RETRO: Anchorage, Alaska (October 9, 1974)

[johnnya2k6]

Source: Anchorage Daily News

KENI-TV 2 (NBC, now KTUU):

8:30-National and World News
9:00-Today Show (satellite delay, I think)
11:00-Name That Tune
11:30-Jackpot
Noon-High Rollers
12:30-Celebrity Sweepstakes
1:00-Winning Streak
1:30-Days of our Lives
2:00-The Doctors
2:30-Another World
3:00-How To Survive A Marriage
3:30-Somerset
4:00-The Hollywood Squares
4:30-Woman's Touch
5:00-Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
5:30-Jeopardy
6:00-TV-2 News
7:00-Little House on the Prairie
8:00-Lucas Tanner
9:00-Petrocelli
10:00-The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson
11:30-NBC Nightly News (air delay)

KTVA-11 (CBS):

7:30-CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite (yes, at 7:30 in the morning!!)
8:00-Captain Kangaroo
9:00-Sesame Street
10:00-Hostess House
11:00-The Joker's Wild
11:30-Now You See It
Noon-Love of Life/Midday Report
12:30-Young and the Restless
1:00-Search For Tomorrow
1:30-As The World Turns
2:00-Guiding Light
2:30-The Edge of Night
3:00-The Price Is Right
3:30-Match Game '74
4:00-Tattletales
4:30-Sesame Street
5:30-Gambit
6:00-Eyewitness News
6:30-Other People, Other Places
7:00-Bicentennial Minutes/Sons & Daughters
8:00-Cannon
9:00-Manhunter
10:00-Eyewitness News
10:30-CBS Late Movie: "Marlowe"

KIMO-13 (ABC):
8:30-The Galloping Gourmet
9:00-Instructional Television
9:30-Girl In My Life
10:00-Password
10:30-Split Second
11:00-All My Children
11:30-Let's Make A Deal
Noon-Lucky 13 Movie
2:15-Keep Fit
2:30-Not For Women Only
3:00-The Newlywed Game
3:30-General Hospital
4:00-One Life To Live
4:30-The Brady Bunch
5:00-ABC Afterschool Special
6:00-KIMO News
6:30-The World Tomorrow
7:00-That's My Mama
7:30-ABC Wednesday Night Movie: "Death Sentence"
9:00-Get Christie Love!
10:00-The Big Valley
11:00-ABC Evening News (air delay)
11:30-Wide World Special

Until the launch of PBS station KAKM in 1975, Channel 2 ran Mister Rogers at 5:00 while Channel 11 had Sesame Street at 9:00 and 4:30. Why Channel 13 never bothered to carry The Electric Company, I don't know.

Also...KTVA should've aired Cronkite at 10:30 following the late news, and Anchorage would've gotten 90 full minutes of national news (CBS News at 10:30 on KTVA, ABC News at 11:00 on KIMO, NBC News at 11:30 on KENI). No wonder why Seattle had to air them first before flying the tapes to Anchorage for the late night airings!

And because there were only three stations, there was not much syndicated programming even though there were nighttime versions of Hollywood Squares, Jeopardy, and LMAD, as well as To Tell The Truth and What's My Line? But...that was Alaska TV in the '70s for you.

Jonathan Allen

[TexasTom]

Source: Anchorage Daily News

KENI-TV 2 (NBC, now KTUU):

9:00-Today Show (satellite delay, I think)

KTVA-11 (CBS):

7:30-CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite (yes, at 7:30 in the morning!!)

Also...KTVA should've aired Cronkite at 10:30 following the late news, and Anchorage would've gotten 90 full minutes of national news (CBS News at 10:30 on KTVA, ABC News at 11:00 on KIMO, NBC News at 11:30 on KENI). No wonder why Seattle had to air them first before flying the tapes to Anchorage for the late night airings!

There were no satellite feeds from the commercial networks to their affiliates in the seventies -- and, in 1974, such feeds were pretty expensive.  The 9 AM airing of Today on channel 2 wasn't likely to be a delayed satellite feed in 1974, but was probably an airing of a tape sent up from Seattle the previous day. 

As for running the CBS Evening News same day at 10:30 PM instead of the following morning at 7:30 AM -- it may be that the 11 PM airtime for the ABC News was about as early as could be safely accomodated based on flight schedules between Seattle and Anchorage -- 10:30 may have just been cutting it too close.  So rather than running the CBS News against ABC at 11 PM or NBC at 11:30 PM, channel 11 might have just figured it would be a better service to offer it the next morning at a time when the competition hadn't even signed on the air yet.

Hard to say for sure why they made the decisions that they made back then.  But I can imagine that the logistics of getting tapes and films flown back and forth between Seattle and Anchorage had to be a real nightmare.

[johnnya2k6]

Yeah, the Today show was on a one-day delay in 1974. It probably wouldn't be until some years later (maybe after Tom Brokaw and Jane Pauley took over) that it would be on a same-day satellite delay.

First-run syndicated programming in Alaska didn't come until the transition to satellite in 1984. I remember seeing one Anchorage schedule from October 1984 that had "Entertainment Tonight" on KTVA's listings, and I'll be posting that sometime soon.

Jonathan Allen

[Stanislav]

Hard to say for sure why they made the decisions that they made back then.  But I can imagine that the logistics of getting tapes and films flown back and forth between Seattle and Anchorage had to be a real nightmare.

Especially in a region of the continent not known for always having great flying weather. I imagine there were many times when conditions at either end of the Seattle-Anchorage run meant there would be no national news that day.

I'm curious -- did the affiliates there ever not run a tape-delayed newscast when major breaking news made what had been broadcast some hours before horribly dated? I mean, say for example some major world figure died or was assassinated in the interim, and the broadcast reports on him or her as if they were still alive? The local radio and TV stations would have had already seen the wire service bulletins and reported the news, and it would be pretty disconcerting to have those reports followed by Uncle Walter reporting on some conference they were scheduled to attend or speech they were to make the next day.