Cases of ABC networks mismatched back in the day?

[Ultimajock]

Some stations ran either Information or Entertainment to get Paul Harvey News.

Paul Harvey was a separate contact and usually went to the I or E affiliate (and later, ABC Direction) as they were considered the "full-service" networks.

...there was an interesting situation regarding the Appleton-Oshkosh WI market in the '70s. As I already indicated above, WMKC/96.7 Oshkosh was American FM. The other three networks went to MOR WAGO/690 Oshkosh (Entertainment), Top 40 WNAM/1280 Neenah-Menasha (Information) and Top 40 WYNE/1150 Appleton (Contemporary). Paul Harvey was heard on both WAGO and WNAM. However, by 1978 WYNE had dropped Top 40 for AC and WAGO scrapped MOR for Top 40, but neither station changed their ABC contracts and Paul Harvey continued on WAGO. In 1980, WYNE shifted again, to Country, and eventually picked up the ABC Direction contract, scrapping Contemporary...

 

[KR4BD]

In 1969-70, while working at WVUD-FM, we carried the ABC-FM network with news at :15 after the hour. We also carried Howard Cossell's "Speaking of Sports" LIVE at 8:25 AM and 5:25 PM from the ABC Contemporary Network. At the time, WVUD's format was "Middle of the Road" or Adult Contempory. All of the ABC networks came into WVUD via phone line and could be monitored in cue in the studio. WVUD was sold to Clear Channel becoming WLQT in the early 1990's. WVUD was one of the few, FULL POWER FM, COMMERCIAL stations owned and operated by a college or University. Many famous broadcasters came out of there including Dan Patrick of ESPN Sports to name just one.

 

[oldtimeradio]

My two cents worth...

A station in Indianapolis delayed the FM News to :25.

A guy I met was a station owner and took all four services on his one station. He also, on his new place of employment station, scheduled a lot of information in AM Drive (on a country formatted station) with news and features from UPI News teletype.

At the start, ABC/I had two long form programs that ran at 6:10 and 6:20 pm ET. The FM News at 6:15 pm was cancelled. The Breakfast Club started after the ABC/I feed and caused the FM News to be delted, and I believe the ABC/C News at :54:30.

I had a neighbor that worked at KRUX, Glendale, before that station picked up the NBC News and Information Service. At that time, they had picked up the ABC/C network, and ran the cast live at :54:30. However, this guy id not or could not backtime a song up to the news. His belief was that if :54:30 came and the song wasn't over there would be a cold switch to the network. Did any other station have that belief?

By the way, I have a short article about the ABC switch to the four network service on my broadcasting101 site.

 

[Bob1370]

Information was a default network for most adult format stations serious about news. Contemporary was for top 40 stations (hot AC really didn't exist yet in 1968). Entertainment was for stations with light pop formats and less intensive news coverage, and FM was the default for all manner of FM stations from classical to beautiful music to album rock because of its more laid-back presentation and serious content. First station I worked for was an FM affiliate that ran album rock. Next one in 1973 was a pioneer hot AC station in Syracuse that was a nominal Entertainment affiliate but used the network only as an actuality service and a national spot revenue source (since they paid for running the network spots if you aired them within 30 minutes of the time they cleared live on the net)...our news was actually live and locally originated 24/7. Then some time at WKBW, which had no network affiliation at all. After that, my next station was a nominal Contemporary affiliate that actually did local news on the :20-:20 model morning, noon and night, ran no network material except for actualities, and no news overnight barring national emergency...so the network was once again an actuality service and a source of national spot $$$.

Haven't worked for an ABC affiliate since '78. From then on, I've worked for NBC, CBS and later NPR stations, all of which were a whole different deal...

 

[Tim L]

WHBC-AM in Canton, Ohio had been affiliated with ABC since 1947, and had been carrying Paul Harvey from at least 1951 until his passing in February 2009..WHBC chose the American Entertainment Network in the 1968 split..WHBC became a Fox News Radio affiliate in June 2009, after 52 years with ABC

 

[Kurt Toy]

IIRC, WEEP in Pittsburgh was a country station that carried ABC's Information news for most of the '70s-though they experimented with a talk format in 1975-76-and they also ran Harvey. When WEEP lost ABC-I to WWSW in the spring of '77 they switched to Mutual.

 

[bpatrick]

In the mid 1980s I was a very young news director at a Music Of Your Life station.

We carried the ABC Information newscast (the first segment only) at the top of the hour, but were required by our contract to clear the ABC Contemporary commercials. Strange hearing commercials for bubble gum and acne medicine on a station playing big bands, Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee!

Also, I always wondered whether what we were doing was OK, or whether our GM just figured that an unrated 1000-watt AM wouldn't get noticed by anyone at ABC. We couldn't get the Information or Entertainment networks because larger stations had them.

Eventually, we switched to the ABC Direction network. Case solved. Appropriate newscasts and commercials.

You didn't happen to work at WTOB Winston-Salem, NC, did you? Because that station was Music of Your Life and carried ABC
Contemporary's commercials (perhaps a holdover from when the station was top 40), and it was a 5000-watt day/1000-watt night that didn't show up in the Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point ratings.

 

[firepoint525]

WASL 100.1 in Dyersburg, TN was a Top 40/AC station, and in recent years classic rock, but what was unusual about them is that for years they carried Paul Harvey until his death. But if they hadn't I probably wouldn't have become a regular listener to him.

I remember hearing about a new jock at SL-100 back about 1990 or so who didn't carry Paul Harvey, and about the grief she got from listeners for not doing so. Apparently, she had not been told to tape the satellite feed.

WKDF, during their days as a wimpy "rock" station here in Nashville, carried Paul Harvey for years.

 

[anotherguyTN]

SL 100 had Paul Harvey scheduled for 11:30 AM, but it might be some 10 to 15 minutes later before the program actually started, between if a song (sometimes more than one) ran over, and the 5 minutes of ads at the beginning. Then there was local news after Paul Harvey. I really think they started at 11:35 so that after all the ads and local news it would be close to Noon and time for Classic Tracks, their all request lunch show, to start.

 

[Joseph_Gallant]

I believe that at the time of the split, Paul Harvey and (until it concluded it's 35-year run at the end of 1968) "Breakfast Club" were grandfathered to whatever station had them prior to the split.

I believe both were ABC Entertainment Network shows after the split.

Nevertheless, WABC-770 New York couldn't wait to get rid of both of them upon the split!

 

[Ultimajock]

I believe that at the time of the split, Paul Harvey and (until it concluded it's 35-year run at the end of 1968) "Breakfast Club" were grandfathered to whatever station had them prior to the split.

I believe both were ABC Entertainment Network shows after the split.

Nevertheless, WABC-770 New York couldn't wait to get rid of both of them upon the split!

...interestingly, WLS/890 Chicago kept The Breakfast Club, renamed The Don McNeil Show in its last months, while Paul Harvey was eventually sent to WCFL/1000 and, later, WJJD/1160 before finally spending his last decades on WGN/720. The Breakfast Club had actually run in Chicago on WCFL longer than it had on WENR/WLS -- the surviving December 8, 1941 aircheck is actually an NBC Blue Network linecheck as it came into the WCFL control studio -- but by the time of the four-net ABC split, WCFL had (a) switched to being WLS' main Top 40 competitor, (b) taken the Mutual affiliation away from WGN (partly to carry Dick Biondi's Mutual show from Hollywood in the mid-'60s), and (c) picked up Howard Miller's morning show after WIND/560 canned him in March 1968 (itself odd for a Top 40 outfit), so Don McNeil & Company going back to WCFL was extremely unlikely anyway. (Although it would have fit WJJD perfectly.) By the end of its run, The Don McNeil Show was providing a mid-show break in Larry Lujack's WLS morning drive airshift (which Superjock loved, natch), and as a gag on the final day of its run, Lujack pointedly followed up McNeil's final broadcast -- McNeill ended his last broadcast by joining with listeners in silent prayer, after a few seconds saying “Amen. And if you want peace where you are, don't ever forget Don McNeill and the gang saying so long and be good to your neighbor” -- with a play of "Revolution" by The Beatles, the most raucous single on the WLS playlist at the time ;D ...