For those of you who watched S1 in 1987, where/when did you get your syndication?
Posted by _R_A_@reddit | TNG | View on Reddit | 53 comments
Those of us who got to watch TNG as it debuted were at the mercy of an available station picking the show up on the chance it could use it to sell enough commercial slots. 1987 was such a different landscape with regards to science fiction and in retrospect it must have been quite the gamble for these channels.
Season 1 was picked up by our local NBC affiliate, and it initially ran Saturday at noon. It was dumb luck that I caught it at the time after Saturday morning cartoons; I was five years old at the time and remember being intrigued by the space ship. It just boggles my mind that a decision by this station's management, probably made as a bit of a gamble, influenced nearly four decades of my life so much.
As I've been thinking about this recently, it made me wonder what other regions had as their options during the initial days of first run syndication.
jakeller74@reddit
It was on Channel 2 (KWGN - one of the last independent stations in the region until affiliating with the WB in 1993) in the Denver area where I grew up.
kmaguffin@reddit
Was there watching it with you. Also saw Brent Spiner and Sir Patrick at his first convention in Denver. Was 7 or 8 at the time, but I remember my dad put me on his shoulders so I could actually see the both of them. Good times.
As a side note, do you remember that place off Evans Ave that was all about Star Trek and Star Wars? Always made me happy to go there.
jakeller74@reddit
Starland, I think? That place was amazing.
Greedy_Section2894@reddit
I was is college in Knoxville, Tennessee, and it came on Sundays at 6:00 p.m. It was always a great way to wind down the weekend. Not sure about the channel. They moved it to 10:00 p.m. Thursdays during season 5 while I was in law school, and I missed most of those at the time.
BK_0000@reddit
Fox 43. Same as DS9 and Voyager.
JugOfVoodoo@reddit
My information is only good from 1991 onward. I think my family didn't start watching TNG until season 5, when I was 8 years old.
We lived in a rural area of Maryland's Eastern Shore. We could get two channels that carried TNG: FOX 5 out of Washington DC and FOX 45 out of Baltimore. Washington showed new episodes on Saturday evenings. Baltimore showed the new episodes on Sunday evenings while airing older episodes on weekdays at 6 pm. (At the end of season 4 TNG hit the 100 episodes required for second-run syndication.)
Having two channels was a godsend. Our house was so remote that we were completely dependant on over-the-air broadcasting. And the reception from two cities miles away wasn't always reliable. So each week we'd try to watch the new episodes twice, just in case one channel didn't come in.
When DS9 started the Baltimore station decided to air it after TNG, but on their new WB channel instead of the same FOX one. So after each new TNG episode they'd encourage you to switch to WB 54 for more Trek. Except for us the WB channel had TERRIBLE reception. It would only come in when atmospheric conditions were juuuust right, which usually only happened late at night. Then UPN 21 came along and had even worse reception than WB 54. Thus we never watched DS9 or Voyager regularly.
Ralph--Hinkley@reddit
Mine was Fox 45, a UHF channel. Aired Sunday nights before Friday the 13th: The Series.
Rhediix@reddit
Fox 45 was a Dayton channel. Cincinnati ran TNG on WXIX, Channel 19.
Ralph--Hinkley@reddit
Yeah, my bad.
Rhediix@reddit
All I remember was being absolutely infuriated when Channel 64 stopped carrying UPN in the third season of Voyager and for years the last episode I saw was The Chute. We got 45, but it was spotty and barely came in. Cable didn't carry it until late 90's, and I remember being super happy when TNN (later Spike) started reairing all the series because I could continue watching what I'd missed like half a decade prior. AFAIK, when WXIX became a Fox affiliate, they ditched DS9 too. I remember for a short spell they went to Channel 25 (WBQC) on a late evening block but you had to be very near 25's broadcast antenna back then because the power was so low and no cable coverage. Channel 2 in Dayton did have DS9 on at 1:00am for awhile but it too was hard to tune in.
Ralph--Hinkley@reddit
I never got into Voyager, so I can't empathize with the loss.
Rhediix@reddit
Fair enough.
ZappBranigan79@reddit
Local Fox affiliate picked up TNG here. They aired TOS episodes at 8 then TNG at 9. When Xfiles started they aired TNG before Xfiles. DS9 was on Saturday afternoons with Xena and Hercules.
Fabulous-Soup-6901@reddit
WUAB channel 43… as I recall 6pm Saturday original trek and 7pm TNG. They debuted the series in a movie slot.
Imap1@reddit
It was on channel 21, an independent channel, in DFW.
Mental-Test-7660@reddit
Took a while to come to the UK and at first that was only via satellite. The club I was in managed to show Farpoint a few weeks after it premiered in the US. It had been converted to UK format by pointing a camcorder at a TV set. The difference in frame rate meant it was in strobyvision. You needed a break after 45 minutes to let your eyeballs rest, but we happily watched a bunch of S1 that way.
gfunkdave@reddit
It was on channel 50 in Chicago, an independent station (WPWR-TV) that later became the Chicago channel of the Paramount Network (UPN).
seanpmassey@reddit
A good chunk of my core childhood entertainment memories involve WPWR. It was the station to watch during lazy summer days in the 90s, especially if you didn’t have cable.
Radiant-Security-347@reddit
TNG was the first show to go directly to syndication. it was never OTA
Adam_Strange_7451@reddit
It wasn’t on a network, but it was certainly OTA. It was first run syndication.
_R_A_@reddit (OP)
Not over the air as in broadcast from the network to the stations, but stations could buy shows to fill in the gaps where there was no network programming (or in the case of my area, S2 and on was picked up by a completely independent station) as was the case here. Not everyone had cable back then.
Temporary_Pie2733@reddit
Blew my mind when I (growing up in a rural area) went to college in Philadelphia and found out that cable wasn’t a big thing in cities. It was a solution for people who couldn’t get over-the-air broadcasts that, as a side effect, spawned numerous stations that could serve niche interests by drawing on national, rather than local, markets.
pos1al@reddit
While TNG was a huge hit in syndication it was not the first show to skip traditional broadcast TV in favor of first run syndication. There was Solid Gold, Soul Train, and a bunch of children’s cartoons all produced for syndication. In addition shows like Hee Haw and the Lawrence Welk show left broadcast tv for syndication before TNG premiered.
But going into syndication was a pretty bold move in 1987. Stations bought the show market-by-market, and it ended up being a huge hit, proving that expensive scripted shows could succeed outside the network system. Its success helped pave the way for later syndicated shows like Baywatch, Hercules and Xena.
Radiant-Security-347@reddit
yep. I was wrong. I guess it was first run syndication, high budget, sci-fi that made its distribution strategy unique.
EffectiveSalamander@reddit
It wss OTA. It ran on independent TV stations. I lived in Merced, CA at the time and watched it with rabbit ears.
Fuzzy_Builder_2153@reddit
WKDB Channel 50 Detroit
punkwalrus@reddit
I was living with a roommate who ran science fiction conventions, and had just gotten a 100 inch projection TV (used, originally a demo system at a "Home Theater" store going out of business). We got it over the air, I think Channel 20 in DC, and because this was HUGE in the sci-fi community, we had a bunch of people over packed into the rec room. We didn't have a real projection screen yet, only giant white styrofoam panels which we tacked onto the walls in the rec room.
The rec room wasn't quite big enough for the 100' "screen," so we had to make a lot of adjustments to the projection unit itself, and the rec room was a finished basement, and we had a huge pillar in the center we had to work around. It was a week of focal length, angles adjustment with pieces of a packing crate cobbled together into a makeshift "adjustable mounting frame," playing the opening scroll of Star Wars over and over to get text alignment right.
The "best effort" in the end was something that was 10-20% washed out, with a little bit of the top and bottom cut off due to the low ceiling vs. focal length. Or biggest issue was (as we later found out) a "real projection screen" had reflective particles in it, and why white foam panels (and a later experiment with white spandex over a frame) washed so many colors out.
Anyway, we had about two dozen convention staff and fellow nerds packed in that rec room, with snack food upstairs. Thankfully, the show was in bold colors and high contrasts, so it wasn't really so horrible to endure.
Man. They released what would be later split into two parts, "The Encounter at Farpoint," and it was a two-hour event all at once. There were members of a local Trekkie group there, some of who had media related to a failed and forgotten late 1970s reboot called, "Star Trek: Phase II," which was heavily discussed because of the aesthetic choices and differences. An hour into the show, some people already were upstairs eating snacks, disappointed at the progression so far, and "didn't want to see anymore." When it was over, the local Trek club put in a VHS copy of the old TOS blooper reels, which had tacked on the famous "Get a Life," SNL sketch from 1984 (?) while the rest of us went upstairs to some heated debate. Most of the group was 20% love, 60% in the middle, and 20% outright hated it, said it was a mockery, and the kind of "well, I am SO angry with the world right now!" reaction that "The Phantom Menace" would later experience in the Star Wars saga.
Me? I thought it was campy and had a bit of "Buck Rogers of the 25th Century" or "Logan's Run, The Series" vibe, another science fiction show that wouldn't last very long, and probably die a quiet death. And I still feel season 1 & 2 were a little rough and cringey. But it got better, then a LOT better, and then ended.
punkwalrus@reddit
I was down in the rec room during the "Get a Life," moment, which I had seen repeatedly at the conventions, but this time, I sat next to someone who analyzed the sketch like the Zapruder film.
"Ha, WELL, There was no 16th 'Annual Star Trek Convention' held in 1986 held at a Holiday Inn in Rye, New York. That's actually a stock photo from a Holiday Inn travel map, and represents one in Maryland taken in 1978, not New York in 1986. It wouldn't be the 16th Trek convention, because the first Trek convention was in 1972 at the Statler Hilton in New York, not 1970. The program book Phil Hartman is holding up is not from the 1975 convention, and I should know, I was THAT that convention! Now, Yeoman Rand’s Cabin was not Y-390, but it was never established because the actual rooms didn't have numbers..."
and so on. Like every minute step she either corrected or added facts to. I mean, I am a fan, but god damn. That woman was like an encyclopedia.
Torlek1@reddit
My Canadian area had access to multiple feeds from US stations.
There were the NBC, CBS, ABC, and FOX affiliates, plus independent stations.
My TNG feed was available on the FOX affiliate and the independent US station.
I chose to watch TNG through the independent station because it also had TOS TV reruns.
BillT2172@reddit
Channel 22 WVNY, a Vermont station at 7 p.m. Saturday nights.
I believe I watched TNG, DS9 & most of Voyager on this station. Seems they didn't purchase the last season or 2 of Voyager & I had to watch it on CFCF -12 out of Montreal, Canada, at midnight.
sharpied79@reddit
Here in the UK, TNG got royally screwed over.
BBC didn't even start showing it until approx September 1990, then stopped at S04E01 (so we at least got BoBW part 2)
They then continued recycling it (showing seasons 1-3) until finally Sky got the rights to it in 1992, who did exactly what the BBC did, that is showing seasons 1-3 first before finally dropping Seasons 4,5,6 daily (which was great) until we finally caught up with the US...
ThunderPigGaming@reddit
It aired on WHNS-TV. I couldn't get the signal, but a friend who could and compulsively recorded TV Shows did, and he would make a VHS copy for me so I could watch it. He did that until 1990, when I moved to town and got cable.
Express-Train2486@reddit
CBS affiliate Channel 3 from Kalamazoo, Michigan was showing the original Star Trek late at night in the early 1980's.
Then in 1987 the people at Channel 3 broadcast ST:TNG at 7:00 P.M. every Saturday.
cosp85classic@reddit
From the word go on KCOP 13 out of Los Angeles. I was in 3rd grade.
IndyColtsFan2020@reddit
It was on the local Fox affiliate in Indy - WXIN, channel 59. The first runs were on Saturday nights and IIRC, they reran it again later in the week between episodes.
afriendincanada@reddit
ITV out of Edmonton
I didnt live in Edmonton but they seemed to be part of the basic cable package in every small town.
Global_Theme864@reddit
Not 1987, but definitely by 1990 in Manitoba Canada. I think it was 7PM, it aired every weekday and I think the new one was on Tuesday? I was very young so I’m not sure.
I definitely remember DS9 and Voyager airing back to back at 4 and 5PM on Saturday, but I had a friend that got UPN so he got Voyager a few days early at 8PM Wednesday.
bannock4ever@reddit
I think it premiered on 13 MTN in 1987. I can’t remember the day but I think it was a Thursday but it could have been a Tuesday like you said.
I think the ‘90s it rerun at midnight too.
shingenteh@reddit
Confirming MTN was absolutely “the” place for ds9 and voyager from the start. (I only bandwagoned onto Trek after THAT episode of Reading Rainbow).
Global_Theme864@reddit
Ditto!
newbie527@reddit
Channel 44 from Tampa. They had been carrying Star Trek reruns since the early days and I doubt it was a difficult decision.
DropBearSquare@reddit
I watched it there, too!
Fabulous-Sea-1590@reddit
Chanel 20 in Washington DC. 7 pm Saturday nights. Iirc.
ScaresBums@reddit
Friday nights in Longview WA.
EYdf_Thomas@reddit
In Toronto it was on city TV and when they used to air Star Trek they referred to it as your federation station
qtjedigrl@reddit
Saturday nights at 9pm, then again Sunday at noon. We got to watch every episode twice as they came out.
bts@reddit
WPIX in the NY market, broadcast from the twin towers—because they were channel 11.
Prudent_Leave_2171@reddit
We had a recently-started independent station in our area, which joined the newly formed Fox network around that time. They had TNG for the entire run it was broadcast.
KitchenNazi@reddit
One of the local non-affiliated channels carried it OTA.
Adadun@reddit
Channel 12 in the Boston area.
bbbourb@reddit
I think it was on KSNF 16 out of Joplin MO. Sunday evening, if I recall?
Adam_Strange_7451@reddit
In Miami it ran on WCIX, Channel 6, which had been one of the greatest independent stations of all time— for me, anyway— but was a very early FOX affiliate by the time TNG premiered in the fall of 1987. WCIX had aired “TOS” reruns since the seventies and would continue to do so until the rights got shifted to Sci-Fi channel in the nineties.
Many_Lawfulness8674@reddit
BBC in the UK.