At 1AM on September 10, 1995, KYW-TV and WCAU-TV swapped network affiliations, part of a more complex affiliation/ownership deal involving NBC, CBS and Group W.
Historic moment in Philly TV history. And on the same night that the Eagles beat the Cardinals on SNF for the 1st win of the Ray Roades era. R.I.P Ken Matz and Siani Lee
OMG! I've been looking for this for years! This was a sign of who got the best part of the deal. WCAU did a full newscast and trumped up their switch, and KYW just put upp a graphic, and said, "Now a CBS station" or something cheesy, and had to figure out something to replace Saturday Night Live at 12.
According to what I read in the Inquirer, KYW simply showed its ID with a voiceover "KYW is now your CBS station." 3's approach was very muted - they only slightly modified the news and promo graphics. 10, meanwhile, changed the logo, music, and plastered the area with advertising.
KYW wasn't the only station to have a "muted tone" about becoming a CBS O&O. I think because NBC was the dominant network at the time and CBS was a third place network just off of losing the NFL TV Rights two years before.
By June 1965, the deal was reversed and the KYW calls came back to Philly while the Cleveland stations became WKYC AM/FM/TV. Mike Douglas' show, the Eyewitness News name and initial format, Al Primo and Tom Snyder all started in Cleveland at KYW... and all moved to Philly. KYW-AM, essentially an upstart station, implemented the all-news format they still carry today. WKYC-TV would flounder for years under NBC ownership before being sold off to Multimedia (today part of Gannett) in the mid-90s.
Before WTXF was sold to Fox, WCAU was the subject of a bidding war between NBC, New World, and Fox. The latter two intended to convert WCAU to Fox (and therefore keep the Eagles there). Earlier, Fox had made a plan to buy WGBS, but canceled those when they learned WCAU was for sale. But because WTXF was sold to Fox, they and New World left the bidding war and NBC was given WCAU. Today, WPSG is a CW station.
Ugh, I remember this and the "Change is Good" motto. I used to watch them, especially the 4pm newscast back in the early 00's, not anymore. I forgot about Siani Lee and her untimely death.
I always preferred to think that because Group W's stations had their own solid identities, that they could emphasize the "hey, some shows are changing but we're not going away" angle. This worked in some places, backfired in others (Philly being one of them).
RIP Siani Lee - Somewhere there's a TV Station with Jim O'Brien always doing the weather - making Siani Lee Laugh; Cutting to Harry and Richie for the latest Phillies news - Gara Papa doing an interview with Chuck Bednarik. Jack Jones on the Anchor Desk.
You're very close. In 1956, Westinghouse traded KYW's AM and TV licenses to NBC in exchange for WTAM AM/FM and WNBK in Cleveland. Westinghouse had the rights to the KYW calls; they moved to Cleveland while KYW AM/TV became WRCV AM/TV. Group W filed a lawsuit against NBC to reverse the deal, saying that NBC threatened to pull their affiliation off of KYW and WBZ in Boston if Group W said no.
Can you believe it's almost 25 years that WCAU and KYW switched affiliates. This was a game-changer. It also affected Baltimore, MD. In 1995 WMAR got ABC, WJZ got CBS and WBAL got NBC back. In 1981, the first switch was between WMAR (then CBS) and WBAL (then NBC) .
@@TheBrooklynbodine The original switch happened in 1981 between WMAR which was CBS back then and WBAL which was NBC. WJZ was still ABC. The Switch lasted for 14 years until 1995.
Another thing I remember from this, up until the network switch, Monmouth Cable (now Cablevision) in Asbury Park, NJ carried KYW, WPVI, WPHL, and WTAF/WTXF. Around the same time (probably the same day, can't say for sure), KYW was replaced with WCAU. Makes one wonder if CBS always mandated that WCBS be the only CBS station carried on cable north of Ocean County. Good thing to ponder...
I hated the switch. I always thought that the CBS eye fit perfectly with Channel 10's logo with the eye inside the number zero. And the NBC Peacock fit much better with the original KYW 3 logo.
In Summer 1995, Philadelphia people saw a teaser promo for Caroline in the City, which was to come this fall on NBC, which aired on KYW, but its actual Philadelphia station who aired Caroline in the fall was WCAU. The same can't be said for Can't Hurry Love, which CBS aired but in vice versa.
Group W also had a reason for making the deal with CBS. Their station in Baltimore, WJZ-TV, was a longtime ABC affiliate, and the owner of one of the competing stations in Baltimore struck a deal to switch all of its affiliates to ABC, so Westinghouse made this deal with CBS as a safeguard.
@@steve760 it was only in 1979-early 1981. And that was a not a good day at NBC... NBC done miles better with "Let's All Be There" and "Must See TV" from 1984-early 1986 and 1994-2006 respectively.
Another network change is coming to Philadelphia. WPSG is dropping The CW and going Independent come September. Nexstar owns both WPHL and a majority stake in The CW. So I have a feeling that an announcement will be made about 17 picking up the network within the next few days.
I remember reading that once Group W and CBS made their deal, the two parties agreed that the Group W stations would put an end to the network programming preemptions and show the entire network schedule in pattern. That would have been a moot point anyhow months after the switch when Westinghouse purchased the network.
Good luck on that. I know of several people who emailed both stations as well as CBS and NBC themselves over the past few years and asked them to swap ownership of the stations to bring the networks back to their old homes. They never replied.
One thing several have wondered about this, when Group W made their deal with CBS, why they didn't just sell 3 to NBC and assume partial ownership of 10 with CBS. 10 had been with CBS and 3 with NBC for such a long time. But it didn't take long for Philly viewers to get used to the networks' new homes after the trade.
To continue my last comment... From what I've seen in the other cities from RU-vid videos. Boston: WBZ didn't change their music or graphics but nor did WHDH other than adding the NBC peacock to their logo. Miami: Which was only a channel switch WCIX (CBS) going to channel 4 becoming WFOR only had a little minute long promo about switching to channel 4 while WTVJ (NBC) which went full blast expanding the 11pm newscast to midnight promoting the move to channel 6.
Yup, WALB in Albany, WJAR in Providence, WIS in Columbia, WHEC in Rochester NY, the hotshot KTTC Rochester MN and of course, WAVY-TV 10 for Hampton Roads and North Carolina's Outerbanks.
What I remember about the "Big Switch" of 1995 is that involved five of the top twenty Nielsen Markets (Philadelphia, Boston, Minneapolis/St. Paul. Miami/Fort Lauderdale; and Denver. They are big markets. I wonder why the Philly Switch didn't also involve WPVI (ABC 6).
The Philly switch had nothing to do with WPVI or ABC. The Philly switch was a complex deal involving Westinghouse Broadcasting (also known as Group W), CBS and NBC. In 1994, Westinghouse struck an agreement with CBS to affiliate three of its stations (KYW in Philly, WBZ in Boston and WJZ in Baltimore) to the network. The two other Westinghouse stations (KDKA in Pittsburgh and KPIX in the SF Bay Area) were already affiliated with CBS. CBS was reluctant to include KYW in the deal at first because the station was in third place in the ratings in Philly, behind WPVI and WCAU (which CBS owned at the time.) However, after Westinghouse offered to sell a CBS a minority stake in KYW, CBS changed their minds and agreed to affiliate with KYW and sell WCAU. The initial plan was for CBS to sell WCAU to NBC, but CBS discovered that if they sold WCAU to NBC outright, they would've had to pay a high tax rate. To solve that problem, CBS traded WCAU to NBC in exchange for KCNC in Denver and KUTV in Salt Lake City (now owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group.) In addition, CBS-owned WCIX (now WFOR) and NBC-owned WTVJ in Miami swapped transmitters and channel numbers, with CBS/WFOR receiving a stronger signal.
Two of the three news personalities are no longer with us: Siani Lee died in a car crash back in 2001. She was working for CBS 3 at the time of her death, the channel that did the swap with Now NBC 10. Ken Matz died of cancer in 2010. The third person, Renee Chanault-Fattah, resigned in 2016 upon the indictment (and ultimately, conviction) of her husband, former U.S. Congressman Chaka Fattah.
I remember this. It was so strange seeing NBC shows on 10 instead of 3. I don't remember Seinfeld being on Channel 3. Maybe I wasn't watching. Right when this video ended they were going to discuss the news schedule. I remember NBC10 went nuts with the local news airing it 4-6:30 every day and something like 3 hours a day on Sat and Sun.
Philadelphia wasn't the only TV market that was dealing with "the big switch" in 1995, as far as station affiliations were concerned. In Denver, KCNC-TV Channel 4, KMGH-TV Channel 7, and KUSA-TV Channel 9 were facing similar changes that September. KCNC went from NBC to CBS, KMGH went from CBS to ABC, and KUSA went from ABC to NBC.
Also Baltimore, MD went through this twice. In 1981 WMAR-TV 2 (CBS) and WBAL-TV(NBC) switched and then "The Big Switch" in 1995: WMAR-TV 2 is now ABC, WJZ-TV 13 is now CBS, and WBAL-TV 11 went back to NBC.
Westinghouse wanted ABC but, ABC went with a deal with Howard-Scripp. They were upset because WJZ in Baltimore had the longest affiliation with ABC so, they made one with CBS. That's why the Networks switched.
In other words, it all unfolded in a roundabout manner; KUSA turned over ABC to KMGH, which turned over CBS to KCNC, and finally KCNC got rid of NBC to KUSA to complete the cycle.
@godgundam10 I suspect ABC affiliate WPVI was the station that REALLY had the last laugh since their affiliation didn't change. WPVI, in fact, has been affiliated with ABC since 1948, going back to the days when it was WFIL.
Jozar S. - WPVI proudly proclaims in their promos that they are part of the Disney family. They also announce in any news story that involves Disney that they are owned by that Mickey Mouse organization.
WBZ was one of the Westinghouse stations involved in gaining CBS, so I'm not surprised. WHDH, unlike WCAU, was only becoming an NBC affiliate, not an O&O, and Sunbeam only saw it as a program change, even though years earlier, when their sister station, WSVN, switched from NBC to Fox, their newscasts did several stories on it.
Renée Chenault married U.S. congressman Chaka Fattah (D-2, formerly Arthur Davenport) in the meantime, too, and she uses the hyphenated name. Siani Lee is no longer with us. She was killed in a Chester County car crash on October 28, 2001 at age 39. KYW (CBS-3) did almost nothing to celebrate the "Big Switch".
@@OldsVistaCruiser The "Westinghouse" logo continued on KYW-TV for a good five or six years after the switch, with the station continuing to be called "KYW-3."
It was only because of Paramount that NBC got channel 10. Paramount sold WTXF to Fox just before the start of the 1994 NFL season (the deal closed a year later), then in 11/94 came the NBC/CBS/Group W deal. It's probably safe to say that the Eagles weren't all too happy with having to have most of their games on UHF year after year, after having been on WCAU for so many years (WTXF was on channel 29) And of course, Paramount then bought WGBS/57 (now WPSG)
Is there anyone who had their VCR's set to KYW the moment the station switched to CBS, and if so did anyone put it up here? I'd love to see the difference between there and this "everything but the kitchen sink" approach.
As I can remember, before cable TV the higher VHF channels came in clearer in South Jersey, so I always liked channel 10 over channel 3 regardless of what network ties they had. When cable TV hit our area I was just so used to thinking that channel 10 and, subsequently, CBS was of better quality TV because I didn't know any better (because I never really watched a lot of channel 3 from poor pre-cable signal) and I thought the split took a strong CBS legacy (Walter Cronkite, etc.) away from channel 10. I still preferred the channel 10 loyalty over the CBS loyalty though.
It's from a news music package called "Impact" that was produced by 615 Music (WCPM) in 1994, originally for WTVT, a FOX affiliate in Tampa Bay, FL. Philly's NBC 10 could only afford that same news music package, when they heard about what was happening with American local television in 1995 and that was... "The Big Switch". Some months later, after CBS bought Group W (Westinghouse Broadcasting) and then it became CBS Corporation, it finally happened: KYW-TV on channel 3 switched from NBC to CBS and WCAU-TV on channel 10 switched from CBS to NBC.
Yes, in fact there are still a few NBC affiliates that have spots the channel 10, and here are the ones that I know about. Lin Media/Media General owns WAVY-TV 10, the NBC affiliate in Norfolk, VA. Also, Sinclair now owns WJAR-TV 10, the NBC affiliate in Providence, RI.
Boston now has NBC 10,too.I was up there in June.I believe Ch.4 got switched to ABC.And Ch.38-STILL the only OTA(over the air)station to be allowed(grandfathered)to show the Stooges-Sat.nite-midnight.
There's a reason why it's called City (Line) Avenue, because it's the border between Philadelphia and Bala Cynwyd. The now-former WCAU studios are on the Bala side of City Avenue. WPVI-TV is across the street, on the Philly side.
I think WRAL in Raleigh/Durham, NC and WMAR in Baltimore maybe the only stations that have had all three major networks. WRAL started with ABC, then CBS, now NBC. WMAR was CBS, NBC, now ABC
One thing too was that NBC *did* own KYW at one time. They were forced to give KYW back to Westinghouse back in the 50s. There may have still been some legal problems with KYW getting acquired by NBC so they got WCAU instead.
SpringfieldNow NBC extorted Group W to gain control of Philadelphia's channel 3 back in 1956 via a trade with NBC's stations in Cleveland (threatening to pull the affiliation off of KYW and WBZ-TV if Group W didn't agree to it). Group W sued, and the Justice department voided the entire transaction nine years later. CBS was being acquired by Group W, thus, the partnership that had them taking over KYW.
Out of the newsteam here. only Renee Chenault-Fatah is left. There was a commercial announcing the switch with many of the NBC prime time stars of the day.
How? Remember this was at 1 AM on a Sunday morning. In all likelihood the only people watching were teenagers dragging their heels before going to bed after SNL.
