Hi everyone!
I’m pretty leary and apprehensive about posting these days but I did think of a good topic that should be a nostalgia trip for some of Chicago, Philly, and Miami Era! I hope this will be a fun topic that I hope as many people as possible who remember these TV stations will post in! Please share your memories of the stations and better yet any behind the scenes/inner workings type stuff you’ve got! I want to make this OP informative and put some effort into it. First I’ll write a little about the history of these three stations and then I’ll TRY to link to some YouTube videos of bumpers, promos and commercials from each of the three stations! If any of my info in the history section is wrong or I botch it somehow PLEASE let me know and I’ll happily correct it! I’m in Chicago so I’ve got far more knowledge on WGBO than I do WBFS and WGBS but I’ve been going down a huge rabbit hole of stuff this week on all three stations so I wanted to recognize all three in this thread! If the YouTube links cause your browser to go crazy at least temporarily turn off the show YouTube thumbnail option, just wanted to be considerate and warn of that!
History of WGBO, WGBS and WFBS..I’ll be jumping around a bit in this section so I apologize!
In the mid 1980’s, Milton Grant set out to start up a group of Independent TV stations that he hoped would become his own Super Stations like TBS did. The markets he chose to start out in were Miami, Philly, and Chicago in that order chronologically. In 1984 Grant bought what was then a low power translator for what was at the time WCIX, an independent. I can’t find any info saying how much Grant paid for it. In early December 1984 Grant launched his newly bought station which got the call letters WBFS. It was launched as a brand new Independent station that ran a lot of sitcoms that were in syndication, movies, cartoons, some Westerns and later was the home to all the professional Miami sports teams! At one point, and I’m not sure if it was just before the sale to Grant, if you were in Broward County you couldn’t get channel 33 well due to it’s transmitter being all the way down in Homestead! Their transmitter was much further away from the rest of the Miami stations’ transmitters due to needing to prevent signal interference from WPTV in West Palm Beach and what is now WKMG in Orlando.
In March of ‘85, Grant picked up his second station, WWSG at the time. In late October the station was re-launched as WGBS Philly 57, airing much of the same kinds of shows as WBFS in Miami. They also later picked up some of the Pro Philly sports teams. It served the entire Philly area but from what I’ve read a few of the nearby New Jersey suburbs couldn’t get it on their cable systems since those cable carriers either didn’t have interest in or didn’t want to carry WGBS on their systems!
Then came Grant picking up at the time WFBN channel 66. This section will be longer than the other two stations since it’s got a more complicated history and it’s...honestly fascinating. WFBN launched in 1981, first owned by Focus Broadcasting. In the beginning it aired public access type stuff during the day and at night the Spectrum Subscription service. Then they shifted to Spectrum 24 hours a day in ‘82. In ‘83 Spectrum ended up having the same schedule as competing subscription service ON TV. ON was “affiliated” with WSNS channel 44 here. The history of WSNS, ON TV and the train wreck fiasco demise of ON is an extremely interesting, intriguing, much longer story that’d be too long to get into here. In early ‘84, WFBN dropped Spectrum and tried a 24 hour a day over the air music video format. In the Fall they dropped the music video format and transitioned into being a traditional Independent, airing a lot of old movies, off network sitcoms, and some drama series too. They picked up the scraps WGN and WFLD didn’t want. The station was losing money by this point so in Summer ‘85 Focus our WFBN up for sale. They sold a 50 prevent interest in the station to Grant in September that year for 2 million dollars plus forgave or refinanced some of the station’s estimated 50 million (!!) dollars of debt! Plus, there was an option for Grant to purchase the other 50 percent by 1990 for 25 million minimum if exercised the first year and minimum of 40 million if exercised the 5th year. Creditors that WFBN was in debt to allowed the station to continue operating on the condition they requested the FCC to expedite the sale to Grant since they were expecting to totally collapse. The sale to Grant hit a major snag when Metrowest, then owners of WPWR channel 50 filed a petition to deny the sale to Grant, accusing them of stifling competition in the Chicago market. The petition was denied. So out of the gate, Grant had a FAR more complicated, much messier situation in Chicago before even launching! On January 4, 1986 Grant finally did launch Super 66 here, changing the call letters to WGBO. In the beginning they were airing basically what they were as WFBN and added a few more off network sitcoms, some cartoons, and some more Westerns. They also aired daily simulcasts of CNN headline news and Loyola Ramblers College basketball games too!
The thing that stood out about the three Grant stations, as you’ll see in the YouTube videos is they had really impressive, well done on air look that was near network quality! They also personalized each of the three stations for the markets they served! I really liked that. I also loved the jingle/music packages they used for the stations as well!
The Miami and Philly stations were hugely successful for those markets! Especially WBFS, who got really strong ratings and at one time or another ran just about every big off network sitcom you could name! Later they got a HUGE boost when they acquired rights to air Dolphins, Marlins, and South Florida college sports games! It left that market stunned with those acquisitions! WBFS was pretty much Miami’s WPWR, WFLD and WCIU all slammed into one. It was BIG. Even after Grant filed for bankruptcy and Combined bought the 3 stations WBFS continued to do phenomenally. I’m floored speechless at what WBFS in particular accomplished.
Later came the fall of Grant Broadcasting, and it fell HARD. Through ‘86, Grant was spending a LOT of money, a shit ton of it to acquire whatever they could for all three stations. They boxed themselves in, having badly over extended themselves with no easy or clean way out so in December that year they filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In March ‘87, a Philadelphia judge allowed the three Grant stations to keep operating until at least July through cash and accounts receivables to fund operations. But in July, Grant agreed to give all three stations up to their creditors, who formed Combined Broadcasting. The terms of this deal stated the three stations would be allowed to stay on the air until 1995 so they could repay the 420 million dollars -yikes! of debt the three stations ran up! At that point all three would be sold off.
In early ‘94, the three stations began to search for new owners. WBFS and WGBS sold to Paramount and became affiliates of the brand new UPN network without incident, those transfers went really smoothly and since UPN didn’t have many hours of stuff in the beginning they were able to keep doing what they’d been with little change. Later, WGBS changed it’s call letters to what they are now, WPSG and became a CW affiliate. Today it’s CW Philly 57. WBFS has kept its call letters..they became a My Network Affiliate and work close with CBS Miami now. Here in Chicago though, again, things got nasty messy even with that! At first, the WB network which was about to premiere in ‘95 along with UPN, was extremely interested in affiliating here with WGN so they opened talks with them. WGN however ran, and still does, a crap ton of sports. They weren’t thrilled with the prospect the sportscasts would be inconvenienced by having to fulfill their WB affiliate duties so they initially passed on WB affiliation. Then WB went to WGBO and started talks there. Both sides felt WGBO and The WB would be a great fit so talks continued, from my understanding they had basically reached an agreement with the signing virtually a done deal. Then WGN started making racket- a lot of it. They “suddenly” decided they could make affiliation and their sports work after all so they quickly signed with WB. That left WGBO in a very uncertain spot. Cox was interested at one point, and then Paramount approached them. They again started affiliation talks but something happened no one here in Chicago saw coming...WCIU, which was the Univision affiliate at the time, suddenly refused to become a full time Univision affiliate when Univision wanted them to fully commit! This was in May ‘94. That was a really big deal here. It’s come out only recently that at that point Univision needed a new home fast so they made WGBO a deal they couldn’t refuse. They affiliated with Univision. Univision did allow the WGBO call letters to stay so it’s got a small part of it’s past still. UPN went to WPWR. As posts come in, I’ll get more into how I felt and still do feel about all this along with the aftermath here of all that.
Sources for the history section:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WBFS-TV
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WPSG
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WGBO-DT
Nostalgic blast of bumpers and promos:
WBFS
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Fl51EgjEAPU
There’s quite a few videos for WBFS but this was one of the better bunches of promos I saw for that station!
WGBS
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_LodjnlSQNs
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DzWNe_Bh8oM
Again this is just a few for WGBS, there’s quite a few videos there for it!
WGBO
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6k6HeMT9BhQ
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hvEe8GMzBNc
There’s more for WGBO Super 66 too but not as many as the other two stations, there used to be a bit more on YouTube.
If anyone has anymore links to bumpers, promos and commercials please share them!
I’m pretty leary and apprehensive about posting these days but I did think of a good topic that should be a nostalgia trip for some of Chicago, Philly, and Miami Era! I hope this will be a fun topic that I hope as many people as possible who remember these TV stations will post in! Please share your memories of the stations and better yet any behind the scenes/inner workings type stuff you’ve got! I want to make this OP informative and put some effort into it. First I’ll write a little about the history of these three stations and then I’ll TRY to link to some YouTube videos of bumpers, promos and commercials from each of the three stations! If any of my info in the history section is wrong or I botch it somehow PLEASE let me know and I’ll happily correct it! I’m in Chicago so I’ve got far more knowledge on WGBO than I do WBFS and WGBS but I’ve been going down a huge rabbit hole of stuff this week on all three stations so I wanted to recognize all three in this thread! If the YouTube links cause your browser to go crazy at least temporarily turn off the show YouTube thumbnail option, just wanted to be considerate and warn of that!
History of WGBO, WGBS and WFBS..I’ll be jumping around a bit in this section so I apologize!
In the mid 1980’s, Milton Grant set out to start up a group of Independent TV stations that he hoped would become his own Super Stations like TBS did. The markets he chose to start out in were Miami, Philly, and Chicago in that order chronologically. In 1984 Grant bought what was then a low power translator for what was at the time WCIX, an independent. I can’t find any info saying how much Grant paid for it. In early December 1984 Grant launched his newly bought station which got the call letters WBFS. It was launched as a brand new Independent station that ran a lot of sitcoms that were in syndication, movies, cartoons, some Westerns and later was the home to all the professional Miami sports teams! At one point, and I’m not sure if it was just before the sale to Grant, if you were in Broward County you couldn’t get channel 33 well due to it’s transmitter being all the way down in Homestead! Their transmitter was much further away from the rest of the Miami stations’ transmitters due to needing to prevent signal interference from WPTV in West Palm Beach and what is now WKMG in Orlando.
In March of ‘85, Grant picked up his second station, WWSG at the time. In late October the station was re-launched as WGBS Philly 57, airing much of the same kinds of shows as WBFS in Miami. They also later picked up some of the Pro Philly sports teams. It served the entire Philly area but from what I’ve read a few of the nearby New Jersey suburbs couldn’t get it on their cable systems since those cable carriers either didn’t have interest in or didn’t want to carry WGBS on their systems!
Then came Grant picking up at the time WFBN channel 66. This section will be longer than the other two stations since it’s got a more complicated history and it’s...honestly fascinating. WFBN launched in 1981, first owned by Focus Broadcasting. In the beginning it aired public access type stuff during the day and at night the Spectrum Subscription service. Then they shifted to Spectrum 24 hours a day in ‘82. In ‘83 Spectrum ended up having the same schedule as competing subscription service ON TV. ON was “affiliated” with WSNS channel 44 here. The history of WSNS, ON TV and the train wreck fiasco demise of ON is an extremely interesting, intriguing, much longer story that’d be too long to get into here. In early ‘84, WFBN dropped Spectrum and tried a 24 hour a day over the air music video format. In the Fall they dropped the music video format and transitioned into being a traditional Independent, airing a lot of old movies, off network sitcoms, and some drama series too. They picked up the scraps WGN and WFLD didn’t want. The station was losing money by this point so in Summer ‘85 Focus our WFBN up for sale. They sold a 50 prevent interest in the station to Grant in September that year for 2 million dollars plus forgave or refinanced some of the station’s estimated 50 million (!!) dollars of debt! Plus, there was an option for Grant to purchase the other 50 percent by 1990 for 25 million minimum if exercised the first year and minimum of 40 million if exercised the 5th year. Creditors that WFBN was in debt to allowed the station to continue operating on the condition they requested the FCC to expedite the sale to Grant since they were expecting to totally collapse. The sale to Grant hit a major snag when Metrowest, then owners of WPWR channel 50 filed a petition to deny the sale to Grant, accusing them of stifling competition in the Chicago market. The petition was denied. So out of the gate, Grant had a FAR more complicated, much messier situation in Chicago before even launching! On January 4, 1986 Grant finally did launch Super 66 here, changing the call letters to WGBO. In the beginning they were airing basically what they were as WFBN and added a few more off network sitcoms, some cartoons, and some more Westerns. They also aired daily simulcasts of CNN headline news and Loyola Ramblers College basketball games too!
The thing that stood out about the three Grant stations, as you’ll see in the YouTube videos is they had really impressive, well done on air look that was near network quality! They also personalized each of the three stations for the markets they served! I really liked that. I also loved the jingle/music packages they used for the stations as well!
The Miami and Philly stations were hugely successful for those markets! Especially WBFS, who got really strong ratings and at one time or another ran just about every big off network sitcom you could name! Later they got a HUGE boost when they acquired rights to air Dolphins, Marlins, and South Florida college sports games! It left that market stunned with those acquisitions! WBFS was pretty much Miami’s WPWR, WFLD and WCIU all slammed into one. It was BIG. Even after Grant filed for bankruptcy and Combined bought the 3 stations WBFS continued to do phenomenally. I’m floored speechless at what WBFS in particular accomplished.
Later came the fall of Grant Broadcasting, and it fell HARD. Through ‘86, Grant was spending a LOT of money, a shit ton of it to acquire whatever they could for all three stations. They boxed themselves in, having badly over extended themselves with no easy or clean way out so in December that year they filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In March ‘87, a Philadelphia judge allowed the three Grant stations to keep operating until at least July through cash and accounts receivables to fund operations. But in July, Grant agreed to give all three stations up to their creditors, who formed Combined Broadcasting. The terms of this deal stated the three stations would be allowed to stay on the air until 1995 so they could repay the 420 million dollars -yikes! of debt the three stations ran up! At that point all three would be sold off.
In early ‘94, the three stations began to search for new owners. WBFS and WGBS sold to Paramount and became affiliates of the brand new UPN network without incident, those transfers went really smoothly and since UPN didn’t have many hours of stuff in the beginning they were able to keep doing what they’d been with little change. Later, WGBS changed it’s call letters to what they are now, WPSG and became a CW affiliate. Today it’s CW Philly 57. WBFS has kept its call letters..they became a My Network Affiliate and work close with CBS Miami now. Here in Chicago though, again, things got nasty messy even with that! At first, the WB network which was about to premiere in ‘95 along with UPN, was extremely interested in affiliating here with WGN so they opened talks with them. WGN however ran, and still does, a crap ton of sports. They weren’t thrilled with the prospect the sportscasts would be inconvenienced by having to fulfill their WB affiliate duties so they initially passed on WB affiliation. Then WB went to WGBO and started talks there. Both sides felt WGBO and The WB would be a great fit so talks continued, from my understanding they had basically reached an agreement with the signing virtually a done deal. Then WGN started making racket- a lot of it. They “suddenly” decided they could make affiliation and their sports work after all so they quickly signed with WB. That left WGBO in a very uncertain spot. Cox was interested at one point, and then Paramount approached them. They again started affiliation talks but something happened no one here in Chicago saw coming...WCIU, which was the Univision affiliate at the time, suddenly refused to become a full time Univision affiliate when Univision wanted them to fully commit! This was in May ‘94. That was a really big deal here. It’s come out only recently that at that point Univision needed a new home fast so they made WGBO a deal they couldn’t refuse. They affiliated with Univision. Univision did allow the WGBO call letters to stay so it’s got a small part of it’s past still. UPN went to WPWR. As posts come in, I’ll get more into how I felt and still do feel about all this along with the aftermath here of all that.
Sources for the history section:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WBFS-TV
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WPSG
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WGBO-DT
Nostalgic blast of bumpers and promos:
WBFS
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Fl51EgjEAPU
There’s quite a few videos for WBFS but this was one of the better bunches of promos I saw for that station!
WGBS
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_LodjnlSQNs
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DzWNe_Bh8oM
Again this is just a few for WGBS, there’s quite a few videos there for it!
WGBO
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6k6HeMT9BhQ
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hvEe8GMzBNc
There’s more for WGBO Super 66 too but not as many as the other two stations, there used to be a bit more on YouTube.
If anyone has anymore links to bumpers, promos and commercials please share them!
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! They could have given them those last 8 hours ffs! Compared to what WGN did though that was nothing in the bigger picture.
