH
especially with Warner Cable. Tom Flatley was not used to losing money
and he literally pulled the plug with no warning to the staff.



On 3/22/08, Peter Q. George <radiojunkie3@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 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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