Blast from the past: WDBO-6 ad from 1975

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Blast from the Past continues with a bit of history in this classic advertisment.

The date was June 14, 1973. You would think having an embattled President Richard Nixon in town give the commencement address at UCF (then known as Florida Technological University) would be the top story on Orlando TV, but it wasn’t.

Tragedy struck in Central Florida. Two workers were killed when a 1,500-foot transmission tower — the tallest structure in Florida at the time — came crashing down in Bithlo. The tower included transmitters for Channels 6, 9 and 24 plus radio stations WDBO-92.3 FM and WDIZ-100.3 FM. The accident would have a profound impact on Central Florida media.

WFTV was off the air for several weeks after the accident. WDBO-TV was able to use an old backup tower, but with a greatly reduced transmission. Neither station would return to full power until more than two years. In the meanwhile, WESH-2 — with its transmitter in Orange City — became the dominant (and only full-power) station.

Here’s the advertisement from Channel 6 in November 1975 announcing that it was back to full power on a new TV tower.

 

Blast from the past: Prime time on WMOD-Channel 43

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Blast from the Past goes back to 1986 today. That’s not that too far back, but a lot has changed since then. Take these advertisements for WMOD-Channel 43 for example.

In 1982, the Melbourne-based station became the area’s second independent station — following in the footsteps of Channel 35. WMOD had the staples of an indy station — classic sitcoms, movies, sports and even local newscasts. But it also had a very weak signal, which hindered its efforts to make a name for itself in Orlando TV.

Despite the slogan, “Don’t Stay Home Without Us” — many area homes went without WMOD.

Ownership eventually changed and the station became a Home Shopping Channel affiliate for awhile before becoming a Telefutura affiliate — which it remains this day.

News 13 to start mornings with Marla Weech

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Central Florida News 13 announced Monday that Orlando TV news veteran Marla Weech is now the anchor for Your Morning News.

Weech, who has been on Orlando TV since the 1980s on channels 6 and 9, joined News 13 earlier this year.

“I can’t think of a better person than Marla to help Central Florida start their day,” News 13 VP/GM Robin said in a news release. “Marla is smart, she’s talented, she’s warm, and she truly cares about our community and our viewers.”

Said Weech: “I’m excited to be greeting Central Florida every morning. It’s also wonderful to be part of a team of journalists who work around the clock to make sure our viewers have the very latest news. We’re going to make sure they have all the news, weather, and traffic information they need to get their day started right.”

Blast from the past: WFTV ad from 1981

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Our summertime series, Blast from the Past, continues with this ad for the Eyewitness News team that first boosted Channel 9 to news dominance in Central Florida. Here you see the promotion for the 5:30 p.m. newscast with anchors Bob Opsahl and Carole Nelson, and then the 6 o’clock team that included (from left) sports director Mike Storms, Nelson, news director/anchor Bob Jordan and weatherman Danny Treanor.

WESH’s Me-TV part of diginet expansion

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Just a few short weeks ago, Orlando TV viewers were given the chance to view one of the newest “diginets” — Memorable Entertainment Television, or Me-TV for short.

Me-TV, which replaced WeatherPlus on WESH’s 2.2 digital subchannel, offers classic sitcoms and dramas from the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. I had seen Me-TV previously in Chicago and liked the shows, and I am finding myself watching it a lot during prime time now.

Since indulging me wasn’t the reason, why did WESH drop WeatherPlus for Me-TV? It has to do with revenue. TV stations across the nation are looking for ways to cash in with more programming on their digital channels — and for many the solution is to air programming from new start-up digital networks, or digitnets.

TVNewsCheck.com has a great article about digitnets, and am I surprised to see that Orlando TV actually has a large number of the available networks, but there are a lot of others out there. Check this list to see what’s available for digital channels.