"Sesame Street" airing on other stations besides PBS ones

[Russell W.]

A couple more:

KAIT-8 / Jonesboro, Ark.  (ABC affil) - before AETN launched a J'boro repeater (KTEJ-19) in 1976.

And in Shreveport, La., going by some TV Guides I have, airing of SS rotated between the CBS (KSLA-12) and NBC (KTAL-6) affils. 

As for the question of payment, an article from back then made mention that commercial stations paid for the privilege ... but in Shreveport's case, a local organization bought the time slot to allow it to air.  Whether that was done, or if the station itself shelled out the bucks, it's fairly clear that ulterior motives (read: looking very good to the FCC at renewal time) didn't exactly deter.

--Russell

[cowboybud]

Sesame Street aired on WJAC Johnstown, PA and KBMT Beaumont, TX well into the 70s.

WJAC aired "Sesame Street" in much of the 70's? Didn't they already have WPSX, Ch. 3 from Penn State,
as the Johnstown/Altoona area's PBS station at the time?

According to a 1976 Pittsburgh TV Guide I have, they did not. I have a correction, however; Sesame Street aired on WTAJ. WJAC did air The Electric Company, however.

[Dave]

Here's 3 more:

WREX/Rockford

Rockford still doesn't have PBS station in their market.  I don't even know if there's room to add another channel to their market.  I'm sure WREX dropped Sesame Street many years ago when cable came to the market, and carry WTTW on cable.

[bpatrick]

Here's 3 more:

WREX/Rockford
KTSM/El Paso
KFIZ/Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin

I recall seeing a fall 1970 TV listing from Peoria, IL that showed WMBD-31 (CBS) airing Sesame Street at 9AM weekdays, presumably following Captain Kangaroo.  I'm not sure if this practice began since SS's Day 1 on Nov. 10, 1969, but this wouldn't last much longer as Peoria PBS station WTVP-47 signed on in June 1971.  I don't know if airings of "Sesame" on WMBD bumped any regularly scheduled CBS network daytime programming at the time.

This brings up another side question.  Among the commercial stations which carried Sesame Street in its early years, did "Sesame" get aired at the expense of preempting a regularly scheduled network daytime show?  [For instance, Sept. 4, 1972 and after with the debut of Joker's Wild, Gambit, and (The New) Price Is Right on CBS--if "Sesame" was still airing on a CBS station, for instance, would the only game shows those viewers would have seen at that time slot were those on SS "hosted" by Guy Smiley rather than Bob, Wink, and/or Jack (Barry)].   

WINK aired "Sesame Street" 9:30-10:30 AM, so "Joker's Wild" was delayed to 1 PM in Ft. Myers.  (Merv Griffin aired 10:30-11:30, pre-empting "Price Is Right," then "Pyramid" at 10:30, and "Gambit" at 11.)

Another non-PBS station carrying "Sesame Street" in the early '70s was WKPT Tri-Cities, TN-VA (ABC).  No network pre-emptions here, since ABC didn't come up until 11:30 AM.

[kirkiefan]

Assuming there were no commercial breaks in the show, did PBS pay the commercial stations for the time?

I don't think so. WKEF in Dayton aired Sesame Street in 1970 up until around 1972 when WOET (the former WKTR-TV now WPTD) finally brought PBS to Dayton. The former Winters Bank and the Dayton Journal-Herald and another local entity helped pay for the show to be aired on Channel 22. All three buisinesses were mentioned before the beginning and after the end of the program...and were agknoledged as supporters of the show.  WLIO in Lima also aired it in 1970 during its first year since there was no PBS in Lima (aside from WBGU-TV licensed to Lima but broadcasting from BGSU which never reached Lima.)

[azumanga]

WLIO in Lima also aired it in 1970 during its first year since there was no PBS in Lima (aside from WBGU-TV licensed to Lima but broadcasting from BGSU which never reached Lima.)

I always thought that WBGU was always licensed to Bowling Green? Also, per FCC rules, a station must have a city-grade signal over its city of license -- if it could not be received in Lima, it could not be licensed to Lima.

[gr8oldies]

I remember the legal ID being "Lima-Bowling Green" so according to the rules in effect at that time they should have had a city grade signal in both

[Mark]

Rockford still doesn't have PBS station in their market.  I don't even know if there's room to add another channel to their market.  I'm sure WREX dropped Sesame Street many years ago when cable came to the market, and carry WTTW on cable.

There were some analog allocations close enough like in DeKalb where they could've probably pushed the transmitter close enough to get a signal to Rockford. Of course that's no longer an issue.

When did PBS start in Alaska and Hawaii? I would think Sesame Street might have aired there

[KeithE4]

Rockford still doesn't have PBS station in their market.  I don't even know if there's room to add another channel to their market.  I'm sure WREX dropped Sesame Street many years ago when cable came to the market, and carry WTTW on cable.

There were some analog allocations close enough like in DeKalb where they could've probably pushed the transmitter close enough to get a signal to Rockford. Of course that's no longer an issue.

Channels 33 & 48 were allocated to DeKalb, and 65 was allocated to Freeport for non-comm use in the analog era.  These would have covered the Rockford market if stations had been built on those channels. 

Amazingly, the analog Table of Allotments (47 CFR 73.606) is still on the books, and the digital Table (47 CFR 73.622) is years out of date.  I'm not sure what the FCC is doing about allocations for new (digital) stations these days.

[Stanislav]

Rockford still doesn't have PBS station in their market.  I don't even know if there's room to add another channel to their market.  I'm sure WREX dropped Sesame Street many years ago when cable came to the market, and carry WTTW on cable.

There were some analog allocations close enough like in DeKalb where they could've probably pushed the transmitter close enough to get a signal to Rockford. Of course that's no longer an issue.

Channels 33 & 48 were allocated to DeKalb, and 65 was allocated to Freeport for non-comm use in the analog era.  These would have covered the Rockford market if stations had been built on those channels. 

Amazingly, the analog Table of Allotments (47 CFR 73.606) is still on the books, and the digital Table (47 CFR 73.622) is years out of date.  I'm not sure what the FCC is doing about allocations for new (digital) stations these days.

There are currently no "vacant" DTV channel allocations (except for those two recently assigned to NJ and DE to fulfill the outdated law mandating one VHF channel in every state), and the FCC is letting the interference and coverage issues of the existing stations get sorted out before accepting any applications for new full-power DTV stations. Unlike the analog era, where channels were pre-assigned to various markets and locations, the way it will work now (as I understand it) is: you want to build a new station serving (insert name of city here); your engineers do a study to find what channel and power level will work without causing interference to other stations; you apply to the FCC, and their engineers either agree with the proposed channel/power, or suggest alternatives; when both parties are happy, the CP is issued.