Post by theyoshistate on Dec 27, 2016 15:26:16 GMT
...and other lost affiliation swap videos (stupid character limits...)
This is intended to be the master thread for lost videos of the many affiliation swaps that took place across the United States during the mid-90's resulting from Fox's acquisition of CBS' NFL rights. The Flint/Bay City/Saginaw market in Michigan was no exception to this. Before the swap, their CBS affiliate was WEYI-TV channel 25 (the CBS logo, in particular, formed the inspiration for the callsign) and WNEM channel 5 was their NBC outlet.
In 1994, Detroit station WJBK switched from CBS to Fox (displaced from Viacom-owned WKBD-TV, which was set to be one of the charter affiliates of the then-upcoming UPN network) and CBS ended up on low-rated station WGPR-TV (now WWJ-TV), whose signal was too weak to provide coverage to the northern fringes of the Detroit market. As a result, CBS convinced WNEM to affiliate with their network as it's larger VHF signal covered the northern areas of the Detroit market (unlike UHF WEYI, due in part to the glacial moraine hills separating the Detroit and Flint urbanized areas, especially noticable when using I-75 between those cities) and in 1995, WEYI and WNEM swapped their affiliations.
In this forum thread, quite a few people remember this particular affiliation swap. The person who started that thread was particularly interested in finding videos of the moment the swap occurred, that peaked my interest in posting that here as well, because surely someone must've recorded the swap though likely very few people were watching either WEYI or WNEM at that exact moment.
Here are at the minimum a couple of recollections of the two station's swaps from a couple different people:
The second person seemingly at least recorded one of the results of the swap, but it's apparently not of that very moment.
If any of you American members remember recording the exact moments of affiliation swaps in your town during the mid-90's feel free to post them and any new findings you come across here.
This is intended to be the master thread for lost videos of the many affiliation swaps that took place across the United States during the mid-90's resulting from Fox's acquisition of CBS' NFL rights. The Flint/Bay City/Saginaw market in Michigan was no exception to this. Before the swap, their CBS affiliate was WEYI-TV channel 25 (the CBS logo, in particular, formed the inspiration for the callsign) and WNEM channel 5 was their NBC outlet.
In 1994, Detroit station WJBK switched from CBS to Fox (displaced from Viacom-owned WKBD-TV, which was set to be one of the charter affiliates of the then-upcoming UPN network) and CBS ended up on low-rated station WGPR-TV (now WWJ-TV), whose signal was too weak to provide coverage to the northern fringes of the Detroit market. As a result, CBS convinced WNEM to affiliate with their network as it's larger VHF signal covered the northern areas of the Detroit market (unlike UHF WEYI, due in part to the glacial moraine hills separating the Detroit and Flint urbanized areas, especially noticable when using I-75 between those cities) and in 1995, WEYI and WNEM swapped their affiliations.
In this forum thread, quite a few people remember this particular affiliation swap. The person who started that thread was particularly interested in finding videos of the moment the swap occurred, that peaked my interest in posting that here as well, because surely someone must've recorded the swap though likely very few people were watching either WEYI or WNEM at that exact moment.
Here are at the minimum a couple of recollections of the two station's swaps from a couple different people:
At the time of the switch the GM stood by the transmitter and threw a switch mounted on the wall. It was so cheezy One side of the switch was labeled CBS and the other side NBC.
When the switch(which did nothing) was thrown the light changed colo and the mcr op switched sources. I thought it was the stupidest thing, but I was only an engineer whose job was to build the switchbox and wire up all the video and audio from a remote semi with a ku dish on it
When the switch(which did nothing) was thrown the light changed colo and the mcr op switched sources. I thought it was the stupidest thing, but I was only an engineer whose job was to build the switchbox and wire up all the video and audio from a remote semi with a ku dish on it
I had the tv on that morning, not because of the affiliation swap, but because I usually had it on while getting ready for work. There wasn't much to see. After local news, the CBS morning show came on (I think it was called "The Early Show" at that point), rather than the Today Show. I did have some recordings from the following weeks, though.. Mostly episodes of "Diagnosis: Murder" that I recorded when I wanted Friends and Seinfeld, but forgot about the switch while setting the ol' VCR.
If any of you American members remember recording the exact moments of affiliation swaps in your town during the mid-90's feel free to post them and any new findings you come across here.
