YOUR Battle Of The Planets affiliate!

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Cure DragonEagle 255
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YOUR Battle Of The Planets affiliate!

Post: # 825Post Cure DragonEagle 255 »

This is it people! The thread nobody waited for but I wanted to make anyway! What was your Battle Of The Planets affiliate? The one you watched the show on. Now since I am NOT from the USA I get to "cheat" a little and say mine was WNEW, the one who saved the show from not even being made and thus saved Gatchaman's international popularity by proxy!

I hope everyone finds this topic fun!
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The Other Jason
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Re: YOUR Battle Of The Planets affiliate!

Post: # 827Post The Other Jason »

Hi Cure DragonEagle,

I hope you don't mind, I merged the topic since it looked like the same thing was posted twice. If there was a difference, please feel free to add it again.

Back to your question. I had three affiliates that provided me with Battle, although I was usually only able to watch two a day, since it aired the same time on two of them. My affiliates were:

WTAE - Channel 4 - Out of Pittsburgh, PA
WFMJ - Channel 21 - Out of Youngstown, OH (the closest to my physical location and my main station)
WUAB - Channel 43 - Out of Cleveland, OH

I was able to watch it there through the very end of 1980, when me moved to an area where I didn't see it. I used to say I "couldn't," but recent perusals of TV listings from the area show that it *was* on for at least a short time when we first moved there. I remember looking, but since we didn't have any listings or cable, I never did find it (It was on Sunday mornings). Regardless, it seemed that none of the kids I met there knew the series.

Then when we moved to my current locations in 1983/84, it had been off the air for a while. No one here knew it here either. All that was, except for one person around 1986. A student who had moved here from France saw one of the drawings I made of the Phoenix in my school notebook, and *he* knew the show. I had a couple animation cels (that I later learned were from Gatchaman II and Fighter), that I took to school to show him. And just to bring it back... he would have seen the show on their national network, TF1.

More than you ever probably wanted to know, but there you go. Next? :-)
Cure DragonEagle 255
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Re: YOUR Battle Of The Planets affiliate!

Post: # 828Post Cure DragonEagle 255 »

Nononono! I have a rule of thumb if it concerns anime, cartoons, syndication and kids tv I just eat wall after wall of text! I never want to know less I want to know more. I love this website. And you even caught a rule I wanted to add to the thread! If you live outside the USA you can also name any Broadcast Network that aired it. I know that seems weird but Broadcast Television is a fixation of mine.
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Bobkat
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Re: YOUR Battle Of The Planets affiliate!

Post: # 829Post Bobkat »

I lived in Harrison County, Indiana when Battle aired. It's rural and major farming going on. We got our TV out Louisville, KY.

WAVE (3) - NBC affiliate
WHAS (11) - CBS affiliate*
WLKY (32) - ABC affiliate*
WDRB (41) - Independent**

While I was stationed in Korea, WHAS and WLKY swapped affiliations! I still want to watch CBS on 11 when I go back (d'oh!). :lol:

WDRB became a Fox affiliate when that network stood up. This station was one of the coolest around. They aired four movies on Sundays (all day) for years. This is the station that aired Battle. :)
Cure DragonEagle 255
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Re: YOUR Battle Of The Planets affiliate!

Post: # 830Post Cure DragonEagle 255 »

Even WNEW became a Fox Station lol. Also I always wanted to learn more about fans of the show that lived in Rural areas. I know that is an odd thing to be interested in but 1- Always found fascinating how rural people watch scifi media 2- I am a very odd man.
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The Other Jason
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Re: YOUR Battle Of The Planets affiliate!

Post: # 831Post The Other Jason »

Hi Cure DragonEagle,
Cure DragonEagle 255 wrote: Wed Mar 22, 2023 8:12 pm Even WNEW became a Fox Station lol. Also I always wanted to learn more about fans of the show that lived in Rural areas. I know that is an odd thing to be interested in but 1- Always found fascinating how rural people watch scifi media 2- I am a very odd man.
Like Bobkat, I too was in a rural area when I got to see Battle. We were between all the towns I mentioned, not in any of them. We were almost equidistant between Pittsburgh and Cleveland, and Youngstown was the closest to us with its own TV market. I also forgot to mention, but if you're interested, WTAE was an ABC affiliate and both WFMJ and WUAB were independents.

Even though we were so rural (or maybe because - we were in a valley were reception was bad), we got early cable TV in our area. I can only remember watching Battle on cable TV. We had a giant, wired remote/cable box that had two push-button rows of channels (push one down to select, the previous selection would pop up) and a top/bottom switch to toggle between the rows. There were times when watching Battle, that I can remember quickly selecting the rows and punching buttons back and forth, so I could see a little on one channel when the other was at commercial.

Image
Oh yeah!
Cure DragonEagle 255
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Re: YOUR Battle Of The Planets affiliate!

Post: # 832Post Cure DragonEagle 255 »

Oh I most certainly am interested, like I do want to know specifically which network owned which station. I just want to know all there is to know! Also you did the right thing by merging both threads, there was nothing unique about the second one I did it because My internet failed me and accidentally made two of the same thread.
Katblu42
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Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: YOUR Battle Of The Planets affiliate!

Post: # 833Post Katblu42 »

I was so little when I watched the show that I don't have a clear memory of which channel it was on!

I did find some old TV guides online a while back and eventually found listings for Battle. I wrote details down . . . but now I can't find where I wrote it (because I tidied up!).

I think it aired here - Sydney, Australia - on Network 10. (TEN)
If you had asked me to rely on memory alone I might have assumed it was on Channel 7. (ATN)

This would have been around 1981, and we only had 4 or 5 TV channels.
(The others being Channel 9 (NBN/WIN), Channel 2 - our ABC, which is the Australian Broadcasting Commission - and a bit later on we got SBS - Special Broadcast Service, which was created specifically to air foreign content.)
Stardust
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Re: YOUR Battle Of The Planets affiliate!

Post: # 834Post Stardust »

Katblu42 wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 6:10 am I was so little when I watched the show that I don't have a clear memory of which channel it was on!

I did find some old TV guides online a while back and eventually found listings for Battle. I wrote details down . . . but now I can't find where I wrote it (because I tidied up!).
Don't feel lonely, I had to do the same.
I believe, for me, it was NYC and it was channel 11 WPIX and I think it also moved to channel 5, maybe WNEW. Came on after school about 3:30 or 4:30 not sure which. It had to be 78 to 79, because that's the dates on my old sketch books where I drew Zoltar and the Phoenix while watching it.
Cure DragonEagle 255
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Re: YOUR Battle Of The Planets affiliate!

Post: # 837Post Cure DragonEagle 255 »

Now that I've learned that our very own Other Jason And Bobkat are from rural areas, I want to ask them what they thought of the Lucy is a Robot twist. I think sci fi was really attractive to rural area people because it was so unlike anything they've ever seen and Battle was no exception. Like nowadays we may say Meh to that twist but it must have been so riveting to young minds that didnt see sci fi before!

BTW I mean the twist itself, not how much of an asshole Zark was lol.
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