The courtship of NBC by the Herald-Traveler

[Kevin Vahey]

KYW had replaced WFI-WLIT as the NBC primary for Philadelphia when it
moved in from Chicago and when WFI and WLIT merged they became NBC
Blue as WFIL and stayed with ABC.

WCAU was with CBS from the get go and WIP became Mutual in the 40's

On 6/20/09, Scott Fybush <scott@fybush.com> wrote:
> Kevin Vahey wrote:
>
>> Of course the saga of Westinghouse and NBC goes all the way back to
>> Chicago where KYW was the first station in the city and in 1934
>> Westinghouse moved it to Philadelphia. NBC has been rumored to have
>> played a role in that move. KYW was on 1020 in both Chicago and
>> Philadelphia and then would be assigned 1060. Once NBC bought WMAQ in
>> 1931 KYW's days in Chicago were numbered.
>
> Ah, but back in 1931 NBC and Westinghouse were far from mortal enemies -
> in fact, they had a close working relationship.
>
> Consider: NBC operated several Westinghouse radio stations, including
> WBZ and KDKA, under what we would now recognize as an LMA that began
> around 1930 and continued for a decade or so, until the FCC started
> investigating "chain broadcasting" and began breaking up such
> arrangements. (NBC had similar operating arrangements with GE, at
> WGY/KOA/KGO, as well; I think there may have been one or two others, too.)
>
> Consider: When KYW fled Chicago for Philadelphia, in order to retain its
> clear-channel assignment by moving it to a "radio zone" that wasn't
> already over its quota for such assignments, it sold its transmitter
> site in Chicago to...NBC's WMAQ, for a dollar.
>
> I believe, though it is not reflected in the paperwork from that 1934
> sale, that one of the quid-pro-quos was that KYW would become an NBC
> affiliate in Philadelphia. Come to think of it, I don't know who *was*
> the NBC affiliate in Philly before KYW came to town...
>
> s
>
>