...and speaking of anniversaries...

[Dave Doherty]

Hi, Doug-

Thanks for the correction.

I wonder if anyone will care about the early history of broadcasting in a 
generation or two.

Witness the concurrent discussion on the list, it seems the powers that be 
don't care anything about preserving the history even now - even on the eave 
of what is arguably the greatest event in all of broadcasting history - the 
mass extermination of analog TV on Friday.

In twenty years, will anybody care that W*** was on channel 10 and is now on 
some UHF channel proclaiming that it is still on channel 10? I doubt it. 
Will W*** still be in business then?

-d





----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Doug Drown" <revdoug1@myfairpoint.net>
To: "Dave Doherty" <dave@skywaves.net>; "Scott Fybush" <scott@fybush.com>
Cc: <boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 11:44 PM
Subject: Re: ...and speaking of anniversaries...


>
>>>It seems that old WRG was an entrepreneur who built some statons in 
>>>upstate NY that were acquired by the
> Outlet Company. At one time, Cap Cities owned both WTEN and the Outlet 
> Company's WPRO-TV (now WPRI).
>
> A little inaccuracy here.  Cap Cities did indeed own WTEN (and WROW 
> AM-FM), but WPRO AM-FM-TV were originally owned by the Cherry and Webb 
> department store chain.  Cherry and Webb's principal competitor in 
> Providence, The Outlet Company, owned WJAR and WJAR-TV.
>
> Cap Cities bought the WPRO stations sometime in the '60s, if memory 
> serves. WKBW and WKBW-TV in Buffalo were added to the family, 
>      -Doug
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Dave Doherty" <dave@skywaves.net>
> To: "Scott Fybush" <scott@fybush.com>
> Cc: <boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 11:20 PM
> Subject: Re: ...and speaking of anniversaries...
>
>
>> Hi Scott-
>>
>> Albany had a pretty confusing early TV history, too.
>>
>> My Dad worked for a short time in the late 40's at WTRI-FM, which was 
>> co-owned with WTRY (980, now WOFX)) and spawned WTRI-TV, which I think 
>> was a UHF that eventually morphed into channel 13. WTRI-FM went off the 
>> air in the early 50's, and AFAIK WTRY didn't have an FM partner again 
>> until the consolidation movement in the 90's. In the late 1950's, I went 
>> to the WTRI-FM site on Heldeberg Mountain with my Dad, and I recall the 
>> tower sections stacked on the ground with the weeds growing up over them.
>>
>> WROW (590) was co-owned with channel 10.
>>
>> Channel 10 was originally WROW-TV on channel 41, eventually became three 
>> UHF stations, WCDA(41), WCDB(29), and WCDC (originally WMGT on channel 
>> 74, but eventually WCDC on 19).
>>
>> WCDA was on the WRPI tower in Troy, WCDB was on a very early 1000' tower 
>> in Vail Mills (licensed to Hagaman), on the south end of Scanadaga Lake, 
>> and WCDC still exists on Mount Greylock in the Berkshires. When they got 
>> channel 10, WCDA and WCDB were abandoned. They removed the tower at Vail 
>> Mills, and I guess they donated the Troy tower to RPI. I visited the Vail 
>> Mills site years ago, and the concrete was still there. As a kid, I 
>> free-climbed the WRPI tower (yes, the statute of limitations passed a 
>> long time ago).
>>
>> Of course, GE Broadcasting was the powerhouse in the market from the 
>> beginning. WGY (reputedly named for Wirless General electric schenectadY) 
>> was arguably the first 50kW station in the world. WGFM was an obvious 
>> choice of call signs. Channel 6 was named for Dr. Walter Ransom Gail 
>> Baker, a GE and IRE engineering luminary who also spent some time at GE 
>> competitor RCA (http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Walter_Baker)
>>
>> Interestingly, there is a tie between the GE stations and channel 10 
>> involving none other than WRGBaker. It seems that old WRG was an 
>> entrepreneur who built some statons in upstate NY that were acquired by 
>> the Outlet Company. At one time, Cap Cities owned both WTEN and the 
>> Outlet Company's WPRO-TV (now WPRI).
>>
>> -d
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "Scott Fybush" <scott@fybush.com>
>> To: "Dave Doherty" <dave@skywaves.net>
>> Cc: <boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>
>> Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 9:44 PM
>> Subject: Re: ...and speaking of anniversaries...
>>
>>
>>>
>>> Dave Doherty wrote:
>>>> Hey Scott-
>>>>
>>>> RIP WHAM-TV analog: Age 60 years plus one day.
>>>>
>>>
>>> With one confusing twist: the WHAM-TV that signed on in 1949 and will 
>>> sign off Friday at age 60 years plus a day is now WROC-TV...while the 
>>> station on channel 13 that now bears the WHAM-TV calls is only 46+ years 
>>> old, having signed on in 1962 as WOKR(TV).
>>>
>>> It's a nearly identical situation to the two WHDH-TVs in Boston: WHDH 
>>> 850 spawned WHDH-TV 5, outlived those calls on its TV sister, then went 
>>> on to again loan its calls to a different station (ex-WNAC-TV/WNEV on 7) 
>>> years later.
>>>
>>> (And it gives rise to a trivia question: how many other such examples 
>>> exist out there? Hartford has had two WTIC-TVs, both associated with 
>>> WTIC 1080. Syracuse has had two WSYR-TVs over the years, both associated 
>>> with WSYR 570. There have been two WWJ-TVs in Detroit, both associated 
>>> with WWJ 950. I can't come up with any others at the moment...)
>>>
>>> s
>>>
>>
>
>