Game shows locally pre-empted that you could watch on another affiliat

[GameShowGuru]

This question came up as a result of the thread where someone asked if their local affiliates pre-empted Super Password.  I said that my local affiliates did, but I still saw the show (during its original run) anyway.  I didn't elaborate how...until now.

Because my family had cable, and our cable provider had a random channel, which for lack of a better name, I called "The Miscellaneous Channel".  This channel would air shows from random out of town local affiliates in blocks of time that I really didn't keep a schedule of, but which often did have the clearances to air whatever network game shows happened to be on.

Thanks to my cable provider (Warner Amex QUBE), several shows such as Scrabble, Super Password, and NYSI '89 I may never had seen or known to have aired, had they not had this "channel".

To show you how random this channel could be, during one hour you could watch CBS Late Night (when they had late movies back in the 80s), then immediately following, it would be The Nostalgia Channel for a few hours, then it would be Movietime (another defunct channel) for another few hours, etc.

Has anyone besides me had (or had) a channel like this?  I only ask because Warner QUBE (wiki the name) was at the forefront of the cable tv industry in the 70s and 80s, and QUBE may have been the exception to this random channel provider in its cable package.  FWIW, I thought it was really cool being able to watch out of town affiliates, among other things.

[gameboy2000]

A while back, there was a channel in my area called TV!, later renamed Intro Television which featured certain programs from various channels, such as Cartoon Network and The Military Channel, and many others. We lost the channel when our cable provider switched from TCI to Cox Cable.

[chrispw1]

Although I'm pretty sure they never showed any local channels back in 1994 or so we had a station called TV which would switch different cable channels in blocks as they'd show stuff like Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, Bravo etc in rotating intervals.

[Jimmy Owen]

Yes, in the '70's and '80's Gerity Cablevision in Essexville, MI had a channel called CTV-2 where they would import distant stations to pick up shows the local affils didn't carry.  They had microwave linked antennas so they could send a signal from, say, Detroit or Cadillac, up to Essexville.  Since our local CBS station didn't carry the hour-long TPIR until 79 or so, we got it that way.  Also got many ABC noon shows that way via WXYZ.  Between those shows, the station aired old movies and syndicated shows, most from National Telefilm Associates.  They also carried "Somerset" daily which our NBC station declined, but who cares about that.

[bscripps]

[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' post=\'250880\' date=\'Nov 13 2010, 12:43 PM\']They had microwave linked antennas so they could send a signal from, say, Detroit or Cadillac, up to Essexville.[/quote]
That's a long microwave journey if you were getting stuff out of Cadillac; the only station in Cadillac at the time was my station, WWTV, and from what I've been told by our old timers, our feed of CBS programming was being relayed from sister station WKZO in Kalamazoo via microwave.

When I was growing up in Grand Rapids, we didn't have anything like a separate station, but I do recall quite vividly that WOTV (the NBC affiliate, now WOOD) spun off "Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour" to WXMI (then independent, now Fox).  I can't recall if they ever covered NBC promos within the show's commercial breaks, but I definitely recall the audio being cut during credits to eliminate the VOCA promoting the previous night's programming.

[Ian Wallis]

Wow - I wish we could have had a station like that!

The only one that comes to mind is when WUTV, an independent, picked up Battlestars and aired it a week behind NBC, at 12 noon.  WGRZ, the NBC affiliate, aired another show at 11:30 (can't remember what) and didn't pick up Battlestars at all.

Sometimes WUTV would also air primetime network shows if one of the affiliates pre-empted them for sports.

Most other shows that weren't seen in our area we were out of luck, unless the conditions were right and we could pick up the Rochester affiliates, which sometimes happened.

[gameshowcrazy]

I never had anything like that, but for years Service Electric in Allentown, PA had multiple affiliate channels for the networks with CBS being the exception (such a shame since the Philadelphia affiliate always interrupted or pre-empted TPIR for breaking news such as someone finding a penny heads up on the street, and also for WPVI constantly screwing up my viewing of Jeopardy at 7pm (was glad for WABC in NYC being on SECTV at the time as well).

Then there were some rules changes and SECTV doesn't have these options anymore.  I am so glad I have Blue Ridge now and I get WBRE in Scranton so my Jeopardy viewing hasn't been screwed up in years.

[Scrabbleship]

[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' post=\'250888\' date=\'Nov 13 2010, 03:48 PM\']The only one that comes to mind is when WUTV, an independent, picked up Battlestars and aired it a week behind NBC, at 12 noon.  WGRZ, the NBC affiliate, aired another show at 11:30 (can't remember what) and didn't pick up Battlestars at all.[/quote]

ISTR, from a Radio-Info Classic TV post, that WUTV also aired MG/HS at an odd hour (I think noon) as well.

[pyrfan]

[quote name=\'Scrabbleship\' post=\'250890\' date=\'Nov 13 2010, 04:36 PM\'][quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' post=\'250888\' date=\'Nov 13 2010, 03:48 PM\']The only one that comes to mind is when WUTV, an independent, picked up Battlestars and aired it a week behind NBC, at 12 noon.  WGRZ, the NBC affiliate, aired another show at 11:30 (can't remember what) and didn't pick up Battlestars at all.[/quote]

ISTR, from a Radio-Info Classic TV post, that WUTV also aired MG/HS at an odd hour (I think noon) as well.
[/quote]
And independent WPTT in Pittsburgh aired MG/HS at either 9:00 or 9:30 in the morning for a while, though I'm pretty sure Pittsburgh's NBC affiliate, WPXI, aired the show at its normal 3:00 slot for the entire nine months it was on the air.


Brendan

[Strikerz04]

Since I lived along the lakefront in Chicago, and that I had a funky antenna, I was able (on any given day) to pick up the stations in South Bend and in Milwaukee (in addition to the Chicago stations, obviously). That usually meant, at least in South Bend's case, that if the Chicago feed pre-empted anything for any reason, WFBT or WBND would carry whatever game shows that were on. This usually was the case for most of the 90's.

[Johnissoevil]

Philadelphia was one such city where network game shows were preempted.  Then-CBS O&O WCAU-TV was the only station that did not preempt any network game shows, while then-NBC affiliate KYW, and as I had mentioned yesterday, ABC affiliate-turned O&O WPVI, both preempted shows.  Those on the shoreline of south Jersey and immediate towns within Atlantic County and surrounding areas had NBC affiliate WMGM 40 out of Atlantic City, which aired both NBC and ABC daytime game shows.  As for the Philly stations, the preempted shows did end up on indy stations WPHL 17, WTAF/WTXF 29, WKBS 48, and WGTW 48.  Some feared that when KYW and WCAU swapped network affiliations in the late summer of 1995, TPIR would be preempted on KYW because of the station's reputation for preempting NBC shows.  Those fears were silenced when it was revealed that Group W/Westinghouse had sold minority ownership of the station to CBS and that the two companies agreed that the entire CBS schedule would be carried (this was months before Group W had purchased CBS as a whole).

[gameshowcrazy]

[quote name=\'Johnissoevil\' post=\'250925\' date=\'Nov 14 2010, 01:45 PM\']Philadelphia was one such city where network game shows were preempted.  Then-CBS O&O WCAU-TV was the only station that did not preempt any network game shows, while then-NBC affiliate KYW, and as I had mentioned yesterday, ABC affiliate-turned O&O WPVI, both preempted shows.  Those on the shoreline of south Jersey and immediate towns within Atlantic County and surrounding areas had NBC affiliate WMGM 40 out of Atlantic City, which aired both NBC and ABC daytime game shows.  As for the Philly stations, the preempted shows did end up on indy stations WPHL 17, WTAF/WTXF 29, WKBS 48, and WGTW 48.  Some feared that when KYW and WCAU swapped network affiliations in the late summer of 1995, TPIR would be preempted on KYW because of the station's reputation for preempting NBC shows.  Those fears were silenced when it was revealed that Group W/Westinghouse had sold minority ownership of the station to CBS and that the two companies agreed that the entire CBS schedule would be carried (this was months before Group W had purchased CBS as a whole).[/quote]


funny how when I turned to WCAU, my viewing of TPIR, PYL, etc. was constantly interrupted for some of the biggest "who cares" events of the day.

[mcsittel]

On a simliar vein, how many of you wacthed a game show that was pre-empted in your market, and would put up with a lousy signal from another market just to see it?  I can recall my first 'viewing' of Mr. Cullen's "Chain Reaction", thanks to WCYB-5's noon news, was on WTVK-26 Knoxville (which was NBC at that time).  Granted all I could do was listen to it... there was no discernible video; we were 90 miles away and the rooftop antenna was crappy for UHF.  I still have my audio tape of the episode somewhere.  "Go!" was 'viewed' similarly, as was "Break the Bank" on WPCQ-36 Charlotte, NC.

And how about lollygagging around as a kid in a motel, making your parents wait to check out so you could watch a show you'd never seen before?  On one trip in 1987 there were multiple 'incidents' so I could watch "Strike It Rich" on WHTM-27 Harrisburg, PA, Monty's "Split Second" on WHEC-10 Rochester (on the Ottawa, ON cable system), and "Guess What" and "Food For Thought" in Toronto (can't recall who carried those).

[Johnissoevil]

[quote name=\'gameshowcrazy\' post=\'250930\' date=\'Nov 14 2010, 04:30 PM\']funny how when I turned to WCAU, my viewing of TPIR, PYL, etc. was constantly interrupted for some of the biggest "who cares" events of the day.[/quote]

There's a difference between preempting network shows for syndicated shows and news bulletins breaking into the middle of a show.

[aaron sica]

How about another "big 3" affiliate clearing a competing network's game show?

Washington's 7 (now WJLA, can't recall if calls were different then) cleared "Tattletales" in '70s as WTOP (now WUSA) 9 didn't carry it. Aired at 9:30 a.m.