RE: NBC Affiliates on Ku-Band (1998)

[JosephHolloway1998]

Seattle NBC affiliate KING-TV even had a 10 PM newscast produced for KONG-TV 6/16 which was an independent station (KSTW's 10PM competitor and even KCPQ launched its 10PM newscast that year (Q13 Reports)).

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

As I'm still waiting for a Satellite TV Week edition (June 1998) to pop up (or is being sold) on EBay, NBC was the first network to uplink a majority of its affiliate feeds on Ku-Band (WECT Wilmington, NC. KALB Alexandria, WSAV Savannah, KYTV Springfield, MO (KY3), KBJR Superior, WI/Duluth, MN, KIEM Eureka, KOBI Medford, OR, WAGT Augusta, GA (now-defunct), WJAC Johnstown, PA, KSNT Topeka, WREX Rockford, KWQC Davenport, IA/Quad Cities, WJFW Wausaw/Rhinelander, KRIS Corpus Christi, KKCO Grand Junction, KPVI Idaho Falls-Pocatello, KNOP North Platte, NE, WALB Albany, GA etc...).

Ku band - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

There's another NBC affiliate I forget to mention on this thread (KMIR TV6 Palm Springs which was owned by John Conte and the Conte estate back then).

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

I also forgot to mention that WNCN (now-CBS) was an NBC O&O back then besides the stations I've already mentioned (including the original 5 (KNBC, WMAQ, WNBC, WRC, WCMH) and WCAU, WVIT, WJAR, KNSD, WTVJ and WVTM). WNCN was one of the two stations in Raleigh, NC to be owned by a network (the other being WTVD (ABC)).

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

WGEM-TV in Quincy/Hannibal (America's GEM city hence the call letters) also operated a cable-only Fox affiliate called "CGEM" (which operates similarly to Foxnet), most households in the Quincy/Hannibal area had cable (as CGEM carried the Chicago Bears NFL games during the NFL season and Quincy within the Illinois/Chicago Bears territory) back then. That was in the age before we had digital subchannels.

 

[mr3p]

I respectfully request this thread be closed. 24/25 posts are all from the original thread starter. This thread (and maybe the posting privileges of the topic starter) needs to end.

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

I respectfully request this thread be closed. 24/25 posts are all from the original thread starter. This thread (and maybe the posting privileges of the topic starter) needs to end.

Why?, I'm still waiting for a Satellite TV Week Magazine from June 1998 to be sold on eBay.

 

[KE4EST]

I respectfully request this thread be closed. 24/25 posts are all from the original thread starter. This thread (and maybe the posting privileges of the topic starter) needs to end.

If there are threads that you do not wish to see, you can hit the ignore thread button at the top of every thread.

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

Well Michael Sherlock (the President of Operations & Technical Services at NBC at the time) might probably have all the information, but he's nowhere to be seen on Linkedin at this moment.

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

If Michael Sherlock isn't available, there are others who worked in the Operations & Technical Services department at the time that I can try (Randall Falco, Charles Jabionski, Crawford McGill, Anthony Pedalino and David Schmerler).

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

There are several other NBC feeds that weren't listed on the 4DTV channel listings
B4-1: NBC (Occasional) which was occasionally lit up
B4-10: NBC (Occasional) which was active around 3:45PM Eastern central time
(Though SBS4 had 10 transponders, there was more beyond that)
B4-12: NBC (Occasional) which was the newsroom full of terminals and monitors
B4-19: NBC (Occasional) which had the NBC BURBANK Bars and Test Pattern
K2-15 (Ku generic KC on 4DTV) in 1998 had a GE Americom slate and a 24-hour chyron (Though there was still NBC traffic on K2 back then, Conus Communcations shared a satellite on there as well (as did ABC))
My Orbit Magazine (June 1998) and several rec.video.satellite.tvro threads list SBS4 (77 W) as an inclined bird (alongside GStar 3), Satcom K2 (81 W) wasn't in there (but it was also inclined as well).
Though there were plenty of NBC affiliate and news feeds on SBS4 back then (KTTC Rochester, MN, KWES Odessa-Midland, KCBD Lubbock, WLUC Marquette, WGBC Merdian, MS, KTVZ Bend, KJAC Pt. Arthur/Beaumont (News 4 Texas), WBOY Clarksburg, WV, WTVA Tupelo, WVVA Bluefield, KTVF Fairbanks), although NBC used it as private feeds for their affiliates. Much like the other networks, NBC requires all of their affiliates to have newscasts but there were several other NBC affiliates that didn't have news outlets at the time (including WMGT Macon, KTGF Great Falls (Fox secondary), KVEO Brownsville, KPOM/KFAA Fayetteville, AR (which relaunched a news division in 1999) and WLTZ NBC38 Columbus, GA).

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

I think I've covered all the NBC affiliates (all except for KENV Elko (although it was considered part of the Salt Lake City market) which was a semi-satellite of KRNV Reno) and FTA Ku satellites (Satcom F1 (C-Band), SBS 4, GE1 Ku, Satcom K2 (though it was more of the inclined Ku birds at the time) & GSTAR3) NBC used. The next I'll do would be FOX, but until then see you on another thread.

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

Most of the Sinclair NBC stations were Guy Gannett owned (including WTWC Tallahassee and WICD/WICS Springfield-Champaign), but the sale wasn't finalized until September 1998 when Guy Gannett Communications dissolved.

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

The Florence-Myrtle Beach market was one of the several areas without an NBC affiliate at the time (WBTW 13 (CBS), WPDE 15 (ABC), WWMB 31 (UPN), WFXB 43 (Fox/WB secondary)), though WECT Wilmington, NC and WIS-TV Columbia, SC acted as "de facto" affiliates on several cable systems in the area.

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

SatcoDX and Vincor's Ku chart would often list SBS4, transponders 1 & 10 as "NBC Feeds".

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

As for what I've seen WVLA Baton Rouge had a morning 6AM-7AM newscast with live Today Show cut-ins as they didn't have a local evening newscast at the time (as they were a distant third behind WLBZ (ABC) and WAFB (CBS)).

 

[Houston Rockets]

Wow that was way back in the day..

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

Wow that was way back in the day..

Yeah, I know.

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

Well there was an ad in the Huntsville, AL area back them urging them "Know the facts before you buy!" (though I can seea DBS Sony dish here), but I'm not sure if it applied to Free-to-air KU band at the time? considered the fact that NBC was on SBS4, GE1 KU and Satcom K2 as I mentioned earlier. Plus, KHQ Spokane (NBC-W) and WGRZ Buffalo (NBC-W) was on A2 Ku (4DTV/StarChoice) but only those in Northern US could receive Canadian programming from the Anik E2 sat.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi_8ANKRTwQ

Video from 9:22-9:51

 

[JosephHolloway1998]

I meant that WGRZ Buffalo was NBC-E on 4DTV/A2 Ku-band my bad.