Channel 61 was the first, and is the subject of the article below, which ran in the Lorain Journal on September 22, 1967 – 50 years ago this month.
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New TV Station in Cleveland
Channel 61, which will be Cleveland’s first independent television station, is scheduled to begin operations this year. The station’s call sign will be WKBF-TV. WKBF-TV will broadcast fifteen hours a day at the outset with full color capability.
Three million dollars have been allocated for facilities and programming. The station has title to nine hundred feature films, many of which are first run in Cleveland. An outstanding lineup of off-network programs such s Perry Mason, Twilight Zone, and Combat! will be telecast on an every weeknight basis. Specials and sports events will comprise the remainder of the station’s offerings.
L. William White, General Manager of Channel 61, said in commenting on the Federal Communications Commission’s action, “Cleveland is the largest market in the United States with only three commercial services. We have proved in our other markets that there is a real need and demand for more variety and that is the function of WKBF-TV. With about 50 percent of the homes now able to receive us, we think Channel 61 is going to be a big success.”
Kaiser Broadcasting operates UHF television stations in four other major markets, WKBD-TV Detroit, WKBS-TV Philadelphia, KMTW-TV Los Angeles, and WKBG-TV Boston (the latter in partnership with the Boston Globe.)
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Channel 61 eventually signed on the air on January 19, 1968. But it took until the beginning of February for the Journal to revamp its TV listings to make room for the Channel 61 programs. (Note that WVIZ isn’t even included.)
This great Wiki page for Channel 61 points out many of the station’s innovations, including the first 10 o’clock news broadcast locally.
Of course, we Baby Boomers remember that Channel 61 was the home of the Ghoul, as well as the original home of Star Trek reruns.
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WKBF-TV Channel 61 signed off forever in April 1975. Here’s the story as it appeared in the Lorain Journal on April 25, 1975.
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And here's what the former studio for Channel 61 at 21300 St. Clair Avenue looks like today (courtesy Google Maps).
I could have sworn the station lasted longer than that! Great post 👍
ReplyDeleteYes - I remember a channel in the 60's range (61? 62?) that ran those films.. but it was way after 1975
ReplyDeleteThere was a Channel 62 which was a Detroit station you could pick up over the lake if the conditions were right. Another Detroit channel -- WKBD-TV 50 -- was a sister station to WKBF, as both were owned by Kaiser Broadcasting.
DeleteHi Mark,
ReplyDeleteThanks for pointing that out. Channel 61 actually had a second life as WCLQ in the early 1980s. It also offered movies through a subscription service in which you had to rent a decoder to unscramble the films.
Thanks, Dan! Yes- their pay per view service was called "Preview!" -- I think... all I remember is, as a kid, trying to interpret the squiggly lines to get a glimpse of R rated movies! lol
ReplyDeleteMy eyes are still recuperating from watching SquiggleVision®.
ReplyDeletelol
ReplyDeleteI remember watching all kinds of good shows on 61 then they screwed it up with home shopping network
ReplyDeleteGreat read! I Loved WKBF Ch.61. I was just 6 when it signed on but I remember watching a lot of great shows ,movies and sporting events events. Some where Star Trek, Combat, and Is Huckleberry Hound, The Cincinnati Royals and The WFL. I have such found memories of it I started a Facebook group for it .
ReplyDeleteAs for the reincarnation of of Cleveland’s channel 61: it signed back on in late 1980. During the day it showed old movies and tv shows. At 8:00 it became Preview, showing almost current movies and sometime college basketball games in the winter. I believe it cost only about $10-12 dollars a month, A small antenna was needed. In 1982 or 1983, they adder Niteview, which was exclusively R-rated, nudity oriented movies and programming. If you had the old antenna you could almost make out what was going on, through the squiggly lines. Occasionally, they would conveniently forget to put the squiggly lines up, and you could watch the movies, with no sound. A friend of my brothers worked as an installer for Previe/Niteview, and he said that the company noted that whenever they stopped scrambling the channel, the next day, subscriptions to buy the service went up. They only would do this after midnight. One final tidbit, near the end of the line for the service(1985-86?), the company got in a bit of trouble for showing European nudie movies, because in most of Europe at that time, the legal age for nudity was 16, whereas in the US, even then , it was 18.
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