WEEK-TV,
Channel 43(later 25) Peoria
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WEEK-TV was
Peoria's first television station having gone on the
air on February 1, 1953. It was owned and operated at the
time by
West Central Broadcasting Company, based out of Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma. The Company also operated radio station WEEK, 1350
AM. The
new Peoria TV station went on the air as an NBC affiliate on channel
43.
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It was soon determined that the signal of WEEK had problems in the
northern most region of the viewing area, and as many UHF stations of
the era determined, that in order to "fill in" their designated signal
areas, the use of lower powered translator stations were
necessary. In the case of WEEK, a translator on channel 35 was
set up in La Salle, Illinois on channel 35 by November of 1957.
It was given the call letters of WEEQ-TV, which was an indication that
it was more than the typical low wattage signal, in the fact that
it was given a call letter designation of a full powered TV
station. The timing of the translator assignment was just a few
months before a new TV signal would be on the air in Peoria,
WMBD.
The next big change for WEEK occurred in 1964, when the station moved
from broadcasting on channel 43 to channel 25. For the viewer, it
placed the NBC affiliate in the middle of the dial between WTVH at
channel 19 and WMBD at channel 31. Remember, that this was
well before digital UHF tuners, and viewers had to spin the slide rule
indicator along the UHF spectrum on their TV to their desired
channel. WEEK continues success in local news coverage in the
Peoria-Bloomington-Normal, Illinois market.
Here's a link to today's WEEK-TV.
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"Coffee Time" was a mid day locally produced talk variety show
originating from the WEEK studios hosted by Dick and Bev
Vance. This 1950's ad, along with the others pictured here
appeared in central Illinois editions of TV Guide tm. It was a
sign of the times, appealing to the housewives who were home doing the
cleaning, cooking and laundry.
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It was the early days of rock and roll, and local TV stations jumped on
the bandwagon with their own locally produced TV teen dance party
programs. It only stands to reason, as local TV had shows for the
housewives(left), the kids(cartoons and locally produced kid panel
shows) and for adult men(sportscasts, along with network TV sports
coverage). While ABC had "American Bandstand" WEEK had the "Rock
n-Roll Party" which aired on Saturday afternoons. The WEEK
version was hosted by station "work horse" Dick Vance.
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"Mackenzie's Raiders" was a syndicated TV western starring Richard
Carlson as the real life character of the old west. It was
produced from 1958-59 and was shown during those years on
WEEK-TV. Many times local TV stations were given blocks of prime
time, as the network didn't bother to program against successful shows
on the other networks. Sunday nights at 9:30PM CT was dominated
by "What's My Line" on CBS. Neither NBC or ABC programmed that
half hour of prime time, leaving the local stations to fill the time.
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Here's the Sunday night news team, which probably looked alot like the
weekday news team. Producing local news at the time, was much
simpler and required less resources as today. Many local
newscasts were simply "rip and read" sessions, because the act of
getting any local film footage wasn't done at the time. Bill
Houlihan was a fixture on Peoria TV over the next 50 years.
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WTVH-TV,
WIRL-TV, WRAU-TV, WHOI-TV,
Channel 19, Peoria
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WTVH was
Peoria's second TV station having signed on nine months later,
in November of 1953. The station was a project of Hilltop
Broadcasting, in which part owner was the Peoria Journal Star
newspaper. WTVH's studios were located in downtown Peoria at 234
North Madison Street. It's transmitter was located on the east
side of the Illinois river at Creve Coeur. WTVH was one of
the original twenty ABC full time affiliates but sometime after
sign-on, the
station became associated with some kind of a network affiliation with
CBS. It's also been recorded that the station also aired
programming from DuMont.
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Based on TV Guide programming and local news items during the middle to
late 1950's, it seems that WTVH went through a very trying time.
Local newscasts were eliminated, with the probable lay-offs of many
staffers. The broadcast hours of operation were also cut
considerably on the weekends. Why there was such a downturn
in the economic health of WTVH is hard to determine. This
downturn did seem to occur as WTVH became an ABC primary affiliate,
while programming from CBS seemed to disappear. The cut-backs of
the station could have been the result of the anticipated loss of
network TV advertising revenue. Of course, CBS programming would
return with the eventual sign-on of another Peoria TV competitor with
WMBD-TV on January 1, 1958.
In 1959 WTVH became a part of the company which it was previously
associated as an affiliate. When DuMont went out of business in
the mid 1950's, the former pieces of the original company became
Metropolitan Broadcasting Corporation(see WTVP History).
With the ownership change to Metropolitan, WTVH picked up a central
Illinois sister station in Decatur, WTVP. It's seems to be a
coincidence that the call letters were very similar, but many stations
tried to work in the call letters "TV" into their names. There's
no indication that it was any plan of the owners, since they actually
went on the air with different owners, although it many have been a
plan of some of the early ABC affiliates to have the "TV" call letters,
much like it was the plan to have ABC owned and operated stations all
at channel 7.

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During the
early 1960's, Metropolitan Broadcasting went through
another
name change becoming Metromedia. By 1965, Metromedia sold
WTVH to WIRL(AM) radio bringing about a TV station name change.
WTVH became WIRL-TV, where it was co-owned by the 5,000 watt AM Top 40
station through 1973. Back in 1958, WIRL-TV was listed in an
allocation table on Channel 8. The station never went on the air,
as the allocation was shifted to the Quad Cities area where it was used
by WQAD-TV.
Channel 19 was sold once again to Forward Communications
when the call
letters were changed to WRAU-TV in 1973. In 1985 the call letters
were
changed to WHOI, which went with the theme of "Heart of
Illinois." Two
years later in 1987, Forward Communications was merged with Adams
Communications which operated the ABC affiliate to 1991, when it was
sold to Brisette Broadcasting. That ownership was short as in
1996 it
changed hands again to Benedek Broadcasting which eventually filed
Chapter 11 bankruptcy. That company merged with Grey Broadcasting
which sold the station in 2002 to Chelsey Broadcasting which owns it
today.
Here's the link to today's WHOI-TV
Visit my former co-anchor at WICD, Jen Christensen's blog site, News Anchor Mom.
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"Stretch" Miller was broadcasting sports on WTVH in 1958.
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It was "Weather According to Hoyle" in 1958 on WTVH, Channel 19 in
Peoria.
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"The Les Crane Show" was a late night talker syndicated to go up
against "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson. Needless to say,
Les didn't do all that great and only lasted a short time. This
was during the Metropolitan Broadcasting area, later Metromedia.
Notice the font style was the same for WTVP, Channel 17 during the era
they were co-owned.
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ABC's corporate headquarters was nicknamed "Hard Rock" because of it's
ownership of several major market Top 40 stations during the
1960's. Here Channel 19 was owned by the local Top 40 station,
WIRL-1290 AM.
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| WMBD-TV,
Channel 31, Peoria |
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On New Years Day, 1958, WMBD signed on the air as the CBS
affiliate. It's arrangement with CBS nearly put Peoria station
WTVH-TV out of business. Channel 19 did retain it's affiliation
with ABC, making it a full time affiliate with the young network, but
not without severely affecting the operation.
Meanwhile, the new CBS affiliate at Channel 31 was developed and owned
by Charles Caley and John Fetzer of WMBD, Inc., the licensee of WMBD,
1470 AM radio. WMBD was a longtime radio affiliate of CBS, which
would make me assume that that relationship was what shifted the TV
network to the newer station. John Fetzer was a long time radio
executive and was a part owner of the Detroit Tigers baseball team from
1956 to 1961, becoming the sole owner in 1961. He also was rather
ingenious in the development of radio and TV stations in Nebraska, Iowa
and Michigan.
In 1960, WMBD, Inc. was sold to Midwest Television, the license holder
of WCIA(TV) in Champaign, Illinois. WMBD and WCIA were both CBS
affiliates and shared a number of programming elements over the
years. Farm news, weather, even reporters and anchors were
shared over the years, even into the 80's. A microwave relay
system between Champaign, Springfield and Peoria gave the stations a
way to broadcast news from the state capitol in Springfield, operating
a bureau out of the capitol building. The microwave relay also allowed
simulcasts of farm news, weather and local news reports which would
have appeal to both markets. It's also been recorded that the
stations shared broadcasts of "The Hop"(see WCIA History), Nightmare Theater(the
late night 'creature feature') and other local programs.
Sometime in the early 1980's, WMBD moved the studios from the run down,
crowded home at the then deserted hotel in downtown Peoria to the home
of a former grocery story at 3131 N. University. The TV
stations of Midwest TV were sold to Nextar in 1999, while the radio
stations WMBD and WKZW(FM) were sold to JMP Media. JMP was
purchased by Triad Broadcasting which now also own former competition
WIRL, WDQX, WXCL and WSWT.
Here's a link to today's WMBD-TV.
Here's a link to today's WMBD-AM
and WPBG(FM)
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Above is a collection of TV Guide ads featuring some of the talent of
WMBD in news, weather and being a master of ceremonies for the "Family
Theatre" presentation. Notice the local newscast was just 15
minutes in 1958 airing at 6PM. Joe Rex's weather window was
simulcast weekends on central Illinois sister station WCIA in
Champaign. Names like Chuck Henson, Lloyd Ummel, Joe Rex, John
Fisher, Jim Jenson were all a part of the talent package of WMBD-TV.
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Above left is one of the early ads from 1958, promoting "Weekend
World" with Jess Kennedy. It was a 30-minute world, national and
local news roundup of the events of the weekend which ran on
Sunday night.
At the right is a TV Guide ad with the movie lineup of the week.
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WMBD's "big difference in news" was the use of a microwave relay
"network" which linked WCIA with WMBD and enabled the stations to
exchange audio/video to further the coverage of central Illinois news.
The station vehicles were parked at the front of the hotel on Southwest
Jefferson in downtown Peoria, which was the site of the WMBD radio and
TV stations.
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Above left: From 1965, WMBD news main anchors consisted of Jerry
Biddle(left), Bob Gregory(center) and Bob Starr(right).
Above: It seems the theme of the late weekend 30-minute locally
produced news wrap-up was carried over into the 60's with "Weekend
World."
Left: By the mid 1960's, WMBD had local color capabilities, at least
for
the broadcast of films for the "Late Show."
Below: The news talent lineup of WMBD and WCIA from 1976.
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