1 of 1- mace
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Happy Birthday Channel 7
Nov 30, 1958, WKBW TV signed on for the first time giving Western New Yorkers their third VHF television station. Initially, GTA viewers could not receive the station because their antennas were designed to receive ch 2-6. Having to fork out more money for a head to get ch 7-13 wasn't going to happen for most Torontonians. The industry finally designed an antenna to receive all VHF channels. It became known as the "2-4-7 Head" Something else many may not be aware of. WKBW was originally planned to be an independent station. In the mid 50's ch 2 was ABC, ch 4 was CBS and ch 17 was NBC. In early 1958, after losing boatloads of cash with their UHF experiment, NBC shut down WBUF. and returned their affilliation to ch 2. That left ABC available for ch 7.
- mace
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Re: Happy Birthday Channel 7
Did you know there were two Promo the Robots? I remember the original box style version from 1962. Apparently, he got a makeover in 1967 becoming more streamlined with wraparound sunglasses,
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Thread Starter- RadioActive
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Re: Happy Birthday Channel 7
Happy birthday to KB. It toiled for years in the shadow of both WBEN-TV and WGR-TV, as an ABC affiliate. If ever something lived up to being the "third network," it was ABC. It wasn't really until the 70s and shows like "Happy Days" and "Mork & Mindy" that the so-called Alphabet Network became a major factor in the ratings.
Luckily for Channel 7, it had a lot of successful local shows, like Rocketship 7, Dialing For Dollars, and of course the superstars of Eyewitness News, led by Irv Weinstein, who had a remarkable run. Today, their news is back in third place locally and new owner Scripps has been trying to find an answer to that for years.
The Pre-"Eyewitness News" era:
And afterwards: (notice the odd newscast start times.)
What was on at 6 PM? Just before you got the facts, man, you, well, got the facts, ma'am.
- mace
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Re: Happy Birthday Channel 7
Great ad collection RA!. In their early days I believe Irv Weinstein had several humourous quips about Ch 7's viewership issues. "We are the number four station in a three station market" and " More people watch ch 4's test pattern than our newscasts"
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Thread Starter- RadioActive
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Re: Happy Birthday Channel 7
mace wrote:
Did you know there were two Promo the Robots? I remember the original box style version from 1962. Apparently, he got a makeover in 1967 becoming more streamlined with wraparound sunglasses,
The two faces of Promo, played by several stand-ins, including Johnny Banaszak one of the musicians who appeared on Dialing For Dollars that immediately followed the show. He must have had to get out of the costume very quickly!
(Courtesy: Buffalo Stories Blog, which has a ton of photos of the early Channel 7 years) 
- Radiowiz
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Re: Happy Birthday Channel 7
They once had a theme song for their TV promos
Last edited by Radiowiz (November 30, 2022 10:41 am)
RadioWiz & RadioQuiz are NOT the same person.
RadioWiz & THE Wiz are NOT the same person.
- RadioActive
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Re: Happy Birthday Channel 7
And just for good measure, here's the theme song they used for Rocketship 7.
- mace
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Re: Happy Birthday Channel 7
I only got to watch Rocketship 7during summer vacation and Christmas vacation. On school day mornings, watching television was strictly forbidden, unless [cough, cough] you were ill.
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