WHBQ-TV - History - Under RKO General

Under RKO General

WHBQ-TV began operations on September 27, 1953. The station was owned by Harding College along with WHBQ radio (560 AM and 105.9 FM, now WGKX). WHBQ-TV was originally a CBS affiliate, sharing ABC programming with WMCT (channel 5, now WMC-TV). Channel 13 lost CBS when WREC-TV (channel 3, now WREG-TV) signed on and took that affiliation due to CBS' long affiliation with WREC radio; WHBQ-TV then took the ABC affiliation full-time. It is Memphis' second-oldest television station, and the only one that has never changed its call letters or channel location.

General Teleradio, the broadcasting arm of the General Tire and Rubber Company, purchased the WHBQ stations in 1954. In 1955, General Tire purchased RKO Radio Pictures in order to give its television stations a programming source. RKO was merged into General Teleradio, and in 1957 General Tire's broadcasting and film divisions were renamed RKO General.

Despite being one of ABC's stronger affiliates in the 1960s and 1970s (and as pointed out in a sales video that was made in 1964, was billed as the third most watched ABC affiliate in the United States), WHBQ-TV was known for not airing some ABC programming in pattern, particularly during the day. Many of these programs were pre-empted outright or delayed until late-night hours. In some cases, these programming decisions occurred because station management was skeptical of airing subject matter deemed even mildly controversial (presumably to keep from offending viewers in Memphis' more conservative suburbs and the surrounding rural areas). For example, it was one of several ABC affiliates that didn't clear Hot l Baltimore, a show which featured one of the first openly homosexual couples featured on American television. In September 1977, WHBQ-TV was one of eight ABC affiliates that refused to carry the controversial situation comedy Soap, opting to run repeats of My Three Sons instead. When Soap proved to be a runaway hit for the network, channel 13 acquiesced and allowed the series to be seen in late-night summer reruns. The following fall, the station carried Soap in its regular pattern.

In many other cases, however, channel 13 opted to pre-empt network shows in favor of local shows in hopes of getting more local advertising dollars. For instance, in 1972, WHBQ-TV (whose AM sister was a Top 40 powerhouse at the time) stunned Mid-South viewers by dropping American Bandstand for 90 minutes of live professional wrestling. The wrestling program was a late Saturday afternoon fixure when it first began airing in 1958, until its move to the Saturday morning 11 am-12:30 pm slot. WHBQ lost the show to WMC-TV in 1977. But even after losing that program, channel 13 continued to pre-empt Bandstand until 1984, just three years before ABC canceled the long-running show. The pre-emption kept Memphians from seeing homegrown talent perform on the show, such as The Sylvers, Al Green, Isaac Hayes, Anita Ward, and Rick Dees, who was hired by WHBQ radio as its new morning host during his "Disco Duck" days in late 1976. At the time Dees appeared on Bandstand, "Disco Duck" was never played on any of the radio stations in Memphis, including WHBQ-AM, because Dees was still employed at rival WMPS at the time.

Channel 13 made up for the preemption by airing Bandstand's syndicated rival, Soul Train, on Saturday nights until independent station WPTY-TV (channel 24) purchased the rights to that program from channel 13 in 1983.

It was one of the largest ABC affiliates to pass on Good Morning America when it debuted in 1975, not picking it up until 1977. Other popular shows that WHBQ-TV held out until later (when they became major out-of-the-box hits on ABC) included Dark Shadows (the program featured actor Don Briscoe, who would later reside and died in Memphis), The Bionic Woman and S.W.A.T..

In 1980, the station was criticized for carrying paid religious programming instead of ABC's coverage of the United States' Olympic men's hockey team's gold medal victory over Finland in the 1980 Winter Olympics.

Locally, the station had a rivalry with WREC/WREG-TV over bragging rights for the largest movie library in the market. Through its ownership by RKO General, channel 13 had the entire RKO Pictures catalog at its disposal. The station's reliance on classic and public-domain films in the 1960s and 1970s was evidenced in its daily 12 Noon-to-2 p.m. airing of the "Million Dollar Movie" (and later, the 9-to-11 a.m. airing of Dialing for Dollars), which the station ran instead of popular daytime soap operas All My Children and Ryan's Hope, or in some cases, reruns of ABC prime-time sitcoms that aired in the mornings. In September 1978 channel 13 finally began clearing the full ABC daytime lineup, though its noon newscast forced All My Children into a morning timeslot, where it aired on a one-day delay for many years.

RKO General was under nearly continuous investigation from the 1960s onward due to a long history of lying to advertisers and regulators. For example, it was nearly forced out of broadcasting in 1980 after misleading the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) about corporate misconduct at parent General Tire. Under longtime general manager Alex Bonner, however, WHBQ-AM-FM-TV was never accused of any wrongdoing.

In 1987, an FCC administrative law judge ruled RKO General unfit to be a broadcast licensee due to a widespread pattern of dishonesty. After the FCC advised RKO that appealing the decision wasn't worth the effort, RKO began unwinding its broadcast operations. The WHBQ stations were the next-to-last to be sold, shortly after Bonner retired in 1990. The new owner, Adams Communications, sold off WHBQ-AM (105.9 FM had been sold off several years earlier).