Author Topic: J! premiere date... (Read 3045 times)

aaron sica · « **on:** May 15, 2005, 04:13:06 PM »

In one of my old TV Guides (Fall Pre-View of '84), J! is listed as premiering on my CBS station on September 10. However, on most other reference spots I've seen, the 17th is the date that it is said to have premiered. Who's right?

Bob Zager · « **Reply #1 on:** May 15, 2005, 05:29:59 PM »

[quote name=\'aaron sica\' date=\'May 15 2005, 03:13 PM\']In one of my old TV Guides (Fall Pre-View of '84), J! is listed as premiering on my CBS station on September 10. However, on most other reference spots I've seen, the 17th is the date that it is said to have premiered. Who's right?

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I noticed the same notation (that is a 9/17/84 premiere date), in the EOTVGS, but I know it premiered in Detroit on 9/10/84, and that the local station even had promos saying "coming Sept. 10th."

It may have premiered in a great deal more U.S. cities on 9/17/84, and could be why they list it that way.

Ian Wallis · « **Reply #2 on:** May 15, 2005, 06:00:02 PM »

I believe they were not feeding via satellite when they first went on the air, so that's probably why the premiere is different in different cities. That's another reason why some of the "checkerboard" series of the '70s had different premiere and end dates than it listed in the EOTVGS - maybe they were just going by the main station group that bought the shows (for example, any O&Os).

Same thing happened in my area with "Wheel of Fortune" a year earlier. It premiered in Buffalo in late August, and didn't pop up in Rochester until two weeks later. It wasn't until the second season when the airings were in sync.

aaron sica · « **Reply #3 on:** May 15, 2005, 07:06:35 PM »

[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' date=\'May 15 2005, 06:00 PM\']I believe they were not feeding via satellite when they first went on the air,
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Same thing happened in my area with "Wheel of Fortune" a year earlier. It premiered in Buffalo in late August, and didn't pop up in Rochester until two weeks later. It wasn't until the second season when the airings were in sync.

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There's the key word I was wondering about - "satellite". I didn't think it could be a satellite feed when there were two different premiere weeks. It was neat to see all the stations jumping on the WoF bandwagon - WCBS in January 1984, and WNEP (Scranton) in the summer, just about the time that the '84 Olympics started.

Don Howard · « **Reply #4 on:** May 15, 2005, 07:22:27 PM »

Wouldn't it make more sense for the premiere date to reflect the day it........... premiered? And it seems as though that date was Sept 10th 1984, as was the case in Cleveland on TV-5 (now NewsChannel 5). Many other cities started it on the 17th, but since the 10th came first that should be the listed day, I would think.